![Maille-Braize-canon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Maille-Braize-canon.jpg)
A gun turret (or simply turret) is a
mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable
weapon mount
A weapon mount is an assembly or mechanism used to hold a weapon (typically a gun) onto a platform in order for it to function at maximum capacity. Weapon mounts can be broken down into two categories: static mounts and non-static mounts.
Sta ...
that houses the crew or
mechanism
Mechanism may refer to:
* Mechanism (engineering), rigid bodies connected by joints in order to accomplish a desired force and/or motion transmission
*Mechanism (biology), explaining how a feature is created
*Mechanism (philosophy), a theory that ...
of a
projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of
azimuth
An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north.
Mathematical ...
and
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...
(cone of fire).
Description
Rotating gun turrets protect the weapon and its crew as they rotate. When this meaning of the word "turret" started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical.
Barbettes
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.
In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protecti ...
were an alternative to turrets; with a barbette the protection was fixed, and the weapon and crew were on a rotating platform inside the barbette. In the 1890s, armoured hoods (also known as "gun houses") were added to barbettes; these rotated with the platform (hence the term "hooded barbette"). By the early 20th Century, these hoods were known as turrets. Modern warships have gun-mountings described as turrets, though the "protection" on them is limited to protection from the weather.
Rotating turrets can be mounted on a
fortified
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
building
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and fu ...
or
structure such as a coastal blockhouse, be part of a
land battery
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications.
From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of ...
, be mounted on a
combat vehicle
A combat vehicle, also known as a ground combat vehicle, is a self-propelled, weaponized military vehicle used for combat operations in mechanized warfare. Combat vehicles can be wheeled or tracked.
History Ancient
The chariot is a type o ...
, a
naval ship
A naval ship is a military ship (or sometimes boat, depending on classification) used by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose. Generally, naval ships are Damage control, damage resilient a ...
, or a
military aircraft
A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat:
* Combat aircraft are designed to destroy enemy equi ...
, they may be armed with one or more
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...
s,
automatic cannons, large-
calibre
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...
guns, or
missile launcher
In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket i ...
s. They may be manned or
remotely controlled and are most often protected to some degree, if not actually
armoured
Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or f ...
.
The protection provided by the turret may be against battle damage, the weather conditions, general environment in which the weapon or its crew will be operating. The name derives from the pre-existing noun
turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
, from the French "touret", diminutive of the word "tower", meaning ''a self-contained protective position which is situated on top of a fortification or defensive wall'' as opposed to rising directly from the ground, in which case it constitutes a
tower
A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures.
Towers are specifi ...
.
Cupolas
![Conqueror cupola, Bovington Tank Museum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Conqueror_cupola%2C_Bovington_Tank_Museum.jpg)
A small turret, or sub-turret set on top of a larger one, is called a cupola. The term ''cupola'' is also used for a rotating turret that carries a sighting device rather than weaponry, such as that used by a
tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...
commander.
Warships
Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th century, the classic
battleship design used rows of gunport-mounted guns on each side of the ship, often mounted in
casemates. Firepower was provided by a large number of guns, each of which could traverse only in a limited arc. Due to stability issues, fewer large (and thus heavy) guns can be carried high on a ship, but as this set casemates low and thus near the waterline they were vulnerable to flooding, effectively restricted their use to calm seas. Additionally casemate mounts had to be recessed into the side of a vessel to afford a wide arc of fire, and such recesses presented
shot trap
A shot trap is a deficiency in an armoured vehicle's design. It is a location where a shell that has struck but fails to penetrate may ricochet in such a manner as to hit another area of the vehicle where it is more likely to cause damage.
For ...
s, compromising the integrity of armour plating.
Rotating turrets were
weapon mount
A weapon mount is an assembly or mechanism used to hold a weapon (typically a gun) onto a platform in order for it to function at maximum capacity. Weapon mounts can be broken down into two categories: static mounts and non-static mounts.
Sta ...
s designed to protect the crew and mechanism of the
artillery piece
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, ...
and with the capability of being aimed and fired over a broad arc, typically between a three-quarter circle up to and including a full 360 degrees. These presented the opportunity to concentrate firepower in fewer, better-sited positions by eliminating redundancy, in other words combining the firepower of those guns unable to engage an enemy because they sited on the wrong beam into a more powerful, and more versatile unified battery.
History
![BEP-(unk)-In the Turret](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/BEP-%28unk%29-In_the_Turret.jpg)
Designs for a rotating gun turret date back to the late 18th century. In the mid 19th century, during the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
, Captain
Cowper Phipps Coles
Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, C.B., R.N. (1819 – 7 September 1870), was an English naval captain with the Royal Navy. Coles was also an inventor; in 1859, he was the first to patent a design for a revolving gun turret. Upon appealing for public ...
constructed a
raft
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barrels ...
with guns protected by a 'cupola' and used the raft, named the ''Lady Nancy'', to shell the Russian town of
Taganrog
Taganrog ( rus, Таганрог, p=təɡɐnˈrok) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population:
History of Taganrog
Th ...
in the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
during the
Siege of Taganrog
The siege of Taganrog is a name given in some Russian histories to Anglo-French naval operations in the Sea of Azov between June and November 1855 during the Crimean War. British and French forces were implementing a strategy of destroying the ...
. The ''Lady Nancy'' "proved a great success"
and Coles patented his rotating turret design after the war.
UK: first designs
The
British Admiralty ordered a
prototype of Coles's patented design in 1859, which was installed in the ironclad floating battery,
HMS ''Trusty'', for trials in 1861, becoming the first warship to be fitted with a revolving gun turret. Coles's aim was to create a ship with the greatest possible all round arc of fire, as low in the water as possible to minimise the target.
![HMS captainWilliam Frederick Mitchell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/HMS_captainWilliam_Frederick_Mitchell.jpg)
The Admiralty accepted the principle of the turret gun as a useful innovation, and incorporated it into other new designs. Coles submitted a design for a ship having ten domed turrets each housing two large guns.
