![]() ![]() USS Chicago had a Talos battery and a Tartar battery. Ships with more than one type of missile might refer to the batteries by the name of the missile. Such ships often referred to their remaining guns as simply the gun battery and to the missiles as the missile battery. 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. At sea, ships such as small, fast destroyers assigned to convoy protection, essential in the transport of the enormous stock of materials required for land war particularly in the European Theater, came to rely more on depth charge projectors. Anti-aircraft batteries of scores of small-caliber rapid-fire weapons came to supplant big guns even on large warships assigned to protect vital fast carrier task forces. As air superiority became all-important early in World War II, weight of broadside fell by the wayside as a vessel's principal fighting asset. Dreadnoughts resolved this in favor of a main battery of large guns, supported by largely defensive secondary batteries of smaller guns of standardized form, further augmented on large warships such as battleships and cruisers with smaller yet tertiary batteries. ![]() ![]() As missiles displaced guns both above and below the water their principal group became a vessel's main battery.Ä«etween the age of sail and its cannons and the dreadnought era of large iron warships fighting ships' weapons deployments lacked standardization, with a variety of naval rifles of mixed breach and caliber scattered throughout vessels. 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. 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. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2023
Categories |