Low Tech cannons mortars and shells

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Varyon

At low TL's, I don't think fragmentation is properly understood, so it might have a maximum of 1/2 the explosive damage, and I'd probably treat shells that aren't designed with any specific amount of fragmentation in mind as having 10% to 20% of the explosive damage in fragmentation

My understanding is that it was only after WW II that engineers go through every exploding munition and systematically design it to kill and maim as many people with fragments as possible, Eg. the old 'pineapple' grenades were designed to be easy to grip with a wet or muddy hand, any benefit to fragmentation was accidental. Its just so much harder to make anything other than a simple casing, and gunners are really really concerned that you get "does not explode in the tube" right.