Henri-Joseph Paixhans [SEP] native language
Henri-Joseph Paixhans
Henri-Joseph Paixhans (; January 22, 1783, Metz – August 22, 1854, Jouy-aux-Arches) was a French artillery officer of the beginning of the 19th century.
Henri-Joseph Paixhans graduated from the École Polytechnique. He fought in the Napoleonic Wars, was the representative (Député) for the Moselle department between 1830 and 1848, and became "General de Division" in 1848.
In 1823, he invented the first shell guns, which came to be called
then detonating was potentially devastating. Henri-Joseph Paixhans first demonstrated this in trials against the two-decker "Pacificateur" in 1824, in which he successfully broke up the ship. Two prototype Paixhans guns had been cast in 1823 and 1824 for this test. Paixhans reported the results in "Experiences faites sur une arme nouvelle". The shells had a fuze that ignited automatically when the gun was fired; they lodged in the wooden hull of the target, and exploded a moment later:
The first Paixhans guns for