Many people call pieces of exploded ordnance Shrapnel.In fact shrapnel is spherical balls of lead,The shrapnel shell was invented by Lt Henry Shrapnel in 1784 from who it takes its name.In its original form it consisted of a hollow spherical shell packed with lead musket balls in gunpowder with a time fuze.Many of you will be familiar with the 18lb shrapnel round of ww1 vintage ,this when detonated at a pre set distance would emit the shrapnel balls from the front of the round and this in turn would produce a shot gun type effect.Now onto Fragmentation or Frag .A bursting shell or grenade produces FRAGMENTS which many call incorrectly shrapnel.The following picture shows the differences between shrapnel and frag.The shrapnel balls are at the front ,the rear pieces are fragmentation from a 3inch mortar round and an exploded No36 grenade which has fragmented.Wether you decide to use the correct terminology or not both are still lethal
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