Diego Ufano describes experiments carried on during the latter years of the sixteenth, or the early years of the seventeenth century, with cased fuzes of a new patterns[608] proposed by the (then) Governor of Genappe. The fuze, which was filled with moist powder or one of several mixtures given by Ufano, was placed next the cartridge.[609] The first shell fired burst at the muzzle, the second burst short. Two rounds were then fired from an English 60-pr. (carthaunen), both of which burst in the air and damaged houses and walls in their neighbourhood. A third shell lodged in the ground at a distance of 250 yards,[610] and on bursting sent its fragments back towards the gun, damaging a guard-room[611] which stood 150 yards in rear of it. The experiments then ceased, on the urgent representations of an Artillery officer about the risk they were all running. The earlier fuzes implicitly referred to by Ufano were doubtless the “buses” which, Father Strada tells us, were employed at Wachtendonck in 1588. Their name, buses = tubes or pipes, is sufficient proof that they were fuzes with cases. In his “Gunner,” 1628, p. 156, Norton speaks of a “pype primed with slow receipt” for exploding shell. We find the very same word applied to fuzes in Danish official documents in 1644: “piber til Granater,” pipes for shell.[612] Writing three years afterwards, Nye, Master-Gunner of Worcester, speaks familiarly of fuzes which were conical in shape, for he compares them to “faucets for a spigot.”[613] He says: “The match doth ofttimes fail, but fuzes are very certain to give fire.”

There were no means of regulating the time of burning of these pipes, which were generally metallic. The composition had a constant (and unalterable) length, corresponding roughly to that required for the maximum range at which shell could be fired. Whatever the range, the oblong bombs were fired with a fuze that burned some fourteen seconds, answering to about 1000 yards range; the spherical grenados with a fuze that burned some twenty seconds, answering to about 2100 yards range.[614] In firing against works, &c., it was essential that mortar shell—and until the siege of Gibraltar, 1779, all shell were mortar or howitzer shell[615]—should not burst before impact. A shell which burst in flight was a shell wasted, but it mattered little whether it burst on impact or a few seconds afterwards.[616] But it was occasionally necessary to use shell against troops, and it was then that the radical defect of the tube became fully manifest. In this case it was desirable that the fuze should fire the bursting charge the instant the shell touched the ground,[617] and this was impracticable with the primitive pipe. While the long fuze was burning down to its end, the explosion might be prevented, or its effects might be neutralised in many ways. The shell might be thrown bodily into a pond or the sea;[618] the fuze might be extracted;[619] or it might be extinguished with water.[620] But in the vast majority of cases the explosion of the shell was neutralised in a much homelier and less heroic way; those near whom it fell waited for no command to quit its neighbourhood in all haste.

It was long before any real progress was made in the adjustment of fuzes to burn a certain time, chiefly because the early gunners had no timekeeper. A striking illustration of this fact is found in the Artis Magnæ Artilleriæ, &c., of Siemienowicz, published in 1650. Wishing to give his readers an idea of the action of a certain fireball, he explains that it burned in the time one takes to recite deliberately the Apostles’ Creed.[621]

The first, so far as is known, who urged the adjustment of fuzes was Sebastian Hälle,[622] in 1596, and he fared as fare most of those who see further than their fellows. The many failed to see the object which he saw clearly; therefore (they said) the object did not exist, and he was a dreamer. A century after his death, however, gunners began to discover that his dreams were substantial enough; and in 1682 Zeug-Lieut. Buchner dilates upon the advantages of a fuze that will burn ein gewiss Tempo[623]—a certain time. The mere fact that there were at least three different kinds of fuze in use towards the close of the seventeenth century—paper, wood, and iron[624]—proves that the search for a serviceable fuze was going actively forward. The excellent plates given by Buchner and Mieth show clearly that their fuzes were bored. In both cases the rate of burning was tested with difficulty, owing to the want of a practical timekeeper. Buchner recommends the use of a pendulum, or very careful beating time (or counting);[625] Mieth alludes to the pendulum, but evidently put little trust in it, for he adds, “The correct time can be only found by trial shell.”[626]

By the middle of the eighteenth century we had beechwood fuzes, which were cut. The rate of burning was determined “by burning two or three, and making use of a watch or string by way of pendulum.”[627] It was observed about this period that when fuzes were cut very short, either the flame failed to reach the bursting charge and the shell went blind, or the thin disc of fuze composition set back into the shell from the shock of the discharge and the shell burst in the bore. To obviate this Muller proposed to provide special fuzes, with a quicker-burning composition than usual, for use at short ranges.[628] This plan was temporarily adopted, for we find that there were three different fuzes in our service in 1779, one that burned an inch in 5 seconds, a second that burned an inch in 4.5 seconds, and a third that burned an inch in 4 seconds. It is evident, however, from a remark made by the Inspector of the Royal Military Academy, Captain George Smith, R.A., in his “Universal Military Dictionary” (from which these details have been taken) that the standard of shell fire in the year 1779 was a low one. “When the distance of the battery from the object is known, the time of the shell’s flight may be computed to a second or two.” Extreme regularity of burning, then, was not expected: an error of “a second or two” in the time of flight was of trivial importance. But an event happened in Gibraltar in this very year which suddenly raised the standard to a height that no one could have foreseen—the adoption of Captain Mercier’s method of shell-fire from guns, with short fuzes. This system ended with the siege; it was never resorted to, probably, outside the gates of Gibraltar; and, more probably still, when the siege was over things fell gradually back into the unruffled quiet of routine. But the calm was only momentary, for in 1803 appeared Shrapnel shell, and with them reappeared Captain Mercier’s forgotten system of “calculated fuzes.”

From the first moment it was beyond all doubt that the ultimate success of Shrapnel could be only assured by the use of what no Artillery then possessed—a thoroughly good time-fuze. Writing to Major (afterwards General Sir Thomas) Downman, R.A., on the 29th Feb. 1804, Shrapnel remarks that in firing at short ranges the fuze composition “gives way into the shell once in ten times,”[629] thus producing a burst in the bore; and as a remedy he suggests cutting all fuzes 1¼″ long and then sawing a cut through the bottom of the fuze, in a plane passing through its longer axis, up to the desired length. However, notwithstanding all precautions, of the 1090 shell fired during the Woolwich experiments with Shrapnel in 1819, 74 burst in the bore, 71 burst in the butt, and 111 were blind, i.e. 23.4 per cent. were failures.[630] No efforts were spared to improve these fuzes or replace them by better ones, and a large number were proposed, or constructed, during the second quarter of the last century. In 1850 there were no less than nineteen time-fuzes in our service: three of metal and sixteen of wood. Of the latter, ten were Shrapnel fuzes, viz. an 8″, a 5½″and a 1″ fuze, which were uncut; and seven fuzes which were cut ready for use, and lettered A for .1″, B for .2″,—G for .7″.[631] This medley of fuzes was gradually superseded by a wooden time-fuze proposed in 1849 by an officer who had a genius for ammunition, Captain (afterwards General) E. M. Boxer, R.A., and adopted in 1850. In the final pattern of this fuze, adopted early in 1854, England possessed probably the best fuze in Europe.

TABLE XIII.

Time-Fuze Composition.

Arab.[632]
Late
13th
Century.		German.[633]
Late
16th
Century.		English.[634]
Early
16th
Century.		Swedish.[635]
Late
17th
Century.		English.[636]
Middle
18th
Century.		German.[637]
Early
19th
Century.		English.[638]
20th
Century.
Saltpetre71.4352.169.869.8575.072.176.4
Charcoal21.4325.612.78.56.2510.714.1
Sulphur7.1422.317.521.6518.7517.29.5