Gunpowder and Ammunition, Their Origin and Progress

by H. W. L. Hime

In 1860 there were no less than six tubes in the service:—(1) the Common Quill Tube; (2) the Dutch Paper Tube; (3) the Common Metal Tube; (4) the Percussion Tube; (5) the Friction Tube; and (6) the Galvanic Tube.[599]

Time Fuzes.

Nothing can be less satisfactory than Hassan er-Rammah’s allusions to igniters, of which he possessed two—the rose and the ikreekh (اكريج). The latter word strictly means a duct, channel, or tube; but just as we frequently use fuze for fuze composition, so the Arabs often use ikreekh for the composition it contained. Hassan, for instance, speaks of “the sulphur with which one makes ikreekhs.”[600] It is quite clear, however, from Reinaud and Favé’s Plate II., fig. 24, that the ikreekh was of the nature of a fuze-case. Whether the composition given here in column 1 of Table XIII. was used in the ikreekh or the rose, I do not know. In fact our knowledge of these two igniters may be summed up in the statement that they were used together in the same (incendiary) shell, and that it was the rose which was lighted.[601] The ikreekh possibly contained the fuze composition proper, and the rose corresponded to our priming matter.

Judging from the plates of Kyeser’s Bellifortis reproduced by Herr von Romocki (i. 169), the igneous projectiles of 1405 were ignited by some slow-burning composition, which was put on the top of the charge, and filled up the loading hole flush with the exterior of the missile. The breech-loading quill fuze of the second Berlin Firebook, mentioned in the section on “Explosive Shell,” seems to have been only the abortive proposal of an inventor.

The foregoing Arab and German igniters were for use in machine and hand projectiles, and we now reach cannon fuzes.

The first igneous gun-missiles were incendiary, at once hand-grenades and cannon-balls, and were ignited by means of some slow-burning mixture, without a case, which was put into the shell on the top of its charge. When the missile is “neere full (of good come pouder),” says Bourne, “take some receite of soft fire worke that will not burne too hastily and fill up the rest of the ball.”[602] That the fuze-hole was originally placed next the cartridge is shown by Boillot’s repeated directions to turn it towards the muzzle[603]—directions which would have been superfluous had it not been previously customary to place it next the cartridge; and by many other indications. By this mode of loading the ignition of the fuze composition was ensured before the projectile left the piece. There was perhaps no absolute necessity for the use of this soft, slow-burning mixture, with incendiary shell so placed; but it was probably found very useful in confining the charge within the missile during flight.

The need of an explosive projectile to blow up earthworks, &c., was more and more felt as time rolled on, and the use of such missiles was clearly impossible with such igniters so placed. But the best way of mending matters was by no means so clear. If an explosive shell was placed in the bore with an igniter of soft, caseless composition next the cartridge, there was in the great majority of rounds a burst in the bore. If the shell was reversed, with the igniter towards the face of the piece, either the composition did not ignite and the shell was blind, or the soft composition set back into the shell from the shock of the explosion[604] and again there was a burst in the bore. Furthermore, in firing against works it was before all things necessary that the shell should enter the revetment, &c., before it exploded, and it was extremely difficult in practice to put into the shell the exact amount of composition that would burn just longer than the time of flight. To prevent the gases of the explosion from forcing their way into the interior of the shell, it was necessary to have the fuze-hole towards the muzzle when the shell was home. To prevent the soft composition from setting back, and to ensure that it was sufficient in quantity to burn longer than the time of flight, a fuze-case was necessary. To ensure the ignition of the fuze (in its new position) it was necessary to light it from the muzzle just before the piece was fired, and this condition restricted the use of explosive shell for centuries to mortars and (afterwards) howitzers. No one would have dared to thrust a lit match down the bore of a gun which had been loaded with loose powder by means of a ladle, and cartridges were not in general use when the question of explosive shell arose. Bourne says in 1587: “It is a great deal better for to charge a peace in time of service with a cartredge than with a ladell,”[605] and he presently proceeds to give his reasons for thinking so at great length.[606] In the beginning of the following century, Diego Ufano only allows the use of cartridges when a ladle is not at hand.

Such were the steps of the evolution of the fuze, as partially explained by Hanzelet and Thybovrel in their Receuil de plusieurs Machines Militaires, published in 1620: “Le souspirail de l’amorce (the funnel of the priming = the fuze-case) est long ... et creux.... Ainsi ce canal éstant emply de composition lente, il ne permet que le feu se prenne qu’il nait (n’ait) lentement consumé la matière mise audit canal, et par ce moyen le feu ne peut toucher la poudre grainée (the bursting charge) qu’il ne soit arrivé jusques au fond de la ditte grenade. Cela sert pour avoir loisir de la jetter à la main, ou de l’allumer et la mettre dans le mortier ou canon” (l. iv. c. 6).

One of the first indications of a fuze with a case is afforded by a passage in Stow’s “Annals” for the year 1543, where he speaks of “hollow shot of cast-yron, to be stuffed with fireworks or wild fire; whereof the bigger sort had screwes of yron to receive a match” (p. 584). Stow was evidently describing something which he did not understand, but his meaning is made clear by Boillot. The fuze-case was a hollow, cylindrical male screw which fitted a female screw in the fuze-hole, and when fixed extended across the cavity of the shell: “En laquelle (the shell) laisserez un trou ... auquelle ferés faire une viz pour le bien boucher, laquelle sera de la longeur de la grenade” (p. 163). Further on he speaks of the case as “un tuyau de fer blanc ou cuivre ... bien adjousté au dit trou,” and directs it to be filled “bien massif de pouldre sans graine.” It was lighted from the muzzle of the mortar by a quick-match or hand-fuze,[607] as Nye directs half a century afterwards—light the fuze first, “and then with great speed give fire to the touch-hole” (chap. v.).