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The box battery disposition of the main armament in a battleship was commonly used in ships built in the latter half of the 19th century; it was an interim disposition between full-length broadside guns and turret-mounted artillery.
A ship at sea moves in response to the waves it encounters; the ends move more than the centre. It followed that if a warship were to mount only a small number of guns, it would make sense to mount them centrally, where the movement of the ship was minimal. Having mounted the artillery in this central position, it also made sense to concentrate the armour of the ship around the guns, along with the engines and the command centre. It was felt unnecessary to armour the ends, superstructure, or the funnels. A central battery, surrounded by thick armour, became known as a box battery.
The box battery disposition of the main armament in a battleship was commonly used in ships built in the latter half of the 19th century; it was an interim disposition between full-length broadside guns and turret-mounted artillery.
Description
From the first time that artillery was carried aboard warships, in the early Tudor period, until the middle of the 19th century, warships had carried their cannon in long rows along their sides. Bigger ships had carried more and bigger cannon, culminating in wooden line-of-battle ships carrying some 140 muzzle-loading smoothbore cannon, 70 on each side. With the advent of steam power, iron armour, and vastly larger guns, first-line battleships built from 1860 onwards tended to carry fewer but heavier guns. The firstbroadside ironclad
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. Th ...
to be commissioned into the Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
was . She carried a relatively small number of guns compared to the wooden ships that preceded her, but could have destroyed any of them in combat. ''Warrior'' carried twenty guns on each side. As artillery manufacturers produced heavier and heavier guns, warships carried fewer and fewer of them. The ultimate designs of broadside ironclad
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. Th ...
s allowed for only ten or twelve heavy guns to be carried.
A ship at sea moves in response to the waves it encounters; the ends move more than the centre. It followed that if a warship were to mount only a small number of guns, it would make sense to mount them centrally, where the movement of the ship was minimal. Having mounted the artillery in this central position, it also made sense to concentrate the armour of the ship around the guns, along with the engines and the command centre. It was felt unnecessary to armour the ends, superstructure, or the funnels. A central battery, surrounded by thick armour, became known as a box battery.
See also
*Central battery ship
The central battery ship, also known as a centre battery ship in the United Kingdom and as a casemate ship in European continental navies, was a development of the (high- freeboard) broadside ironclad of the 1860s, given a substantial boost due ...
References
{{Reflist Battleships Naval artillery