encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner ("the bombs bursting in air"), although today that sense of bomb is obsolete. Typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter, and they were about two-thirds the weight of solid shot of the same caliber.

To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses toward the muzzle, they were attached to wooden bottoms called sabots. In 1819,