Definition and Explanation Needed

[callicles]

Could the experts here give me a better understanding of the difference between a driving band and a sabot on a Civil War artillery projectile ?  I think I may be confusing the two, or calling most of the items taking the barrel’s rifling as sabot. For example, the common lead band around a Hotchkiss: is that a sabot  or a driving band or do the two words mean the same thing?

Thanks!

[speedenforcer]

I thought they were the same but sabot being the official and more used terminology, but I AM NOT an expert.

[pipedreamer65]

I would think they are two somewhat different things, but both perform the same desired task. Let's see what the experts say.

[CarlS]

Off the top of my head I think that they are the same thing and that "sabot" is the French artillery term for the driving band although 'band' would not accurately fit a number of styles of sabot.  It kind of depends on what someone first heard reflecting what they tend to use.  I'll have to look in some artillery reference books to see what they say.

[speedenforcer]

I like sabot. 

[scottfromgeorgia]

I will nerd out for a minute:

A sabot is a clog from France or surrounding countries such as Belgium or Italy . Sabots are whole feet clogs.

Sabots were in the 16th to 19th centuries, associated with the lower classes. During this period, the years of the Industrial Revolution, the word sabotage gained currency. Allegedly derived from sabot, sabotage described the actions of disgruntled workers who willfully damaged workplace machinery by throwing their sabots into the works.

[CarlS]

Ok, found a bit of time to look into this.  Well it does seem my understanding of a sabot and thus driving band were off the mark (i.e. I was wrong).   I found this info on my favorite site, Wikipedia.  The appropriate links are:
     Sabot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot
     Driving Band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_band
These links state:
A sabot is:

• A structural device used in firearm or cannon ammunition to keep a sub-caliber flight projectile, such as a relatively small bullet or arrow-type projectile, in the center of the barrel when fired, if the bullet has a significantly smaller diameter than the bore diameter of the weapon used.

and a driving band is:

• The driving band or rotating band is part of an artillery shell, a band of soft metal near the bottom of the shell, typically made of gilding metal, copper or lead. When the shell is fired the pressure of the propellant swages the metal into the rifling of the barrel, providing a seal preventing the gases from blowing past the shell and engaging with the rifling to spin-stabilize the shell.

So the wood cup on a cannon ball is a sabot but the brass ring on a Parrott shell is a driving band.  Sound right?

[callicles]

Thanks. That is essentially what I read in another forum’s post exchange. The item under discussion was a picture of what I would normally call a Hotchkis sabot. In that discussion a person said sabots were wood or paper mache, that the lead item pictured was a Hotchkiss driving band.

Well, I guess I’ve learned something. Again, thanks!

[Pete George]

The difference between the two terms (sabot and driving-band) is related to their use during different time periods in artillery history.

  As Scottfromgeorgia mentioned, the word "sabot" is French for a wooden shoe. It was one of many French words which during the Colonial era got adopted by the military services of European nations as names for parts of weapons and parts of fortifications. (For example, chevaux de frise.)

  in the Smoothbore-cannons-only era of artillery (Colonial era through early-1800s), sabot meant the strapped-on wooden cup which held a cannonball to keep its fuzehole facing "outward" away from the propellant powder charge, and somewhat later, to allow a propellant powder-bag to be attached to the projectile.

  When cannons with a Rifled bore (firing a cylindrical projectile) came onto the scene, in the mid-1800s, the familiar term sabot was applied to the metal cup, disc, ring, or band which surrounded a cylindrical projectile's base (or body). That use of the artillery term "sabot" continued to the late-1800s, when the band form of sabot had proven to be superior to all the other forms of sabot. Because of that, the term "sabot" was (mostly) replaced by the more-descriptive term "driving-band."

  Put very simply, driving-band is the 20th Century term for what we civil war artillery buffs would call a sabot.

  For anybody here who doesn't already know... the photo below shows the (fired, and therefore having rifling-marks) copperbrass driving-band on a World War One US 3.8" Shrapnel shell (which we civil war buffs would call a Case-Shot shell, because it contains dozens of antipersonnel balls).

  In recent decades, the old projectile term of "sabot" was revived, with its definition being closer to its original Colonial era meaning. Now, sabot means a non-metallic cup or sleeve which holds the projectile prior to and during firing, and (intentionally) drops off immediately after the projectile gets fired. In both small-arms and artillery, that type of ammunition is called a "sabot round."  It is the state-of-the-art tank killing projectile, which the Americans used with devastating effect in the US-versus-Iraq wars.

Regards,
Pete

[CarlS]

Here is another input that a forumite sent me regarding the understanding of sabot and driving band that makes sense and largely agrees with what has been said already:

I believe sabots are used on ML cannon  (under bore size which facilitates loading & taking the rifling upon firing) & driving bands are used on breach loaders; forcibly taking the rifling upon firing BUT as they were never under bore sized. I was in a 175mm SP battery in the 60’s & I never heard of a sabot until I started collecting CW artillery projectiles; they were always referred as Driving Bands.

[redbob]

I agree with the above gentleman that in Marine Corps artillery in the 1970's they were referred to as driving bands and I don't believe that sabot returned to the military vocabulary until the sabot discarding round came about for the M1 tank.

[pipedreamer65]

Ok next mystery:  Sa-Bot   or Suh-beau?  LMAO, I go for the French pronunciation. 

[Jack Bell]

Pipedreamer65's comment sounds like an "Alligood-ism" to me.

[pipedreamer65]

I think we broke the forum Jack.

[CarlS]

I like “sa bot” as I don’t like speaking with a French accent.