Hi-

I've been wondering for awhile if there are any "modern" or contemporary studies documenting and quantifying the relative anti-personnel effectiveness of various ACW field arty rounds. There are some great anecdotal comments of course, and various explanations that make sense, but what sort of quantification was done that has survived?

For example, the canister pattern of a 3" rifle was irregular and deemed rather ineffective compared to a 12 pdr smoothbore. Are there some examples of comparitive tests with cut outs at say 200 and 300 yard ranges? (You know somebody did these sort of things...but did they leave a written record?) How about double canister versus single at 100 and 200 yards?

Similarly, I'm interested in the "ideally" ranged performance of shell, case, and canister. (Taking the results once maximum effect is dialed in.) This gets far more complex when one considers the variety of rounds of each type: Dyer, Schenkl, Hotchkiss, Parrott, Read-Parrott, Archer, Brook, Broun, etc. in rifles shell and/or case. (James being less likely in 3", but would be interesting in its larger standard bores.) Smoothbores are a bit less complex primarily being shell, case, and polygonal cavity shell.

I'll admit to some fondness for the engineered look of the Schenkl case and the smoothbore polygonal cavity shells in their respective applications, while I dislike the apparently low projectile count of the Hotchkiss case and some Parrott ammo types. Of course the burst patterns might compensate or accentuate the differences...and the shell/casing fragments considerably enlarge the total projectile count.

What I'm looking for is would an on target canister round take down ~10 men (hypothetically) frontally two deep at 200 yards vs. a well placed case or shell taking down 6 or 4 frontally at 800 yards or some appropriate range. Obviously, this type of test is a best case for case and shell which would have their effectiveness reduced by many sources of error or component failure in real life.