The result was a complete and corresponding reorganization of British ship armament.[109] By 1839, the authorities being at last convinced of the necessity of meeting the French innovations with similar innovations on our part, Colonel Munro’s proposal of 1825 had been adopted, and various classes of ship were equipped with six different patterns of 32-pounder long gun. With these were associated, in small numbers, 8-inch shell guns of fifty-three and sixty-five hundredweight. Thus this country by a single move countered the two moves made by France in ’29 and ’37 respectively, and denied to M. Paixhans, for a while at any rate, any considerable change in the relative strength of the two navies. As in the French navy, shell fire was only introduced as an auxiliary to the solid shot. Thus the great ideal of unity-of-calibre, so long sought and at last almost attained, was found incompatible with the other ideal, shell fire; and was therefore sacrificed. No doubt was felt, at this time, as to the necessity for two types of gun. The superior power of shells was dreaded, suspected, half-acknowledged; but the superior range and penetration of solid shot fired from long guns made the latter indispensable to ships’ equipment. So shell and large-bore shot guns were mounted in ships side by side. Old guns and carronades were “scrapped” in large numbers to give place to the new ordnance; and an official announcement was made, in justification of the Admiralty policy, that “the changes were not made until they had been adopted by foreign powers.” § Shell fire was at last accepted. The perils associated with the carriage of shells in wooden ships were found to have been exaggerated; experience soon confirmed that, if special precautions were taken, no danger was inherent in their use.