The design was rejected as impractical, although the Admiralty remained interested in turret ships and instructed its own designers to create better designs. Coles enlisted the support of
Prince Albert, who wrote to the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, supporting the construction of a turret ship. In January 1862, the Admiralty agreed to construct a ship,
HMS ''Prince Albert'' which had four turrets and a low freeboard, intended only for coastal defence.
![HMS Prince Albert (1864)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/HMS_Prince_Albert_%281864%29.jpg)
While Coles designed the turrets, the ship was the responsibility of Chief Constructor
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts (17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include "When I Survey the ...
.
Another ship using Coles' turret designs, , was completed in August 1864. Its existing broadside guns were replaced with four turrets on a flat deck and the ship was fitted with of armour in a belt around the waterline.
Early ships like the ''Royal Sovereign'' had little sea-keeping qualities being limited to coastal waters.
Sir
Edward James Reed
Sir Edward James Reed, KCB, FRS (20 September 1830 – 30 November 1906) was a British naval architect, author, politician, and railroad magnate. He was the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1863 until 1870. He was a Liberal politicia ...
, went on to design and build
HMS ''Monarch'', the first seagoing warship to carry her guns in turrets. Laid down in 1866 and completed in June 1869, it carried two turrets, although the inclusion of a
forecastle
The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase " be ...
and
poop prevented the turret guns firing fore and aft.
United States: USS ''Monitor''
![USS Monitor plans](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/USS_Monitor_plans.jpg)
The gun turret was independently invented by the Swedish inventor
John Ericsson
John Ericsson (born Johan Ericsson; July 31, 1803 – March 8, 1889) was a Swedish-American inventor. He was active in England and the United States.
Ericsson collaborated on the design of the railroad steam locomotive ''Novelty'', which co ...
in America, while technologically inferior to Coles's version. Ericsson designed in 1861, its most prominent feature being a large cylindrical gun turret mounted
amidships
This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water (mostly though not necessarily on the sea). Some remain current, while many date from the 17th ...
above the low-freeboard upper
hull, also called the "raft". This extended well past the sides of the lower, more traditionally shaped hull.
A small armoured
pilot house
The interior of the bridge of the Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska">RV_Sikuliaq.html" ;"title="Research Vessel ''RV Sikuliaq">Sikuliaq'', docked in Ketchikan, Alaska
file:Wheelhouse of Leao Dos Mares.jpg, Wheelhouse on a tugboat, topp ...
was fitted on the upper deck towards the bow; however, its position prevented ''Monitor'' from firing her guns straight forward. Like Coles's, one of Ericsson's goals in designing the ship was to present the smallest possible target to enemy gunfire.
The turret's rounded shape helped to
deflect
Deflection or deflexion may refer to:
Board games
* Deflection (chess), a tactic that forces an opposing chess piece to leave a square
* Khet (game), formerly ''Deflexion'', an Egyptian-themed chess-like game using lasers
Mechanics
* Deflection ...
cannon shot. A pair of
donkey engine
A steam donkey or donkey engine is a steam-powered winch once widely used in logging, mining, maritime, and other industrial applications.
Steam powered donkeys were commonly found on large metal-hulled multi-masted cargo vessels in the later ...
s rotated the turret through a set of gears; a full rotation was made in 22.5 seconds during testing on 9 February 1862
but fine control of the turret proved to be difficult as the engine would have to be placed in reverse if the turret overshot its mark or another full rotation could be made.
![USSMonitor1862](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/USSMonitor1862.3.ws.jpg)
Including the guns, the turret weighed approximately ; the entire weight rested on an iron
spindle
Spindle may refer to:
Textiles and manufacturing
* Spindle (textiles), a straight spike to spin fibers into yarn
* Spindle (tool), a rotating axis of a machine tool
Biology
* Common spindle and other species of shrubs and trees in genus ''Euony ...
that had to be jacked up using a wedge before the turret was free to rotate.
The spindle was in diameter which gave it ten times the strength needed in preventing the turret from sliding sideways.
When not in use, the turret rested on a brass ring on the deck that was intended to form a watertight seal but in service this proved to leak heavily, despite
caulking
Caulk or, less frequently, caulking is a material used to seal joints or seams against leakage in various structures and piping.
The oldest form of caulk consisted of fibrous materials driven into the wedge-shaped seams between boards on ...
by the crew.
The gap between the turret and the deck proved to be another kind of problem for several s, which used the same turret design, as debris and shell fragments entered the gap and jammed the turrets during the
First Battle of Charleston Harbor in April 1863. Direct hits at the turret with heavy shot also had the potential to bend the spindle, which could also jam the turret.
''Monitor'' was originally intended to mount a pair of
smoothbore
A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.
History
Early firearms had smoothly bored barrels that fired projectiles without signi ...
Dahlgren gun
Dahlgren guns were muzzle-loading naval artillery designed by Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren USN (November 13, 1809 – July 12, 1870), mostly used in the period of the American Civil War. Dahlgren's design philosophy evolved from an accidental e ...
s, but they were not ready in time and guns were substituted,
each gun weighing approximately .
''Monitor''s guns used the standard propellant charge of specified by the 1860 ordnance instructions for targets "distant", "near", and "ordinary", established by the gun's designer Dahlgren himself. They could fire a round shot or shell up to a range of at an elevation of +15°.
Later designs
![Devastation class diagrams Brasseys 1888](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Devastation_class_diagrams_Brasseys_1888.jpg)
(1872) represented the culmination of this pioneering work. An
ironclad turret ship
Turret ships were a 19th-century type of warship, the earliest to have their guns mounted in a revolving gun turret, instead of a broadside arrangement.
Background
Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th century, ...
designed by
Edward James Reed
Sir Edward James Reed, KCB, FRS (20 September 1830 – 30 November 1906) was a British naval architect, author, politician, and railroad magnate. He was the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1863 until 1870. He was a Liberal politicia ...
, she was equipped with revolving turrets that used pioneering hydraulic turret machinery to maneouvre the guns. She was also the world's first mastless
battleship, built with a central
superstructure layout, and became the prototype for all subsequent warships. With her sister of 1871 she was another pivotal design, and led directly to the modern battleship.
