Paixhans Gun
The Paixhans gun (French: Canon Paixhans) was the first naval gun using explosive shells. It was developed by the French general Henri-Joseph Paixhans in 1822-1823, by combining the flat trajectory of a gun with an explosive shell that could rip apart and put on fire the bulkheads of enemy warships. The Paixhans gun ultimately doomed the wooden sailship, and forced the introduction of the ironclad after the Battle of Sinop in 1853.
Read more about this topic: Naval Artillery In The Age Of Sail, Artillery Types
Famous quotes containing the word gun:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)