I am amazed that as deadly as you would think cannister shot was, charging infantry seemed to have a way of avoiding it. Historically artillery is credited with only causing about 2 to 3% of all casualities. Given battlefield conditions such as visibility, distance and smoke if infantry was close enough for artillery to use cannister shot, the infantryman would be close enough to observe the actions of the artillery crew and would have been aware of when the artillery were ready to fire. I wonder if they (the infantryman) layed down as the artillery fired?
Miles Krisman on the News and Views Board, kindly posted two examples of were Confederate at Malvern Hill and Chancellorsville did just that as whole units, But I am wondering as the infantry charged the Artillery, that the guns would not be able to sweep the entire advancing infantry line and if maybe those infantrymen directly in front of the guns, where the cannister would be most dangerous, themselves would fall down to avoid the fire of an individual piece as it fired?
Everybody knows that when shooting a shotgun, the shot pattern takes some distance before it developes. The same thing happens with a machinegun, that there are always gaps in its base of fire "kill zone" which can be exploited by the infantryman IF he can discover those gaps and weak points in the machineguns base of fire. The same would be true with double and triple cannister from an artillery piece at very close range it would be like firing a solid shot. But how did an advancing line of Infantry charge a battery of artillery firing triple cannister, especially getting throught the optimum range of the cannister where it would be most effective?