Modern high-explosive artillery shells consist of a shell casing, a propelling charge, and a bursting charge; the propelling charge is ignited by a primer at the base of the shell, and the bursting charge by a fuse in the nose.

Do artillery shells explode?

as I understand it, artillery shells explode when they hit the ground because there's a small amount of volatile chemical inside the round that ignites when it experiences high levels of acceleration, which makes the main charge explode.

How much explosive is in an artillery shell?

Only 24 pounds of it is TNT or IMX-101 explosive filler — the rest is a steel casing that fragments into lethal shrapnel when the shell detonates.