12 pound Bormann

[natdigger]

is there any evidence that the confederates used wood fuse plugs in their Bormann balls late in the war? I have seen the ones where they drilled thru the Bormann fuze. But i saw one the other day that  appears to have had a wood fuse in it, pieces of the wood fuse remain in it. And no sign of any Bormann fuse.
Thanks

[CarlS]

I can't say I have personally seen that example you ask about but I know without doubt the US used wood fuses in the threaded fuse holes of the 2.9-inch and 3-5-inch Britten shells.  They seemed to have used metal fuses when they wanted percussion and drove in wood fuses when they wanted time fuses on those both at West Helena, AR for the 2.9-inch and Spanish Fort for the 3.5-inch.

[emike123]

On the Spanish Fort recovered Britten case shot shells, per the US Official Records Battery F, 1st Missouri Light Artillery fired 1,102 rounds, mostly at Confederate Fort McDermott, with a few sailing over the hill towards Battery Old Spanish Fort.  These are the same guns that fired the 3.5” Hotchkiss shells.  A lot of people think only the Confederacy used these shells, but that is not the, nmo pun intended, "case."

I know there were wood fuse adapters in over half the Spanish Fort recovered ones and all or nearly all the Helena ones.  Not only was the British percussion fuse unreliable and expensive looking, but these shells had segmented interiors.  To take advantage of the case shot effect, they should be shot to explode in the air where the segments can fan out all over, not on impact where they would not achieve good dispersion.