Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions which carried a large number of individual bullets close to the target and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell's trajectory and strike the target individually. They relied almost entirely on the shell's velocity for their lethality. The munition has been obsolete since the end of
World War I for anti-personnel use, when it was superseded by high-explosive shells for that role. The functioning and principles behind Shrapnel shells are totally different from high-explosive shell fragmentation.
The word shrapnel is derived from the name of Major-General Henry Shrapnel (1761–1842), an English artillery officer, whose experiments, initially conducted on his own time, and at his own expense, culminated in the design and development of a new type of artillery shell.
In 1784 Lieutenant Shrapnel of the Royal Artillery began the course to develop an anti-personnel weapon. At the time artillery could use "canister shot" to defend themselves from infantry or cavalry attack.
Instead of a cannonball, a tin or canvas container filled with small iron or lead balls was loaded. When fired, the container burst open during passage through the bore or at the muzzle, giving the effect of an oversized shotgun shell. At ranges of up to 300 m canister shot was still highly lethal, though at this range the shots’ density was much lower, making a hit on a human target less likely. At longer ranges, solid shot or the common shell — a hollow cast iron sphere filled with black powder — was used, although with more of a concussive than a fragmentation effect, as the pieces of the shell were very large and sparse in number.