The US Navy tried to save weight and deck space, and allow the much faster firing
8-inch to shoot during the long reload time necessary for
12-inch guns by superposing secondary gun turrets directly on top of the primary turrets (as in the and s), but the idea proved to be practically unworkable and was soon abandoned.
With the advent of the s in 1908, the main battery turrets were designed so as to
superfire, to improve fire arcs on centerline mounted weapons. This was necessitated by a need to move all main battery turrets to the vessel's centerline for improved structural support. The 1906 , while revolutionary in many other ways, had retained
wing turrets due to concerns about muzzle blast affecting the sighting mechanisms of a turret below. A similar advancement was in the s and s, which dispensed with the "Q" turret amidships in favour of heavier guns in fewer mountings.
![Quadruple gun mounting in 24 Shop, Elswick Works (26345255273)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Quadruple_gun_mounting_in_24_Shop%2C_Elswick_Works_%2826345255273%29.jpg)
Like
pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protec ...
s, the first dreadnoughts had two guns in each turret; however, later ships began to be fitted with triple turrets. The first ship to be built with triple turrets was the Italian , although the first to be actually commissioned was the Austro-Hungarian of the . By the beginning of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, most battleships used triple or, occasionally, quadruple turrets, which reduced the total number of mountings and improved armour protection. However, quadruple turrets proved to be extremely complex to arrange, making them unwieldy in practice.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 193-06-7-16, Schlachtschiff Bismarck](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Bundesarchiv_Bild_193-06-7-16%2C_Schlachtschiff_Bismarck.jpg)
The largest warship turrets were in World War II battleships where a heavily armoured enclosure protected the large gun crew during battle. The calibre of the main armament on large battleships was typically . The turrets carrying three 460 mm guns of each weighed around 2,500 tonnes. The secondary armament of battleships (or the primary armament of
light cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...
s) was typically between . Smaller ships typically mounted guns of and larger, although these rarely required a turret mounting, except for large destroyers, like the American and the German
''Narvik'' classes.
Layout
![Animated gun turret](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Animated_gun_turret.gif)
In naval terms, ''turret'' traditionally and specifically refers to a gun mounting where the entire mass rotates as one, and has a trunk that projects below the
deck. The rotating part of a turret seen above deck is the gunhouse, which protects the mechanism and crew, and is where the guns are loaded. The gunhouse is supported on a bed of rotating rollers, and is not necessarily physically attached to the ship at the base of the rotating structure. In the case of the
German battleship ''Bismarck'', the turrets were not vertically restrained and fell out when she sank. The
British battlecruiser ''Hood'', like some American battleships, did have vertical restraints.
Below the gunhouse there may be a working chamber, where ammunition is handled, and the main trunk, which accommodates the
shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
** Thin-shell structure
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard o ...
and
propellant hoists that bring ammunition up from the
magazines
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...
below. There may be a combined hoist (''cf'' the animated British turret) or separate hoists (''cf'' the US turret cutaway). The working chamber and trunk rotate with the gunhouse, and sit inside a protective
armoured
Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or f ...
barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.
In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protectio ...
. The barbette extends down to the main armoured deck (red in the animation). At the base of the turret sit handing rooms, where shell and propelling charges are passed from the shell room and magazine to the hoists.
The handling equipment and hoists are complex arrangements of machinery that transport the shells and charges from the magazine into the base of the turret. Bearing in mind that shells can weigh around a
ton
Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.
Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean
* the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds
...
, the hoists have to be powerful and rapid; a 15-inch turret of the type in the animation was expected to perform a complete loading and firing cycle in a minute.
![Iowa 16 inch Gun-EN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Iowa_16_inch_Gun-EN.svg)
The loading system is fitted with a series of
mechanical interlocks that ensure that there is never an open path from the gunhouse to the magazine down which an
explosive flash might pass. Flash-tight doors and scuttles open and close to allow the passage between areas of the turret. Generally, with large-calibre guns, powered or assisted ramming is required to force the heavy shell and charge into the
breech.
As the hoist and breech must be aligned for ramming to occur, there is generally a restricted range of elevations at which the guns can be loaded; the guns return to the loading elevation, are loaded, then return to the target elevation, at which time they are said to be "in battery". The animation illustrates a turret where the rammer is fixed to the cradle that carries the guns, allowing loading to occur across a wider range of elevations.
Earlier turrets differed significantly in their operating principles. It was not until the last of the "rotating drum" designs described in the previous section were phased out that the "hooded barbette" arrangement above became the standard.
Wing turrets
![HMS Dreadnought (1911) profile drawing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/HMS_Dreadnought_%281911%29_profile_drawing.png)
A wing turret is a gun turret mounted along the side, or the wings, of a
warship
A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster ...
, off the centerline.
The positioning of a wing turret limits the gun's arc of fire, so that it generally can contribute to only the
broadside weight of fire on one side of the ship. This is the major weakness of wing turrets as broadsides were the most prevalent type of gunnery duels. Depending on the configurations of ships, such as HMS ''Dreadnought'' but not , the wing turrets could fire fore and aft, so this somewhat reduced the danger when an opponent
crossed the T enabling it to fire a full broadside.
![SMS Von der Tann Brassey's 1913](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/SMS_Von_der_Tann_Brassey%27s_1913.jpg)
Attempts were made to mount turrets ''en echelon'' so that they could fire on either beam, such as the and
battlecruisers, but this tended to cause great damage to the ships' deck from the muzzle blast.
Wing turrets were commonplace on
capital ship
The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet.
Strategic im ...
s and
cruisers during the late 19th century up until the 1910s. In
pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protec ...
battleships, the wing turret contributed to the
secondary battery
A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or pri ...
of sub-calibre weapons. In large
armoured cruisers, wing turrets contributed to the main battery, although the
casemate mounting was more common. At the time, large numbers of smaller calibre guns contributing to the broadside were thought to be of great value in demolishing a ship's upperworks and secondary armaments, as distances of battle were limited by fire control and weapon performance.
