How much of a game changer are explosive shells?

Say you have a naval war circa the early 19th century

Both sides have wooden ships, but one side has explosive shells

How much of an advantage does this give them effectively?

Enough to say allow a frigate to reliably beat a ship of the line?

Edit: Assume flat trajectory shell guns with timed or impact fuses
 
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Say you have a naval war circa the early 19th century

Both sides have wooden ships, but one side has explosive shells

How much of an advantage does this give them effectively?

Enough to say allow a frigate to reliably beat a ship of the line?

I think the phrase i read was "like dueling with shotguns at ten paces". If one side used them, it would be devasting. But how do you keep your opponent from using them. At which point its mutual suicide.
 
I think the phrase i read was "like dueling with shotguns at ten paces". If one side used them, it would be devasting. But how do you keep your opponent from using them. At which point its mutual suicide.
Say one side developed them first, and the other side has not yet replicated them

Truth be told this is for the ASB TL in my sig, but I figure that this forum is the best for getting educated responses
 
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I think the phrase i read was "like dueling with shotguns at ten paces". If one side used them, it would be devasting. But how do you keep your opponent from using them. At which point its mutual suicide.

Isn't that good if you're otherwise qualitatively inferior?
 
How much of an advantage does this give them effectively?

Enough to say allow a frigate to reliably beat a ship of the line?

The side with the explosive shell has the advantage in that while cannon balls batter, explosive shells shatter. While the typical wooden ship of the line can take alot of blows, the splinters and shards cast about by the exploding shell will be devastating.

Given the size of the cannons and the amount it may be possible for a frigate to defeat a ship of the line. One would have to consider that the weight of broadside favours the ship of the line, so perhaps it would be a difference between quantity and quality of shot. I would consider that the frigate would have to get its blows in first before they could be demasted by the ship of the line.
 
Reliable explosive shells if introduced gradually, as part of a peacetime propject or otherwise being developed step by step and deployed cautiously, will change the face of naval warfare, but do so universally. Wooden warships will spend a lot more time on gunnery and firefighting drills and focus on ranged shots. Sooner rather than later, someone will figure out armour.

Introduced fully functional by one side, they will create a massive imbalance. Assuming you know what you are doing, an unrated vessel carrying one bomb cannon could batter a ship of the line into submission. The losses will be horrendous. Two fleets armed with these are liable to leave the winner with the last hull afloat.

Your main problem is not splinters or spalling (though they are nasty), it's fire. Once a ship has caught fire, it is effectively out of action and can usually be considered sunk for all practical purposes. Exploding shell will ignite ships fairly reliably.
 
But explosive shells did exist in the early 19th century, although their airburst fuses could not be timed very accurately. Impact fuses didn't exist.

Later explosive shells from the rifled/fused era came in multiple varieties. "HE" was for shore bombardment. "AP" shells had an explosive core inside a penetrator, with a precise fuse timed for detonation at the crucial depth appropriate for a given target.

Ships of the line of the early 1800s were very sturdily constructed, with iron cladding on thick oak backing. Black powder isn't a very powerful explosive, so the equivalent of a WWI era "AP" explosive cored shell just didn't exist. Thin-walled shrapnel shells did, but wouldn't do much damage to a ship of the line even if the fusing problem could be fixed.
 
Iron cladding is not 'early 1800's', the first ironclad battleship (not counting some small monitors & floating batteries) was La Gloire, launched in 1859.
 
Iron cladding is not 'early 1800's', the first ironclad battleship (not counting some small monitors & floating batteries) was La Gloire, launched in 1859.

Hmmm... I meant interior cladding at the rear of the oak timbers to control splinters, but it appears I was mistaken. Iron was used extensively as a structural component of late-age sail vessels (see e.g. here) and any structural component did form part of the ship's protection. OTOH, the anti-splinter plates seem to be a figment of my imagination.
 
Hmmm... I meant interior cladding at the rear of the oak timbers to control splinters, but it appears I was mistaken. Iron was used extensively as a structural component of late-age sail vessels (see e.g. here) and any structural component did form part of the ship's protection. OTOH, the anti-splinter plates seem to be a figment of my imagination.
I think the plates may be a figment of your imagination

Your article seems to suggest use of Iron to hold the ship together as fasteners for beams, not any plates or such, so they would not provide much protection from attack

The battle at Sinop in 1853 seems to suggest it was not an effective defense

I think the first explosive shell naval gun was developed in 1822, land based guns were different
 
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Thande

Donor
But explosive shells did exist in the early 19th century, although their airburst fuses could not be timed very accurately. Impact fuses didn't exist.

