James Shell Design

[CarlS]

Pondering the James shell design while cleaning a couple recently, I had a few questions pop into my head.  This happens a lot when it is not baseball season and I can't listen to a game on the radio. 

As most know, initially the James shell was designed with a bird cage base wrapped in lead sheeting for a sabot.  Due to flying pieces of lead hitting the back of the heads of friendly troops Mr. James altered the shell design to have 8 thick tapered flanges that he cast a heavy lead sabot around and we call this the Type II version.  This seemed to work pretty well as nearly all fired examples have the sabot on them.  But it caused the shell to weigh about 1.75 pounds more using so much lead and I would guess would reduce fragmentation as the large amount of lead absorbed some of the explosion.  But given that it seems that very few of either type exploded anyway that isn't a big issue.  But what seems a bit odd to me is that this Type II variety is only seen in the 3.8-inch caliber that I've encountered.  Has anyone seen a larger caliber James shell with a Type Ii or similar sabot?  Of course it would take a tremendous amount of lead to make such a sabot on a 7-inch projectile. 

I'm also a little surprised that James didn't offer a time fuse for his shell.  Do we know if there is a reason that is the case?

[emike123]

I have never seen a larger caliber type II or a time fused type I, but I have seen a couple case shot type Is which are oddballs in their own right.

[Dave the plumber]

 the few 3.8 case shot I have seen have all been percussion fuzed too, which isn't typical. Plus, the fuze hole would be too small to put in a wood fuze adaptor, or any metal paper time fuze adaptor so he would have had to cast a different shell nose.        Never have seen a bigger than 3.8 type 2 shell.       He died in 1863, if I am not mistaken. Maybe larger caliber would have come along on the type 2     I bet a patent connected researcher could look around and see if he was working on it.
   Also, his shells were basically known as not reliable for detonation on impact, but James being a governor of Rhode Island, slinging his political influence, got the US government to buy his shells. I wonder if after his death, if they dropped his contracts to supply shells.  Anyone know ??

[CarlS]

The whole idea of case shot shells with a percussion fuse certainly is an odd animal.

I suspect for the most part the big guns were  siege guns and naval guns so the sabot frags from a Type-I didn't matter a whole lot.  They were long range without troops immediately in front.  But you would have thought there would have at least been a few tried for whatever reason.