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Author Topic: A Transitional CS Read-Parrott  (Read 1988 times)

Woodenhead

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A Transitional CS Read-Parrott
« on: December 11, 2018, 11:31:20 AM »
A digging buddy of mine wanted to know where to go to find some relics. I often am asked such questions. I directed him to the North Anna battlefield in central Virginia. The entire battlefield remains relatively intact and has not been picked clean like the Wilderness and Chancellorsville. It is especially good for artillery because the armies were pretty much fought-out by the middle of May, 1864. When the Reb infantry was ordered to charge, they generally advanced a short distance and hunkered down while their artillery made a lot of noise firing tons of shells over their heads. I was pleasantly surprised by his luck. He has now found six projectiles - 2 Schenkl shells, 2 Hotchkiss, one U.S. 12 pounder solid shot, and the CS 10 pdr. shell pictured below.  I have labeled it a "Transitional Read-Parrott" for the following reasons:

1)  It confirms that by May 1864, the Richmond foundries had returned to making the smooth-sided design after producing thousands of "Tredegar Reads" which I call "Broun Parrotts." I'm pretty sure this shell had just been made and rushed to the Army because they had empty limber chests after Spottsylvania.

2) It had a wood fuze plug confirming the timing of the movement away from copper fuze plugs in rifled field artillery projectiles (they put the copper plugs in sphericals for a few more months). Between December 1862 and April 1864, all rifled field projectiles were required to employ the copper plugs. Shortage of copper forced a return to the old wood plugs across the South. 

3) Although the bearing surface returned to smooth-sided, this 10 pounder has the same terrible sabot seen on the "Tredegar Reads" recently abandoned. Just a narrow lip of the wrought iron cup was exposed to the propellant charge. It does not appear to have been pre-rifled or swedged like the earlier CS Read-Parrotts. Clearly, Richmond was not paying proper attention to the role of the sabots in the failure of their designs.

I'll bet you guys have some of these in your collections,
Woodenhead