Indeed. There's also the point that due to the plunging nature of shell fire it was a lot harder to hit a ship (from the moving deck of another ship) than just to rake it with solid cannon shot, think about the arc involved. So, together with your point about fuses, usually it wasn't worth it. Shore-based forts had a better chance because they didn't have the problem of a moving deck, but they also had the option of heating up solid shot (hot shot) which could be just as effective and easier to hit with.

However shells were sometimes used; I recall a bit in "Hornblower" based on a true story where he impresses the men when a shell lands in front of him on the deck and he calmly reaches over and pinches out the fuse before it can go off.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
I think the plates may be a figment of your imagination

Your article seems to suggest use of Iron to hold the ship together as fasteners for beams, not any plates or such, so they would not provide much protection from attack

The battle at Sinop in 1853 seems to suggest it was not an effective defense

I think the first explosive shell naval gun was developed in 1822, land based guns were different

I remember a book from Annapolis pointing out the shell actually decreased the firepower of the Russian force at Sinope. When I looked up it turns out most of the Turkish captains fired their own ships to prevent capture.

Lambert argues that the Martin shell was the real game changer....
 
Editing OP

Want to consider a flat trajectory gun firing timed fused rounds or preferably impact rounds

I remember a book from Annapolis pointing out the shell actually decreased the firepower of the Russian force at Sinope. When I looked up it turns out most of the Turkish captains fired their own ships to prevent capture.

Lambert argues that the Martin shell was the real game changer....
Can you give me a link to either of those please?
 
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Hoist40

Banned
There was a big problem with early shipboard shells, that had to do with the fuses.

If they used timed fuses they were not very accurate and range finders did not exist so the shell often either exploded early or more likely went through the target ship and exploded after it left the ship so it was no more effective then a shot.

Or if they used contact fuses they exploded on contact and most of the explosive force was outside the target hull and was wasted. This problem kept on occurring up to WW1 when better delayed fuses were developed.

The Dahlgren guns for example were developed by the USN to fire a large diameter medium velocity shell which would hopefully have enough velocity to penetrate the enemy hull but not pass through the other side so that when the fuse set it off it would cause maximum damage. The USN had orders when firing shells at short range at wooden ships to reduce the powder charge to reduce the velocity so that the shell would not pass through the enemy ship but explode inside
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Can you give me a link to either of those please?

The Lambert book is sadly OOP, but is an absolute must in this area: http://www.amazon.com/Battleships-Transition-Creation-Battlefleet-1815-1860/dp/0870210904

An old (uncomplete and unpublished) blog post of mine gives the other:

The title is from Wayne Hughes' Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat (Annapolis, 1986). On page 62 he points out, using a Lanchester model, the the result at Sinope was not influenced by the shell guns, since it was preordained by the huge preponderance of combat power the Russians engaged with. A historical case of too wide conclusions from too small a dataset...

In fact, the much larger Russian squadron sailed upto the Ottoman squadron, cutting them off from the open sea, dropped anchor and started firing. Checking the known armaments as best as possible it appears that only a small number of the 710 Russian guns were Paixhans guns to which the destruction of the Turkish-Egyptian squadron is usually attributed. Only the three three deckers carried them, and at most 14 each (ref). 38 the Russian guns were shell guns (ref), thus even if many times more effective than the normal guns their contribution was minor.

The Russians started firing at around 10am (some sources say 9.30am), and switched their fire from the Ottoman warships to the town at 2pm (ref), so the Ottomans were under fire for around 4 hours. Due to surprise, the Ottomans hadn't cleared for action, literally clearing the decks of all flammables, lose rope &c. that could start fires. The Russians using conventional hot-shot set many of the enemy vessel alight. The vessel that exploded (Navek-i-Bahrideliberately blew their magazine to prevent capture, rather than this being due to the shells of the Russians (ref). Most of the Ottoman vessels beached themselves, and the crews then set their own vessels on fire to avoid their capture.

The fate of the Ottoman squadron was:

Nizamieh (62) - Beached
Nessin Zafer (60) - Beached
Navek Bahri (58) - Captain blew the powder store to prevent capture
Damiat (56) - Beached
Kaid Zafer (54) - Beached
Avni Illah (44) - Beached
Fazl Illah (44) - Set afire and beached
Nejm Fishan (24) - ?
Feyz Mabud (24) - Beached
Kel Safid (22)- Exploded
Taif (12, steamer) - Escaped
Erkelye (10, steamer) -
 
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