While an en barbette emplacement offered wider arcs of fire, it also exposed the gun's crew to greater danger from hostile fire.[3] In addition, since the barbette position would be higher than a casemate position—that is, a gun firing through an embrasure—it would generally have a greater field of fire. The American military theorist Dennis Hart Mahan suggested that light guns, particularly howitzers, were best suited for barbette emplacements since they could fire explosive shells and could be easily withdrawn when they came under enemy fire.[4] Fortifications in the 19th century typically employed both casemate and barbette emplacements. For example, the Russian Fort Constantine outside Sevastopol was equipped with 43 heavy guns in its seaward side during the Crimean War in the mid-1850s; of these, 27 were in barbettes, with the rest in casemates.[5]