![Klasa radetzky](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Klasa_radetzky.png)
In the early 1900s, weapon performance,
armour quality and vessel speeds generally increased along with the distances of engagement; the utility of large secondary batteries reducing as a consequence, and in addition at extreme range it was impossible to see the fall of lesser weapons and so correct the aim. Therefore, most early
dreadnought battleship
The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her ...
s featured "all big gun" armaments of identical calibre, typically 11 or 12 inches, some of which were mounted in wing turrets. This arrangement was not satisfactory, however, as the wing turrets not only had a reduced fire arc for broadsides, but also because the weight of the guns put great strain on the hull and it was increasingly difficult to properly armour them.
Larger and later dreadnought battleships carried superimposed or superfiring turrets (i.e. one turret mounted higher than and firing over those in front of and below it). This allowed all turrets to train on either beam, and increased the weight of fire forward and aft. The superfiring or superimposed arrangement had not been proven until after ''South Carolina'' went to sea, and it was initially feared that the weakness of the previous ship's stacked turrets would repeat itself. Larger and later guns (such as the US Navy's ultimate big gun design, the
16"/50 Mark 7) also could not be shipped in wing turrets, as the strain on the hull would have been too great.
Modern turrets
Many modern surface warships have mountings for large calibre guns, although the calibres are now generally between . The gunhouses are often just weatherproof covers for the gun mounting equipment and are made of light un-armoured materials such as
glass-reinforced plastic. Modern turrets are often automatic in their operation, with no humans working inside them and only a small team passing fixed ammunition into the feed system. Smaller calibre weapons often operate on the
autocannon principle, and indeed may not even be turrets at all; they may just be bolted directly to the deck.
Turret identification
On board warships, each turret is given an identification. In the British
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 ...
, these would be letters: "A" and "B" were for the turrets from the front of the ship backwards in front of the bridge, and letters near the end of the alphabet (i.e., "X", "Y", etc.) were for turrets behind the bridge ship, "Y" being the rearmost. Mountings in the middle of the ship would be "P", "Q", "R", etc. Confusingly, the s had a "Q" and the s had an "X" turret in what would logically be "C" position; the latter being mounted at the main deck level in front of the bridge and behind the "B" turret, thus having restricted training fore and aft.
Secondary turrets were named "P" and "S" (
port
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...
and
starboard) and numbered from fore to aft, e.g. ''P1'' being the forward port turret.
There were exceptions; the battleship
HMS ''Agincourt'' had the uniquely large number of seven turrets. These were numbered "1" to "7" but were unofficially nicknamed "Sunday", Monday", etc. through to "Saturday".
In German use, turrets were generally named "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", going from bow to stern. Usually the
radio alphabet
A spelling alphabet ( also called by various other names) is a set of words used to represent the letters of an alphabet in oral communication, especially over a two-way radio or telephone. The words chosen to represent the letters sound sufficient ...
was used on naming the turrets (e.g. "Anton", "Bruno" or "Berta", "Caesar", "Dora") as on the
German battleship ''Bismarck''.
In the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, main battery turrets are numbered
fore to
aft. Secondary gun mounts are numbered by gun muzzle diameter in inches followed by a second digit indicating the position of the mount, with the second digit increasing fore to aft. Gun mounts not on the centerline would be assigned odd numbers on the port side and even numbers on the starboard side. For example, "Mount 52" would be the forwardmost 5-inch gun mount on the starboard side of the ship.
Aircraft
History
During World War I,
air gunners initially operated guns that were mounted on pedestals or swivel mounts known as
pintles. The latter evolved into the
Scarff ring, a rotating ring mount which allowed the gun to be turned to any direction with the gunner remaining directly behind it, the weapon held in an intermediate elevation by
bungee cord Bungee cords equipped with metal hooks
A bungee cord (sometimes spelled bungle; also known as a shock cord) is an elastic cord composed of one or more elastic strands forming a core, usually covered in a woven cotton or polypropylene sheath. The ...
, a simple and effective mounting for single weapons such as the
Lewis Gun though less handy when twin mounted as with the British
Bristol F.2 Fighter
The Bristol F.2 Fighter is a British First World War two-seat biplane fighter and reconnaissance aircraft developed by Frank Barnwell at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It is often simply called the Bristol Fighter, ''"Brisfit"'' or ''"Bif ...
and German
"CL"-class two-seaters such as the
Halberstadt
Halberstadt ( Eastphalian: ''Halverstidde'') is a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the capital of Harz district. Located north of the Harz mountain range, it is known for its old town center that was greatly destroyed by Allied bomb ...
and
Hannover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
-designed series of compact two-seat combat aircraft. In a failed 1916 experiment, a variant of the
SPAD S.A
The SPAD S.A (also called S.A.L.) was a French two-seat tractor biplane first flown in 1915. It was used by France and Russia in the early stages of the First World War in the fighter and reconnaissance roles. It was a unique aircraft that carrie ...
two-seat fighter was probably the first aircraft to be fitted with a remotely-controlled gun, which was located in a nose
nacelle
A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attached ...
.
As aircraft flew higher and faster, the need for protection from the elements led to the enclosure or shielding of the gun positions, as in the "lobsterback" rear seat of the
Hawker Demon
The Hawker Hart is a British two-seater biplane light bomber aircraft that saw service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed during the 1920s by Sydney Camm and manufactured by Hawker Aircraft. The Hart was a prominent British aircra ...
biplane fighter.
![BP Overstrand](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/BP_Overstrand.jpg)
The first British operational bomber to carry an enclosed, power-operated turret was the British
Boulton & Paul Overstrand
The Boulton Paul P.75 Overstrand was a twin-engine biplane medium bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Boulton Paul. It was the final example of a series of biplane medium bombers that had served in the Royal Air For ...
twin-engined biplane, which first flew in 1933. The Overstrand was similar to its
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
predecessors in that it had open
cockpits and hand-operated defensive machine guns. However, unlike its predecessors, the Sidestrand could fly at 140 mph (225 km/h) making operating the exposed gun positions difficult, particularly in the aircraft's nose. To overcome this problem, the Overstrand was fitted with an enclosed and powered
nose turret, mounting a single
Lewis gun. As such the Overstrand was the first British aircraft to have a power-operated turret. Rotation was handled by
pneumatic motors while elevation and depression of the gun used
hydraulic
Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...
rams. The pilot's cockpit was also enclosed but the dorsal (upper) and ventral (belly) gun positions remained open, though shielded.
