06/06/2026
Another item added to my artilley display, a Carcass round for a 4 1/2" mortar. A carcass round is an incendiary round and this is the internal iron frame. It would have a sewn canvas bag around it and then filled with a mix of Swedish tar, tallow, corned black powder and salt petre. Also holes where formed with woodern formers to make tubes in the tar for fuses. When complete the whole thing would be coated in Kitting. This was a mix of rosin, pitch beeswax and tallow. When fired the fuses would ignite by means of the flame produced from the charge propelling it. The whole thing once ignited needs to be out of the barrel as soon as possible or you'll end up with moltern tar coating the inside of the barrel. So mortars and howitzers are well suited for the job. They were called carcass rounds because of the iron bars that looked like ribs when they come in longer oblong forms like this one. They also came in cast iron hollow round shot with four holes for the fuses.
Ten and eight inch carcasses were fitted with brass tubes called pistol tubes. They were 4.6 inches long by .75 inches wide. These would have a blackpowder charge in them with 2 musket balls.
I you want to know more then the book "British artilley ammunition 1780 by Adrin B. Caruana. Thats what im steadily working through try to work out how these things work.
