Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"

the improvement of the projectile than to that of the gun (see AMMUNITION). The French, always in the forefront of artillery progress, were the first nation to realize the new significance of the time-fuze and the shrapnel shell. These had been in existence for many years; to the British army are due both the invention and the development of the shrapnel, which made its first appearance in European warfare at Vimeira in 1808. But, up to the introduction of rifled pieces, the Napoleonic case-shot attack was universally and justly considered the best method of fighting, and in the transition stage of the _materiel_ many soldiers continued to put faith in the old method,--hence the Prussian artillery in 1866 had many smooth-bore batteries in the field,--and between 1860 and 1870 gunners, now convinced of the superiority of the new equipments, undoubtedly sought to turn to account the minute accuracy of the rifled weapons in unnecessarily fine shooting. Thus, in 1870 the French time-fuze was only graduated for two ranges, and the Germans used percussion fuzes only. But this phase has passed, and General Langlois has summarized the tactics of the newest field artillery in one phrase: "It results in transferring to 3000 yds. the point-blank and case-shot fire of the smooth-bore." The meaning of this will be discussed later; here it will be sufficient to say that it is claimed for the modern gun and the modern shell that the Napoleonic method[1] of annihilating by a rain of bullets has been revived, with the distinction that the shell, and not the gun, fires the bullets close up to the enemy. In the Boer War, Pieter's Hill furnished a notable example of this "covering," as distinct from "preparation," of an assault by artillery fire.