![Martin YB-10](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Martin_YB-10.jpg)
The
Martin B-10
The Martin B-10 was the first all-metal monoplane bomber to be regularly used by the United States Army Air Corps, entering service in June 1934.Jackson 2003, p. 246. It was also the first mass-produced bomber whose performance was superior to ...
all-metal
monocoque
Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell".
First used for boats, ...
monoplane bomber introduced turret-mounted defensive armament within the
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...
, almost simultaneously with the RAF's Overstrand biplane bomber design. The Martin XB-10 prototype aircraft first featured the nose turret in June 1932—roughly a year ''before'' the less advanced Overstrand airframe design—and was first produced as the YB-10 service test version by November 1933. The production B-10B version started service with the USAAC in July 1935.
![Pima Air & Space Museum - Aircraft 11](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Pima_Air_%26_Space_Museum_-_Aircraft_11.JPG)
In time the number of turrets carried and the number of guns mounted increased. RAF heavy bombers of World War II such as the
Handley Page Halifax
The Handley Page Halifax is a British Royal Air Force (RAF) four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War. It was developed by Handley Page to the same specification as the contemporary twin-engine Avro Manchester.
The Halifax has its orig ...
(until its
Mk II Series I (Special) version omitted the nose turret),
Short Stirling and
Avro Lancaster typically had three powered turrets: rear, mid-upper and nose. (Early in the war, some British heavy bombers also featured a retractable, remotely-operated
ventral
Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...
(or mid-under) turret). The rear turret mounted the heaviest armament: four
0.303 inch Browning machine guns or, late in the war, two AN/M2 light-barrel versions of the US
Browning M2 machine gun as in the
Rose-Rice turret. The
tail gunner
A tail gunner or rear gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who functions as a gunner defending against enemy fighter or interceptor attacks from the rear, or "tail", of the plane.
The tail gunner operates a flexible machine gun or a ...
or "Tail End Charlie" position was generally accepted to be the most dangerous assignment.
During the World War II era, British turrets were largely self-contained units, manufactured by
Boulton Paul Aircraft
Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd was a British aircraft manufacturer that was incorporated in 1934, although its origins in aircraft manufacturing began earlier in 1914, and lasted until 1961. The company mainly built and modified aircraft under co ...
and
Nash & Thompson
Nash & Thompson was a British engineering firm that developed and produced hydraulically operated gun turrets for aircraft. As part of Parnall Aircraft it was also an important manufacturer of hydraulic-powered radar scanners used on radar sys ...
. The same model of turret might be fitted to several different aircraft types.
Some models included
gun-laying radar that could
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
the target and compensate for
bullet drop
External ballistics or exterior ballistics is the part of ballistics that deals with the behavior of a projectile in flight. The projectile may be powered or un-powered, guided or unguided, spin or fin stabilized, flying through an atmosphere or ...
.
As almost a 1930s "updated" adaptation of the earlier Bristol F.2's concept, the UK introduced the concept of the "turret fighter", with aeroplanes such as the
Boulton Paul Defiant
The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any fixed forward-firing guns ...
and
Blackburn Roc
The Blackburn Roc (company designation B-25) was a naval fighter aircraft designed and produced by the British aviation company Blackburn Aircraft. It took its name from the mythical bird of the tales of the Arabian Nights, the Roc. It was ope ...
where the armament (four 0.303 inch) machineguns was in a turret mounted behind the pilot, rather than in fixed positions in the wings. The Defiant and Roc possessed no fixed, forward-firing automatic ordnance; the World War I-era Bristol F.2 was designed with one synchronized
Vickers machine gun
The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more men to move and o ...
firing forward on a fuselage mount.
The concept came at a time when the standard armament of a fighter was only two machine guns and in the face of heavily armed bombers operating in formation, it was thought that a group of turret fighters would be able to concentrate their fire flexibly on the bombers; making beam, stern and rising attacks practicable. Although the idea had some merits in attacking unescorted bombers the weight and drag penalty of the turret (and gunner) put them at a disadvantage when Germany was able to escort its bombers with fighters from bases in Northern France. By this point British fighters were flying with eight machine guns which concentrated firepower for use in single fleeting attacks of fighters against bombers.
Attempts to put this heavier armament, such as multiple
20 mm cannon in low profile aerodynamic turrets were
explored by the British but were not successful, this class of weapons and heavier armament (up to and including artillery pieces as in the 1,420 examples produced of the American
B-25G and B-25H Mitchell medium bombers, and the experimental
'Tsetse' variant of the de Haviland Mosquito) being exclusively fuselage or underwing-mounted and thus aimed by pointing the aircraft as a whole.
Not all turret designs put the gunner in the turret along with the armament: US and German-designed aircraft both featured remote-controlled turrets.
![B-17G Nose in Detail](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/B-17G_Nose_in_Detail.jpg)
In the US, the large, purpose-built
Northrop P-61 Black Widow
The Northrop P-61 Black Widow is a twin-engine United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft of World War II. It was the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter, and the first aircraft designed specifically as a night figh ...
night fighter
A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...
was produced with a remotely operated
dorsal turret that had a wide range of fire though in practice it was generally fired directly forward under control of the pilot. For the last Douglas-built production blocks of the B-17F (the "B-17F-xx-DL" designated blocks), and for all versions of the
B-17G Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
a twin-gun remotely operated "chin" turret, designed by
Bendix and first used on the experimental
YB-40 "gunship" version of the Fortress, was added to give more forward defence. Specifically designed to be compact and not obstruct the bombardier, this was operated by a swing-away diagonal column possessing a yoke to traverse the turret, and aimed by a reflector sight mounted in the windscreen.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-445-1861-19, Nordafrika, Arbeit an Bordwaffen einer Me 210-410](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-445-1861-19%2C_Nordafrika%2C_Arbeit_an_Bordwaffen_einer_Me_210-410.jpg)
The intended replacement for the German
Bf 110
The Messerschmitt Bf 110, often known unofficially as the Me 110,Because it was built before ''Bayerische Flugzeugwerke'' became Messerschmitt AG in July 1938, the Bf 110 was never officially given the designation Me 110. is a twin-engine (Des ...
heavy fighter, the
Messerschmitt Me 210
The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. Design started before the war, as a replacement for the Bf 110. The first examples were ready in 1939, but they proved to have unacceptably poor ...
