Artillery shells, also known as common shell as well as bombs or howitzes, were used by both the British and French throughout the period. Most of the warring nation's artillery, including the United States during the War of 1812, had field howitzers as part of the equipment assigned to artillery companies, batteries, brigades and troops. There were also heavier siege howitzers of larger caliber than those for the field artillery units.

Common shell, which was a hollow iron sphere, would be filled with gunpowder with a slow-match fuse attached that would be ignited when the howitzer was fired. When detonated, the shell would explode into 20-25 fragments and could cover a 20-yard radius. The shell could, if the gunners were skilled, achieve an air-burst as well as a ground burst. Howitzers were also capable of ricochet fire which would roll a shell into enemy formations. They could also be employed to set buildings and dry vegetation on fire. Howitzers could be emplaced to fire from defilade. It was usual practice not to fire over 20 degrees elevation, but they could be fired up to 45 degrees elevation.

Howitzers could also fire canister and the British developed spherical case shot which was an exploding anti-personnel round which was a hollow sphere filled with smaller rounds like canister, usually musket balls instead of the iron balls which canister used, with an exploding charge which made it very deadly with an overhead explosion.

The Russian artillery arm did not have howitzers, but had licornes or unicorns, which were capable of higher-angle fire and were longer-tubed than the conventional howitzers, but could not be elevated to the high angles that howitzers could. In modern artillery terminology, the licorne was a gun-howitzer.