It is not surprising that ammunition expenditure in breeching was high. At the siege of Badajoz in the Peninsula, 14,000 round shot were needed to make the main breach from a range of 540 yards. This was a strong wall, and only 6,700 shot were needed at Ciudad Rodrigo, where the walls were of weaker construction. At the second siege of Bhurtpore in India in 1825, the siege artillery as a whole expended 102,000 lb of gunpowder, and used 18737 24lber shot adn 12,440 8" howitzer shells. Bhurtpore had mud walls of immense thickness and it was found that the round shot of the guns reduced them to a fine dust which would have formed an impassable obstacle to the storming parties. The complementary fine of the howitzers was therefore required evermore than usual to disperse this dust with their bursting shells. (P.86 SMOOTH-BORE ARTILLERY" Maj.-Gen.B.P.Hughes. (Arms and Armour Press 1969)). Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 131 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1973 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com