Britain, France and the United States preferred screw breeches for most calibres, but the major drawback of the de Bange interrupted screw as first implemented was that only half of the circumference of the breech block could be threaded, and hence it needed to be fairly long to achieve safe locking of the breech, which required three separate motions to open after firing; rotate to unscrew, retract the screw and swing to the side. Loading required the 3 operations in reverse. This was hence termed a "three motion block" and was slow to operate.