Main battery

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16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun turret. Three of these formed the main battery of the Iowa-class battleships
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A main battery is the primary weapon or group of weapons around which a warship is designed. As such, a main battery was historically a gun or group of guns, as in the broadsides of cannon on a ship of the line. Later, this came to be turreted groups of similar large-caliber naval rifles. With the evolution of technology the term has come to encompass guided missiles as a vessel's principal offensive weapon, deployed both on surface ships and submarines.

A main battery features common parts, ammunition, and fire control across the weapons which it comprises.

Description

In the age of cannon at sea, the main battery was the principal group of weapons around which a ship was designed, usually its heavies. With the coming of naval rifles and subsequent revolving gun turrets, the main battery became the principal group of heaviest guns, regardless of how many turrets they were placed in. As missiles displaced guns both above and below the water their principal group became a vessel's main battery.

Between the

depth charge projectors.[1]

The terms main battery and secondary battery fell out of favor as ships were designed to carry surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles with greater range and heavier warheads than their guns.[2] Such ships often referred to their remaining guns as simply the gun battery and to the missiles as the missile battery. Ships with more than one type of missile might refer to the batteries by the name of the missile. USS Chicago had a Talos battery and a Tartar battery.[3]

Examples

The German battleship Bismarck, carried a main battery of eight 15 inch (380mm) guns, along with a secondary battery of twelve 5.9 inch (150mm) guns for defense against destroyers and torpedo boats, and an anti-aircraft battery of various guns ranging in caliber from 4.1 inch (105mm) to 20mm guns.[4]

Animated diagram highlighting the main (red) and secondary (blue) batteries of the battleship USS Washington.

Many later ships during

Bofors 40 mm guns and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon.[5]

References

Notes

  1. ^ Fairfield, A.P. (1921). Naval Ordnance. Baltimore, Maryland: The Lord Baltimore Press. p. 157.
  2. ISBN 0-87021-537-X
    .
  3. ^ Albrecht, Gerhard (1969). Weyer's Warships of the World. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. p. 138.
  4. ^ Taylor, J.C. (1966). German Warshps of World War II. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p. 13.
  5. ^ Silverstone, Paul H. (1968). U.S. Warships of World War II. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p. 28.
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