The addition of ordnance and shipping, for which Armstrong became chiefly known, came later. Previous to the year 1853, the weapon used by the infantry portion of the British army was a clumsy smooth-bore musket, which was only effective up to three hundred yards at the farthest; the usual distance at which practice was made by the soldier seldom exceeding one hundred yards. In the above-named year, an arm was brought into use, termed, from the locality of its manufacture, the Enfield rifle. This weapon being lighter, and possessing a much greater range than the old small-arm, Brown Bess, as it was called, threatened very seriously to diminish the effect of field-artillery, if not to abolish that arm entirely, as, indeed, many infantry officers were sanguine enough to predict. Nor were they without good reason for their boasting, the only field-artillery consisting of 6-pounder brass guns for horse-artillery, 9-pounder guns for field-batteries, and sometimes 12-pounder and 18-pounder guns as batteries of position--that is to say, batteries used when the general of a force meant to make any stand in a suitable position; on these occasions, the guns were taken to the requisite places, and there left. Now, all these guns were smooth-bored; and as the range of the 6 and 9 pounders was limited in practice to about one thousand yards, it was a fair enough supposition that a company of concealed riflemen with their Enfield rifles could pick off the gunners and remain themselves comparatively secure, especially as their muskets being sighted up to, and effective at, eleven hundred yards, the guns also would be a good mark to aim at, and the riflemen hard to see, even if exposed. Such was the state of affairs when Armstrong stepped in to the rescue of the artillery, and provided the British government with the rifled cannon now in use, and about which so much has been written. Armstrong, during the Crimean War, made an explosive apparatus for blowing up ships sunk at Sebastopol. This led him to turn his attention to improvements in ordnance. He invented a kind of breech-loading cannon, and soon had an order for several field-pieces after the same pattern. He began with guns throwing 6 lb. and 18 lb. shot and shells, and afterwards 32 lb. shells; and the results at the time were deemed almost incredible. He had both reduced the weight of the gun by one-half, reduced the charge of powder, and his gun sent the shell about three times farther. His success led to his offering to government all his past inventions, and any that he might in the future discover. A post was created for him, that of Chief Engineer of Rifled Ordnance for seven years provisionally.