was in any case rejected from an early date by the British due to risk of premature ignition and irregular action. World War I era Technical considerations The size of shrapnel balls in World War I was based on two considerations. One was the premise that a projectile energy of about was required to disable an enemy soldier. A typical World War I field gun shell at its maximum possible range traveling at a velocity of 250 feet/second, plus the additional velocity from the shrapnel bursting charge (about 150 feet per second), would give individual shrapnel bullets a velocity of 400 feet per second and an energy of 60 foot-pounds (81 joules): this was the minimum energy of a single half-inch lead-antimony ball of approximately , or 41-42 balls = 1 pound. Hence this was a typical field gun shrapnel bullet size. The maximum possible range, typically beyond , was beyond useful shrapnel combat ranges for normal field guns due to loss of accuracy and the fact that at extreme range the projectiles descended relatively steeply and hence the "cone" of bullets covered a relatively small area. At a more typical combat range of , giving a fairly flat trajectory and hence a long "beaten zone" for the bullets, a typical 3-inch or 75-mm field gun shrapnel shell would have a velocity of approximately 900 feet/second. The bursting charge would add a possible 150 feet/second, giving a bullet velocity of 1,050 feet/second. This would give each bullet approximately 418 foot-pounds: seven times the assumed energy required to disable a man. For larger guns which had lower velocities, correspondingly larger balls were used so that each individual ball carried enough energy to be lethal. Most engagements using guns in this size range used direct fire at enemy from to distant, at which ranges the residual shell velocity was correspondingly higher, as in the table - at least in the earlier stages of World War 1. The other factor was the trajectory. The shrapnel bullets were typically lethal for about from normal field guns after bursting and over from heavy field guns. To make maximum use of these distances a flat trajectory and hence high velocity gun was required. The pattern in Europe was that the armies with higher-velocity guns tended to use heavier bullets because they could afford to have fewer bullets per shell. The important points to note about shrapnel