Minarchist posted:

Carcass shot was pretty nasty, it was a 190 lb hollow iron cannonball filled with the worst mix of incendiaries and toxic compounds imaginable, and would burn for 11 or so minutes, setting everything around it on fire and releasing clouds of smoke that you REALLY don't want to breathe in. Unless you're into the whole antimony poisoning thing I guess

quote:

For the composition of the flammable material used in a carcass, 18th century philosopher Christian Wolff prescribed 10 parts of pounded gunpowder, 2 of nitre, 1 of sulfur, and 1 of colophony; or 6 of gunpowder, 4 of nitre, 4 of sulfur, 1 of beaten glass, 0.5 of antimony 0.5 of camphor, 1 of sal armoniac, and 0.25 of common salt. For the shell, he started with two iron rings (others used plates), fitting one at one extreme, near the aperture at which the carcass was to be fired, and the other at the other. These he braced with cords drawn lengthwise; and across these, at right angles, laced other cords, making a knot at each intersection. Between the folds of the cords, he made holes, inserted copper tubes, and filled them half full of powder and lead bullets, packing it in with a tow. The internal shell's aperture was then plugged up, and it was immersed in a mixture of 4 parts of melted pitch, 20 of rosin, 1 of oil of turpentine, and as much ground gunpowder as was needed to reduce it to the consistency of a paste. After immersion, the shell was to be covered with tow, and immersed again, until it was the proper size for the mortar.[2]

Carcass shells as used by the Royal Navy from the 18th to the 19th centuries were filled with a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, rosin, sulfide of antimony, tallow and turpentine.