, possessed twin half-teardrop-shaped, remotely operated ''Ferngerichtete Drehringseitenlafette'' FDSL 131/1B turrets, one on each side "flank" of the rear fuselage to defend the rear of the aircraft, controlled from the rear area of the cockpit. By 1942, the German
He 177A ''Greif'' heavy bomber would feature a ''Fernbedienbare Drehlafette'' FDL 131Z remotely operated forward dorsal turret, armed with twin 13mm
MG 131 machine gun
The MG 131 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr'' 131, or "Machine gun 131") was a German 13 mm caliber machine gun developed in 1938 by Rheinmetall-Borsig and produced from 1940 to 1945. The MG 131 was designed for use at fixed, flexible ...
s on the top of the fuselage, which was operated from
a hemispherical, clear rotating "astrodome" just behind the cockpit glazing and offset to starboard atop the fuselage—a second, manned powered ''Hydraulische Drehlafette'' HDL 131 dorsal turret, further aft on the fuselage with a single MG 131 was also used on most examples.
The US B-29 Superfortress had four remote controlled turrets, comprising two dorsal and two ventral turrets. These were controlled from a trio of hemispherically glazed gunner-manned "astrodome" sighting stations operated from the pressurised sections in the nose and middle of the aircraft, each housing an
altazimuth mounted pivoting gunsight to aim one or more of the unmanned remote turrets as needed, in addition to a B-17 style flexible manned tail gunner's station.
The defensive turret on bombers fell from favour with the realization that bombers could not attempt heavily defended targets without escort regardless of their defensive armament unless very high loss rates were acceptable, and the performance penalty from the weight and drag of turrets reduced speed, range and payload and increased the number of crew required. The already mentioned British
de Havilland Mosquito light bomber was designed to operate without ''any'' defensive armament and used its speed to avoid engagement with fighters, much as the minimally armed German ''
Schnellbomber
A ''Schnellbomber'' (German; literally "fast bomber") is a bomber that relies upon speed to avoid enemy fighters, rather than relying on defensive armament and armor.
Concept
The concept developed in the 1930s when it was believed that a ver ...
'' aircraft concepts had been meant to do early in World War II.
A small number of aircraft continued to use turrets however—in particular maritime patrol aircraft such as the
Avro Shackleton
The Avro Shackleton is a British long-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) which was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the South African Air Force (SAAF). It was developed by Avro from the Avro Lincoln bomber, which itself had been a develo ...
used one as an offensive weapon against small unarmoured surface targets. The
Boeing B-52
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air ...
jet bomber and many of its contemporaries (particularly Russian) featured a
barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.
In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protectio ...
(a
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
term equivalent to the American usage of the term 'tail gun'), or a "remote turret"—an unmanned turret but often one with a more limited field of fire than a manned equivalent.
Layout
Aircraft carry their turrets in various locations:
*"dorsal" – on top of the
fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraf ...
, sometimes referred to as a mid-upper turret.
*"ventral" – underneath the fuselage, often on US heavy bombers, a
Sperry-designed
ball turret
A ball turret was a spherical-shaped, altazimuth mount gun turret, fitted to some American-built aircraft during World War II. The name arose from the turret's spherical housing.
It was a manned turret, as distinct from remote-controlled turrets ...
.
*"rear" or "tail" – at the very end of the fuselage.
*"nose" – at the front of the fuselage.
*"cheek" – on the flanks of the nose, as single-gun flexible defensive mounts for B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers
*"chin" – below the nose of the aircraft as on later versions of the
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.
*"wing" – a handful of very large aircraft, such as the
Messerschmitt Me 323
The Messerschmitt Me 323 ''Gigant'' ("Giant") was a German military transport aircraft of World War II. It was a powered variant of the Me 321 military glider and was the largest land-based transport aircraft to fly during the war. A total of 21 ...
and the
Blohm & Voss BV 222, had manned turrets in the wings
*"waist" or "beam" – mounted on the sides of the rear fuselage e.g. US twin- and four-engined bombers.
Gallery
File:34bg-b24.jpg, Consolidated B-24J Liberator nose turret
File:Grumman TBM-3E Avenger HB-RDG OTT 2103 13.jpg, Dorsal gun turret on a Grumman TBM Avenger
The Grumman TBF Avenger (designated TBM for aircraft manufactured by General Motors) is an American World War II-era torpedo bomber developed initially for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and eventually used by several air and naval a ...
File:B29 ventral turret.jpg, B-29 remote controlled aft ventral turret
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-668-7197-16, Reichsgebiet, Flugzeug Me 323 Gigant.jpg, Wing turrets of an Me 323
File:Lancaster tail turret.jpg, Avro Lancaster tail turret
File:B52 tail turret.jpg, The tail turret or "barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.
In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protectio ...
" of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
Combat vehicles
History
![Rolls-Royce Armoured Car Bardia 1940](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Rolls-Royce_Armoured_Car_Bardia_1940.jpg)
Amongst the first armoured vehicles to be equipped with a gun turret were the
Lanchester and
Rolls-Royce Armoured Cars, both produced from 1914. The
Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) raised the first British
armoured car squadron during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. In September 1914 all available
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to:
* Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct
Automobiles
* Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
''
Silver Ghost'' chassis were requisitioned to form the basis for the new armoured car. The following month a special committee of the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
Air Department
The Air Department of the British Admiralty later succeeded briefly by the Air Section followed by the Air Division was established prior to World War I by Winston Churchill to administer the Royal Naval Air Service.
