A TERRIBLE SHELL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2546, 3 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A TERRIBLE SHELL.

Dr. Podckt, director of tho studios of tho Military Hospital of tho Valde Grace. France, has published tho results of his examinations of the action of the new steel shells charged with melanite. Each of these projectiles furnishes from 000 to (11)0 jagged splinters of all shapes and sizes, as cutting as knife blades, and also an immense cloud of tiny shots the size of peas. The force of projection is such that these deadly splinters and shots are found at 1300 metres behind and !)00 metres in advance of the point of explosion, and so hot that it is impossible to take them in hand. Wherever they reach everything would ho destroyed; horses and men, riddled by thorn, and cut to pieces at a distance ; the wounds thus produced are terribly severe. Tho explosion which occurred last year at the Belfort arsenal, in which 17 artillerymen were killed or wounded, enabled tho military .surgcon-mnjor, Techard, who treated the victims of this terrible accident, to report fully on the peculiarity of the wounds inflicted by this new arm. He insists on the multiplicity, depth, and severity of the wounds produced by these fragments of small size, but incisive as razors, and tho tatooing produced by the mass of particles of steel no bigger than grains of sand, but penetrating the tissures to a depth of 10 or 15 centimetres. Tho wounds produced by tho action of theso missies defy tho curative efforts of the most skilful surgeons.