JACKETED SHRAPNEL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3072, 7 May 1917, Page 4

JACKETED SHRAPNEL

Plain ordinary shrapnel is merely a; lot of round, half-inch lead balls loaded into a shell just as shot is loaded into a shot-gun barrel. "When the propelling charge in the shell is ignited by the time-fuse, the little round lead bullets are kicked out with the velocity of 200 feet a second, about the speed of ,a well-thrown bascbaU This, howeve:. is in addition to the speed the' shell itself had, and the total speed of the bullets is ample to o\ive them iuto hitman body. lJaspite the loud noise of the high explosive shell, and tho fuss made about tH?m >md the.r.big guns, the most vital proiectilo on the fighting fronts is the shrapnel, the sudden muffled baDg overhead, and the fatal shower of 250 . round bullets that sprays the gtound for yards and yards around. The weakness cf the slirapnel faot that it is easily stopped, Devng only lead and travelling at no great speed. The French and British helmets stop it; the new French cuirass for the body stops it;and light protection on the'trench or the motor-far halts tho soft lead bullets. ' . Now (the "Scientific American announces) comes a Canadian with an improvement on the old lorm of shrapnel, a. jacket of tough metal like that on the armv bullets, either steel or' ■copper-nickel,-hard and tough, and crimped around the lead ball after it is formed. This is a horse of another colour. The jacketed leaden sphere no longer flattens out at'the least provocation, its tough jacket holds it in shape, and enabes it to penetrate much more into protective substances. Probably the general adoption of armoured or 'jacketed shrapnel bullet/; would cut down the usefulness of the now common shrapnel helmets—and so is written another step in tne interesting race between armour and projectile that has been transferred from the battleship to land fighting. With tie Germans using supplementary armour on their helmets ior trench fighting, and using trench masks that cover the whole head and stop even rifle bullets, with the' French using a cuirass that is being sold commercially in England as well, the jacketed sfcTapnel bullet and the new American armourpiercer bullet that gets through an inch of steel merely put armour back a lap.in the race. '