A salvo is the simultaneous discharge of
artillery or
firearm
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
s including the firing of
guns either to hit a target or to perform a
salute. As a tactic in
warfare, the intent is to cripple an enemy in one blow and prevent them from fighting back.
Overview
Troops armed with
muzzleloader
A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern (higher tech and harder to make) design ...
s required time to refill their
arms
Arms or ARMS may refer to:
*Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body
Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to:
People
* Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader
Coat of arms or weapons
*Armaments or weapons
**Fi ...
with
gunpowder and
shot
Shot may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Shot'' (album), by The Jesus Lizard
*''Shot, Illusion, New God'', an EP by Gruntruck
*''Shot Rev 2.0'', a video album by The Sisters of Mercy
* "Shot" (song), by The Rasmus
* ''Shot'' (2017 fi ...
. Gun drills were designed to enable an almost continuous rain of fire on the enemy by lining troops into
ranks, allowing one rank to fire a salvo, or volley, while the other ranks prepared their guns for firing.
The term is commonly used to describe the firing of
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 by
warships, especially
battleships
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
. During fleet engagements in the days of sail, from 17th century until the 19th century,
ships of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colum ...
were maneuvered with the objective of bringing the greatest possible number of cannon to bear on the enemy and to discharge them in a salvo, causing enough damage and confusion as to allow time for the cannon to be swabbed out and reloaded.
Crossing the T
Crossing the ''T'' or capping the ''T'' is a classic naval warfare tactic used from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries in which a line of warships crosses in front of a line of enemy ships to allow the crossing line to bring all their guns ...
entailed cutting across the enemy's
line of battle
The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tacti ...
to enable
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 to be fired through the enemy's
bow or
stern
The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...
along the whole length of the ship, with every shot likely to cause the maximum carnage. The opportunity was a passing one and the most had to be made of it.
With the coming of
HMS ''Dreadnought'', with her
turreted main armament, the heavy guns were directed by firing a salvo of half-broadside in order to observe the fall of shot, allowing enough time to adjust for range and direction before firing the other half-broadside. This way, shells were kept in flight while each half-battery was reloaded. Reloading a battleship guns, arriving at a firing solution and lining the guns up to fire took as long as 30 seconds, especially when the fall of shot needed to be observed and corrections made before firing again. A target ship moving at traveled in 30 seconds, and would often maneuver to "spoil" the range measurement. The "spread" of the salvo would have one shot fire "over" the estimated range, one shot "under", and two on the estimated range. When a four-shot "salvo" "straddled" the target with one splashing over, one splashing under and two landing on or near the target, fire control officers knew they had the correct range. All
turret-mounted guns on
battleships
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
and
cruisers were directed by the gunnery officer, positioned high in the ship and equipped with a visual
rangefinder and other mechanisms for directing fire. Instructions to the
gunlayers in the turrets were passed by
voice pipe,
messenger
''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...
and, later, by
telephone. Guns could also be laid by
remote control by the gunnery director, with the appropriate technology. Late in
World War II, guns were directed by
radar.
See also
{{Wiktionary
*
List of multiple-barrel firearms
Below is a list of multiple-barrel firearms of all forms from around the world.Small Arms Illustrated, 2010
Pistols
Rifles
Flare launchers
Less lethal
Automatic rifles
Submachine guns
Shotguns
Machine guns
Grenade launchers
S ...
*
Barrage (artillery)
*
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 ...
*
Fusillade
*
Volley fire
*
Gast Gun
*
Meroka CIWS
*
Metal Storm Limited
Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia, that specialized in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owned the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology ...
*
MRSI
*
Nordenfelt gun
*
Project SALVO
The Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) was a long-running United States Army program to develop, in part, a workable flechette-firing "rifle", though other concepts were also involved. The concepts continued to be tested under the Future Ri ...
*
Volley gun
References
Naval artillery
Salvo weapons