The rifling process had been invented in late medieval times, but for artillery it had been abandoned till the nineteenth century.

While many nations experimented with rifled and or breechloading guns in the mid nineteenth century, the French were very successful.

During the 1859 Franco-Austrian War in Italy, the French army used rifled guns produced according to the La Hitte system.

By August 1859 it was experimenting near Waalsdorp Barracks with a 6-pounder gun rifled according to a design by Major le Clercq.

The iron projectile had 9 or 12 lugs, and range was said to be 3,000 m.[5] By July 1860 the army was busy rifling a 24-pounder gun.

[6] On 15 August 1860 a very big rifled fortification gun arrived at Waalsdorp from Delft.

[8] In July 1861 King William III also decorated the members of the commission for testing rifled guns.

In 1850 the English held trials with existing foreign rifled breechloading guns designed by Wahrendorff and Cavelli.

The outcome was that the British government thought that the practical advantage of using rifled guns on board ships was limited.

[11] This explains how in October 1861 the Dutch Minister for the Navy could state that experts from many countries thought that the rifled gun would not play a significant role in the world's navies, except for a limited number for special purposes.

However, the use of the rifled gun was crucial on board the Dutch floating batteries and coastal defense vessels.

[12] The inspiration for the 16 cm RML No.3 probably came from the massive amounts of old 30-pounder guns that the French navy converted.

[12] In November 1861 the experiments were concluded to satisfaction, and 6 more carronades were in the process of being converted.

[15] This is in line with the October 1862 message that as regards modern artillery, the navy had only some old carronades which had been transformed into rifled guns.

[17] Already by 1871,[18] the gun was deemed unsuitably for the Dutch navy in the long run (see below).

The Dutch government budget for 1876 had a rather complete overview of the armament of the fleet.

In 1876 a small gun foundry was founded on the premises of the state shipyard Rijkswerf Amsterdam.

I.e. shorter than all smooth bore muzzle loading 30-pounder guns in use with the Dutch navy.

3 had the same caliber as the 30-pounder, it packed a lot more metal (the filled up 60-pounder tube) in order to withstand the blast behind the cylindrical projectile.

Shots were fired at an armor plate of 4.5 cm thickness placed at a 45 degree angle.

[26] After a second day of trials, the final conclusion was that none of the 10 rounds fired had pierced the armor.

The rifled 30-pounder gun fired wrought iron solid shot with different charges.

Therefore the commission advised to add a heavier caliber gun to the coastal defense forces, and probably also on board the ships.

[29] Whatever the validity and the precise results of the trials were, already in October 1864 the Commission for Coastal Defense expressed severe doubt about the gun's ability to pierce armor.

English trials with the RBL 7-inch Armstrong gun had also proved ineffective in piercing an armored hull.

[18] In May 1877 trials were held on board the artillery school ship Het Loo, moored in the Nieuwediep.

This made that the Dutch Navy found these guns unsatisfactory for the long term.

3 was used in combat during the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits, where both Djambi and Metalen Kruis had the gun on board.

3 did well as regards range and accuracy, but that most broekings (a mechanism to control recoil, consisting of a heavy rope from the bulwark through a ring on the bottom of the gun) were broken, but repaired.

Her commander was also very satisfied as regards range and accuracy, but also reported 7 broekings having to be renewed.