Someone complained that there were no explosive shells but only solid iron shot in those days. (Remember the air bursts of explosive shells as the Gordon Highlanders march into battle?) Well thats just not true. There were various kinds, the ones set to explode in the air and the time delayed ones meant to explode on the ground. Remember the line in the "Star Spangled Banner" about "those bombs bursting in mid air?"
shareArtillary shells could be fused to airburst since they were first used (around about the 16th century). The gunners simply had to set the fuse so that it would burn down before the shell hit the ground, and the British army had started using Henry Shrapnel's sphericle case shot during the peninsular war, and that was always set to airburst.
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I've got nothing against god, it's his fanclub that I can't stand
But they were only 1/6 to 1/4 of the guns. So it's a shame there weren't a few cannonballs knocking people over.
sharegartlym, wrote:
it's a shame there weren't a few cannonballs knocking people over.
Canister shot (aka case shot) was used at the time against infantry/cav in close range and was very readily available at the time. Who ever said there were no explosive shells in 1815 doesn't know what they're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case-shot
Canister and explosive shells weren't the same thing. Canister is like a shotgun cartridge. Howitzers used common shell.
share[deleted]
Also this was somewhat before the time that graphic violence could be accepted in film - certainly Bondarchuk wasn't the person to do it. Waterloo directed by Pekinpah however...
Tom516
I think the person who started this thread may be referring to my comments on the movie
From what I`ve read in books and seen in documentaries much of the French cannon fire in this battle was nullified because of heavy rainfall . The British choose their ground that was boggy and when the French fired in their direction the cannonballs would stick in the ground instead bouncing off the ground into the British ranks
Just because airburst/explosive cannonballs existed at the time itdoes not mean they`d be the main type of cannonball in this battle . I`ve found no evidence that it was the main type of ordanance of French cannon
One thing I`m sure we can all agree on is that the massive fireballs caused by cannon fire in this movie is totally ridiculous . The explosions look like something from APOCALYPSE NOW
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Were there supposed to have been Rockets at Waterloo? I thought that Wellington famously refused to have them on the field, but then gave in after one of his inferiors was upset by his comments that he refused to have such 'wretched and useless' weapons on the field.
share[deleted]
Peckinpah directing Waterloo? That would have been something.
Slow-motion deaths, possibly accompanied by all sorts of unhistoric automatic weapons fire as the old Brown Bess would have been too slow-firing for Sam.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."