Background
Explosive shells had long been in use in ground warfare (in howitzers and mortars), but they were only fired at high angles and with relatively low velocities. Shells are inherently dangerous to handle, and no solution had been found yet to combine the explosive character of the shells with the high power and flatter trajectory of a high velocity gun.
However, before the advent of radar and modern optical controlled firing, high trajectories were not practical for marine combat. Naval combat essentially required flat-trajectory guns in order to have some decent odds of hitting the target. Therefore naval warfare had consisted for centuries in encounters between flat-trajectory cannons using inert cannonballs, which could inflict only local damage even on wooden hulls.
Read more about this topic: Paixhans Gun
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)