The term gun deck used to refer to a deck aboard a

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

that was primarily used for the mounting of

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

to be fired in

broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...

s. The term is generally applied to decks enclosed under a roof; smaller and unrated vessels carried their guns on the

upper deck The Upper Deck Company, LLC (colloquially as Upper Deck and Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd. in the UK), founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards. Its headquarters are in Carlsbad, California, United State ...

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

quarterdeck The quarterdeck is a raised deck behind the main mast of a sailing ship. Traditionally it was where the captain commanded his vessel and where the ship's colours were kept. This led to its use as the main ceremonial and reception area on bo ...

, and these were not described as gun decks.Knight, p 798Cutler, p 107

Slang

The term "gun decking" is also navy slang for fabricating or falsifying something. A possible explanation relates to

midshipmen A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Afr ...

retiring to the gun deck to complete their

celestial navigation Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space (or on the surface of ...

assignments of computing the ship's position three times daily following morning star sights, noon sun line, and evening star sights. While some midshipmen might be conscientious about computing positions from new observations, others were reputed to

extrapolate In mathematics, extrapolation is a type of estimation, beyond the original observation range, of the value of a variable on the basis of its relationship with another variable. It is similar to interpolation, which produces estimates between know ...

and back calculate observation data from

dead reckoning In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and then incorporating estimates of speed, heading direction, and course over elapsed time. ...

courses and speeds since earlier observations, and the computations performed on the gun deck were suspect.Origin of Navy Terminology This term is now used to indicate the falsification of documentation in order to avoid doing the work or make present conditions seem otherwise acceptable.

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* * * Ship compartments {{navy-stub

Slang

See also

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