This Horrific Invention Terrified Soldiers At The Battle Of Waterloo #shorts

The led grapeshot was a clever invention with devastating results for the enemy soldiers.

Courtesy of The Chalke Valley History Festival.

#AbsoluteHistory #chalkevalleyhistoryfestival

[albertenriquecrowleybeastc]

This guy looks like he time travelled to us. He presents all this very well

[Gibbles]

"You use buckshot?"
"Nahh, truckshot."

[diyfamily]

The wood disk is the wadd that provides the barrel seal like a piston. The cord is specially wound around the shot to prevent them wedging and jamming in the bore under the extreme inertia during acceleration down the bore. The wood doesn't get to burn off as it is catapulted behind the shot and falls to the ground a short distance from the muzzle of barrel.The burning black powder charge behind the wadd burns through the base of the canvass bag wrapped wadd, alowing it to separate from the shot after leaving the barrel and decelerate fast due to its low inertia and high drag.

[BeansMoreBeans]

Shout out to the cameraman/time traveler, who went back and recorded this for us

[gotterdammerung]

Props to the dude who found the last veteran from the war of 1812 to make this video for us all to witness 💯

[alexanderthegreat]

I thought grape shot was filled with normal sized musket balls these are huge

[daytonasayswhat]

Even his fingernails stay in character.

[southronjr]

Slight correction, the "flame" from the cannon did not burn away the wood, the wood was there to seal the bore and give some slight cushion to the balls because a round projectile flies faster, further, and more predictably than a pancaked ball. The bag is pretty much ruptured on firing and allows the smoothbore cannon to be turned into a big Ole shotgun. If you think grape shot is bad, look at cannister shot, while grape has between 9 to 15 large round balls, cannister can have upwards of 100 musket balls in it. MUCH more effective anti personnel round than Grape. Grape is decent at anti personally but made mostly to give a better chance at taking out rigging and equipment, whereas cannister is solely for wiping large swaths of men from this mortal plain.

[nickjacobs]

"Now we know that grapeshot was used in the battle of Waterloo because I was there."

[ToqTheWise]

Also to be clear, this stuff could turn men to mist. Imagine you're in formation, shoulder to shoulder with your comrades, then you hear a boom and suddenly the man standing next to you is red mist in the air and bloodied meat behind. This was the psychological horror of grapeshot.

[MrWhitehouse]

Also they wrote about the battles and kept inventory of the munitions used. They kept good records.

[winnienguyen]

The future Kaiser Wilhelm I was nicknamed the Prince of Grapeshot because he used it against protesters in Berlin during the Revolution of 1848.

[itvirgil]

Damn, grapes must've been huge back in the day

[Rtrhumppa]

Quite a few people have had a really rough day then. So much for having a nice time out in the field..

[MC-dwor]

For those wondering, he's wearing the uniform of The Light Infantry. Original footsoldiers who were accomplished marksmen. They were also among the first to utilise camouflage with the green jacket. Their sister regiment was called The Royal Green Jackets.

[BoomBoomBrucey]

This man was part of the 95th Rifles led by the legendary Richard Sharpe

[timmycrw]

I am very glad that you actually held the ball in your hand to show just how big it is. Honestly, I thought that it was going to be the size of a musket ball, but it is considerably bigger. If you have ever read descriptions about what that shot did to soldiers on the battlefield, you can truly understand by the size of that ball how it would take limbs off, heads, and ripped to shreds a whole line of men. That is absolutely devastating, and it is remarkable the bravery of soldiers that would march towards enemy lines knowing that this kind of artillery was waiting for them.

[WhalesOfWallStreet]

Love people like this who have a passion for what they do and want to teach people

[timehaley]

The round cordage was actually used to give a tighter seal for the expanding gas to increase the range.

[RodFleming-World]

Grape was used in naval warfare also, in fact it was invented by a Royal Navy officer. Previously, cannon had been loaded with pieces of scrap metal, for anti personnel fire. That was inconsistent. As canister, where instead of the bag the shot is cased in a wooden sabot, it accounted for some of the most horrifying battlefield injuries in the US War of 1860. His grapes (I hesitate to say balls) are lead but most grape was cast iron. This was almost as destructive and much cheaper.