Cordite

He learns the smells as well.

Chordite and sour at the back of the throat and wet wool.

The smells of a latrine and lamp oil.

And after a barrage, the smell that never washes out of a uniform, no matter how hard it's scrubbed.

This breakthrough led to the development and adoption, two years later, of the Model 1886 Lebel rifle, the first mass-produced military rifle to use the revolutionary smokeless powder.

Poudreby was soon followed by Ballastite, introduced by Alfred Nobel in 1888, and Chordite, discovered in 1889 by British chemists Sir Frederick Abel and Sir James Dewar, who was also incidentally the inventor of the thermos flask, but naming their explosive after the spaghetti or cord-like strands into which it was typically extruded.

By the early 20th century, such nitro smokeless propellants had completely replaced gunpowder in the vast majority of military arms.

Dynamite sensitivity also made it unsuited for use as an explosive filling in artillery shells, as the shock of the shell being fired was likely to set off the explosive before it left the barrel, destroying the gun and injuring or killing the crew.