What was the best way of cutting barbed wire with artillery prior to an offensive?

I have read/heard somewhere that shrapnell in hte hands of skilled gunners was the best way of clearing barbed wire, but it required very sensitively cut fuses. Failing that the toffee apple trench mortar, has this was a much simpler method. Is this correct.

Nick

Several opinions on this one, Nick but I think it is fair to say that shrapnel was the only means available at first then came the 2" mortar ( toffee apple ). Latter the graze fuse was introduced which caused the H.E. shell to explode in the wire without burying itself into the ground. That was the best way when available.

Hello,

There was a longish discussion of this, last post 5 Oct, a while ago. To expand slightly on Tom's remark; I think the cutting was achieved by the wire being struck by a shrapnel ball on a shell fragment while the ball or fragment was going fast enough to cut the wire. For shrapnel the shell had to burst close to the wire while travelling parallel to the ground and many rounds on exactly the same line were needed to achive the necessary concentration of balls. Sharpnel was not effective if the wire was in dead ground. The 2" mortar bomb and a shell with the graze fuse worked as Tom says, I think the advantage was that fragments were larger and heavier than shrapnel balls and provided the impact of the bomb/shell was in amongst the wire there was a much greatly chance, than shrapnel, of the fragments hitting strands of wire.

Old Tom

Tom
I still cannnot see how a ball can cut wire..................no I just don't see it.
Probably there was a lot of optimism to these ends at the time.
Bob

Thank you for all replies

Nick

The artillery effects were observed by men who found the wire cut. Trials were undertaken behind the line and various methods judged against each other for effectiveness. There are many, many references to " wire well cut" and it's dreaded opposite. Can you say why you discount the thousands of occurrences reported over the course of the war?

There is a discussion on this subject HERE. If you go down towards the end there are some contemporary documents on the tests done on shrapnel based wire cutting, etc.

The problem here I think is the word 'cut'. I think that it was used to say that a path was cut through the wire
and not the actual strand was parted. I can only see that a strand would be severed by a jaggerd shell splinter
or fragment, and not by a spherical object ie; a shrapnel ball. Unless some-one can come up with a diffinative
answer I stand by this view.
Bob

Hello,

Bob persists with his question regardless of a number of answers which show that cutting of wire was achieved although not, perhaps, precisely how. I suspect the scientific answer is in the fields of the kinetic energy of the shrapnel ball and the dissipation of that energy when the ball strikes a strand of wire other than a slight glancing impact. I think one easily accepts that such a ball would penetrate a thin metal plate without bearing in mind that the penetration is caused by the energy resulting from the motion of the ball being dissapated or absorbed by the plate as it deforms and becomes holed if the energy is sufficient. It is probably more difficult to envisage the application of this transfer of energy to a wire. However when a ball hits a strand, the ball either wraps itself round the wire or the wire deflects the path of the ball. In both cases the transfer of energy may be sufficient for the wire to break. I rest my case; its too long since I studied materials.

Old Tom