Editing Shrapnel shell (section)

== British artillery adoption ==
[[File:Shrapnel&BoxerShellDesigns.jpg|thumb|right|Original Shrapnel design (left), and Boxer design of May 1852 which avoided premature explosions (right).]]
[[File:RML 16 pounder shrapnel shell Mk III diagram.jpg|thumb|right|1870s [[cast-iron]] [[British ordnance terms#RML|RML]] 16-pounder "Boxer" shrapnel shell showing limited space for bullets.]]
[[File:BL 5 inch shrapnel shells Mk III & Mk IV diagrams.jpg|thumb|right|[[Forging|Forged]] [[steel]] shrapnel shells for [[BL 5 inch gun Mk I - V|BL 5 inch gun]] with bursting charge in base (left), and in nose (right) for comparison, 1886.]]
It took until 1803 for the British artillery to adopt (albeit with great enthusiasm) the shrapnel shell (as "spherical case"). [[Henry Shrapnel]] was promoted to [[Major (rank)|major]] in the same year. The first recorded use of shrapnel by the British was in 1804 against the Dutch at [[Fort Nieuw-Amsterdam]] in [[Suriname]].<ref>Hogg p. 180.</ref> [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|The Duke of Wellington]]'s armies used it from 1808 in the [[Peninsular War]] and at the [[Battle of Waterloo]], and he wrote admiringly of its effectiveness.

The design was improved by Captain [[Edward Mounier Boxer|E. M. Boxer]] of the [[Royal Arsenal]] around 1852 and crossed over when cylindrical shells for rifled guns were introduced. Lieutenant-Colonel Boxer adapted his design in 1864<ref>Marshall, 1920.</ref> to produce shrapnel shells for the new [[muzzle-loading rifle|rifled muzzle-loader]] ([[British ordnance terms#RML|RML]]) guns: the walls were of thick [[cast iron]], but the gunpowder charge was now in the shell base with a tube running through the centre of the shell to convey the ignition flash from the [[Artillery fuse#Time fuses|time fuse]] in the nose to the gunpowder charge in the base. The powder charge both shattered the cast iron shell wall and liberated the bullets.<ref name=TOA1887page216/> The broken shell wall continued mainly forward but had little destructive effect. The system had major limitations: the thickness of the iron shell walls limited the available carrying capacity for bullets but provided little destructive capability, and the tube through the centre similarly reduced available space for bullets.<ref name=ToA1887>"[[Treatise on Ammunition]]", 4th Edition 1887, pp. 203–205.</ref>

In the 1870s, [[William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong|William Armstrong]] provided a design with the bursting charge in the head and the shell wall made of steel and hence much thinner than previous cast-iron shrapnel shell walls. While the thinner shell wall and absence of a central tube allowed the shell to carry far more bullets, it had the disadvantage that the bursting charge separated the bullets from the shell casing by firing the case forward and at the same time slowing the bullets down as they were ejected through the base of the shell casing, rather than increasing their velocity. Britain adopted this solution for several smaller calibres (below 6-inch)<ref name=ToA1887/> but by [[World War I]] few if any such shells remained.

The final shrapnel shell design, adopted in the 1880s, bore little similarity to Henry Shrapnel's original design other than its spherical bullets and time fuse. It used a much thinner forged steel shell case with a timer fuse in the nose and a tube running through the centre to convey the ignition flash to a gunpowder bursting charge in the shell base. The use of steel allowed a thinner shell wall, allowing space for many more bullets. It also withstood the force of the powder charge without shattering so that the bullets were fired forward out of the shell case with increased velocity, much like a shotgun. The design came to be adopted by all countries and was in standard use when [[World War I]] began in 1914. During the 1880s, when both the old cast-iron and modern forged-steel shrapnel shell designs were in British service, British ordnance manuals referred to the older cast-iron design as "Boxer shrapnel", apparently to differentiate it from the modern steel design.<ref name=TOA1887page216>"The action of Boxer-shrapnel is well known. The fuse fires the primer, which conveys the flash down the pipe to the bursting charge, the explosion of which breaks up the shell, and liberates the balls". [[Treatise on Ammunition]] 1887, p. 216.</ref>

The modern thin-walled forged-steel design made feasible shrapnel shells for howitzers, which had a much lower velocity than field guns, by using a larger gunpowder charge to accelerate the bullets forward on bursting.<ref name="ReferenceA">[[Treatise on Ammunition]] 1887, p. 205.</ref> The ideal shrapnel design would have had a timer fuse in the shell base to avoid the need for a central tube, but that was not technically feasible because of the need for manually adjust the fuse before firing and was in any case rejected from an early date by the British because of risk of premature ignition and irregular action.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>