History
In 1908, the Bri ...
, among whom was Flight Commander T.G. Hetherington, designed the superstructure which consisted of armoured bodywork and a single fully rotating turret holding a regular water cooled
Vickers machine gun
The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more men to move and o ...
.
However, the first
tracked combat vehicle
A combat vehicle, also known as a ground combat vehicle, is a self-propelled, weaponized military vehicle used for combat operations in mechanized warfare. Combat vehicles can be wheeled or tracked.
History Ancient
The chariot is a type o ...
s were not equipped with turrets due to the problems with getting sufficient trench crossing while keeping the centre of gravity low, and it was not until late in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
that the French
Renault FT
The Renault FT (frequently referred to in post-World War I literature as the FT-17, FT17, or similar) was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first production tank to ...
light tank introduced the single fully rotating turret carrying the vehicle's main armament that continues to be the standard of almost every modern main battle
tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...
and many post-World War II
self-propelled guns. The first turret designed for the FT was a circular, cast steel version almost identical to that of the prototype. It was designed to carry a
Hotchkiss 8mm machine gun. Meanwhile, the
Berliet
Berliet was a French manufacturer of automobiles, buses, trucks and military vehicles among other vehicles based in Vénissieux, outside of Lyon, France. Founded in 1899, and apart from a five-year period from 1944 to 1949 when it was put into 'a ...
Company produced a new design, a polygonal turret of riveted plate, which was simpler to produce than the early cast steel turret. It was given the name "omnibus", since it could easily be adapted to mount either the Hotchkiss machine gun or the Puteaux 37mm with its telescopic sight. This turret was fitted to production models in large numbers.
In the 1930s, several nations produced
multi-turreted tanks—probably influenced by the experimental British
Vickers A1E1 Independent
The Independent A1E1 is a multi- turreted tank that was designed by the British armaments manufacturer Vickers between the First and Second World Wars. Although it only ever reached the prototype stage and only a single example was built, it i ...
of 1926. Those that saw combat during the early part of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
performed poorly and the concept was soon dropped. Combat vehicles without turrets, with the main armament mounted in the hull, or more often in a completely enclosed, integral armored
casemate as part of the main hull, saw extensive use by both the German (as ''
Sturmgeschütz'' and ''
Jagdpanzer
''Jagdpanzer'' (JgPz) is the name given in German to a heavily-armoured, tracked tank destroyer, although it may also be used for other kinds of self-propelled guns. Literally translated from German, ''Jagdpanzer'' is "hunting tank".
It typ ...
'' vehicles) and Soviet (as ''
Samokhodnaya Ustanovka'' vehicles) armored forces during World War II as
tank destroyers and
assault guns. However, post-war, the concept fell out of favour due to its limitations, with the Swedish
Stridsvagn 103 'S-Tank' and the German
Kanonenjagdpanzer
The Kanonenjagdpanzer (''KanJPz''; also known as Jagdpanzer Kanone 90mm, "tank destroyer, gun 90mm") was a West German Cold War tank destroyer. Its design was very similar to that of the World War II Jagdpanzer IV.
History
The first prototypes ...
being exceptions.
Layout
![FT-17-argonne-1918](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/FT-17-argonne-1918.gif)
In modern tanks, the turret is armoured for crew protection and rotates a full 360 degrees carrying a single large-calibre
tank gun
A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are high-velocity, large-caliber artilleries capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high-explosive anti-tank, and cannon-launched guided projectiles. Anti-aircraft guns can a ...
, typically in the range of 105 mm to 125 mm calibre.
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...
s may be mounted inside the turret, which on modern tanks is often on a "coaxial" mount, parallel with the larger main gun.
Early designs often featured multiple weapons mounts. This concept was carried forwards into the early interwar years in Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union, arguably reaching its most absurd expression in the British
Vickers A1E1 Independent
The Independent A1E1 is a multi- turreted tank that was designed by the British armaments manufacturer Vickers between the First and Second World Wars. Although it only ever reached the prototype stage and only a single example was built, it i ...
tank, though this attempt was soon abandoned while the Soviet Union's similar effort produced a
'land battleship' which was actually produced and fought in defence of the Soviet Union.
In modern tanks, the turret houses all the crew except the driver (who is located in the hull). The crew located in the turret typically consist of tank commander, gunner, and often a gun loader (except in tanks that have an
autoloader
An autoloader or auto-loader is a mechanical aid or replacement for the personnel that load ordnance into crew-served weapons without being an integrated part of the gun itself. The term is generally only applied to larger weapons, such as nava ...
), while the driver sits in a separate compartment with a dedicated entry and exit, though often one that allows the driver to exit via the turret basket (fighting compartment).
For other combat vehicles, the turrets are equipped with other weapons dependent on role. An
infantry fighting vehicle may carry a smaller calibre gun or an
autocannon, or an
anti-tank missile launcher, or a combination of weapons. A modern self-propelled gun mounts a large artillery gun but less armour. Lighter vehicles may carry a one-man turret with a single machine gun, occasionally the same model being shared with other classes of vehicle, such as the
Cadillac Gage
Textron Marine & Land Systems, formerly Cadillac Gage, is an American military contractor that manufactures armored vehicles, turrets, advanced marine craft, surface effects ships, and other weapon systems. It is owned by Textron, and was formed i ...
T50 turret/weapons station.
The size of the turret is a factor in combat vehicle design. One dimension mentioned in terms of turret design is "turret ring diameter" which is the size of the aperture in the top of the chassis into which the turret is seated.
Land fortifications
In 1859, the
Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom were in the process of recommending a huge programme of
fortification
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere' ...
s to protect Britain's naval bases. They interviewed Captain Coles, who had bombarded Russian fortifications during the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
, however Coles repeatedly lost his temper during the discussion and the commissioners failed to ask him about the gun turret that he had patented earlier in that year, with the result that none of the
Palmerston Forts
The Palmerston Forts are a group of forts and associated structures around the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The forts were built during the Victorian period on the recommendations of the 1860 Royal Commission on the Defence of the ...
mounted turrets. Eventually, the
Admiralty Pier Turret
The Admiralty Pier Turret, or Dover Turret, is an enclosed armoured turret built in 1882 on the western breakwater of Dover Harbour in southeast England. It contains two Fraser RML 16 inch 80 ton guns, the biggest installed in the United Kingdom. ...
at
Dover was commissioned in 1877 and completed in 1882.
In continental Europe, the invention of
high explosive
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ...
shells in 1885 threatened to make all existing fortifications obsolete; a partial solution was the protection of fortress guns in armoured turrets. Pioneering designs were produced by Commandant
Henri-Louis-Philippe Mougin in France and Captain
Maximilian Schumann in Germany. Mougin's designs were incorporated in a new generation of
polygonal fort
A polygonal fort is a type of fortification originating in France in the late 18th century and fully developed in Germany in the first half of the 19th century. Unlike earlier forts, polygonal forts had no bastions, which had proved to be vulnerabl ...
s constructed by
Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières
Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières (20 May 1815 – 16 February 1895) was a French military engineer and general whose ideas revolutionized the design of fortifications in France. He gave his name to the Séré de Rivières system of fortificatio ...
in France and
Henri Alexis Brialmont
Henri-Alexis Brialmont (Venlo, 25 May 1821 – Brussels, 21 July 1903), nicknamed The Belgian Vauban after the French military architect, was a Belgian army officer, politician and writer of the 19th century, best known as a military archi ...
in Belgium. Developed versions of Schumann's turrets were employed after his death in the
fortifications of Metz
The fortifications of Metz, a city in northeastern France, are extensive, due to the city's strategic position near the border of France and Germany. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the area was annexed by the newly created German Empire in ...
. In 1914, the Brialmont forts in the
Battle of Liège
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and for ...
proved unequal to the German
"Big Bertha" 42 cm siege howitzers, which were able to penetrate the turret armour and smash turret mountings.
![Fort Drum DN-SN-83-09891](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Fort_Drum_DN-SN-83-09891.JPEG)
Elsewhere, armoured turrets, sometimes described a
cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, fro ...
s, were incorporated into
coastal artillery
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications.
From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of ...
defences. An extreme example was
Fort Drum
Fort Drum is a U.S. Army military reservation and a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, on the northern border of New York, United States. The population of the CDP portion of the base was 12,955 at the 2010 census. It is home ...
, the "concrete battleship", near
Corregidor,
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
; this mounted four huge
14-inch guns in two naval pattern turrets and was the only permanent turreted fort ever constructed by the United States.
[Hogg. p. 116] Between the wars, improved turrets formed the offensive armament of the
Maginot Line forts in France. During the Second World War, some of the artillery pieces in the
Atlantic Wall fortifications, such as the
Cross-Channel guns, were large naval guns housed in turrets.
Some nations, from
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
to Switzerland and Austria, have embedded the turrets of obsolete tanks in concrete bunkers, while others have constructed or updated fortifications with modern artillery systems, such as the
1970s era Swedish coastal artillery battery on
Landsort Island.
Gallery
File:DoverTurret2.jpg, The Admiralty Pier Turret
The Admiralty Pier Turret, or Dover Turret, is an enclosed armoured turret built in 1882 on the western breakwater of Dover Harbour in southeast England. It contains two Fraser RML 16 inch 80 ton guns, the biggest installed in the United Kingdom. ...
was built to protect the port of Dover in 1882.
File:Forte de Copacabana 07.jpg, A German built 190 mm gun turret at Fort Copacabana
Fort Copacabana ( pt, Forte de Copacabana, ) is a military base at the south end of the beach that defines the district of Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. The base is open to the public and contains the ''Museu Histórico do Exército'' (Army Historic ...
in Brazil, completed in 1914.
File:Maginot2ix.jpg, Turret of the Maginot Line; this could retract into the ground when not firing, for added protection.
File:305 52 O2 Kuivasaari.JPG, A twin 305 mm gun turret at Kuivasaari
Kuivasaari (''Torra Mjölö'' in Swedish) is a Finnish island in the Gulf of Finland, near Helsinki.
Kuivasaari is located some out into the Gulf of Finland, due south of Helsinki city centre, and was for many years the outermost inhabited i ...
, Finland, completed in 1935.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-364-2314-16A, Atlantikwall, Batterie "Lindemann".jpg, One of three 40.6cm guns at Batterie "Lindemann", a German Cross-Channel gun.
File:12 cm tornautomatpjäs m70.JPG, alt= A ground mounted turret, 12 cm tornautomatpjäs m/70
The 12 cm tornautomatpjäs m/70 ("12 cm automatic turret gun model 1970"), also known as ERSTA (''Ersättning Tungt Artilleri'' or "Replacement Heavy Artillery") was developed to defend vital points like seaports from enemy landing ships ...
developed to defend vital points like seaports from enemy landing ships, as well as area denial and fire support, even on a nuclear battlefield.
See also
*
Barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.
In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protectio ...
*
Casemate
*
Director (military)
A director, also called an auxiliary predictor, is a mechanical or electronic computer that continuously calculates trigonometric firing solutions for use against a moving target, and transmits targeting data to direct the weapon firing crew.
...
*
Gun carriage
*
Gun mount
A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, ...
*
Gun shield
*
Rangefinder
A rangefinder (also rangefinding telemeter, depending on the context) is a device used to measure distances to remote objects. Originally optical devices used in surveying, they soon found applications in other fields, such as photography an ...
*
Remote weapon system
A remote controlled weapon station (RCWS), or remote weapon station (RWS), also known as a remote weapon system (RWS), is a remotely operated weaponized system often equipped with fire-control system for light and medium-caliber weapons which can ...
*
Sponson
Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing.
Watercraft
On watercraft, a spon ...
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
Air Gunnery November 1943
Popular Science article on aircraft turrets
''Flight'' article on aircraft gun turrets amongst others
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gun Turret
Weapon turrets
Projectile weapons
Fortification (architectural elements)