Embrasures

Variations

On warships of the late 1860s and onwards to the First World War, the sides of a ship's hull might be recessed in locations near to a gun mounted in the hull. These recesses were also termed embrasures and were intended to allow a wider arc of fire than a standard broadside arrangement would otherwise permit. Central-battery ironclads like HMS Hercules featured such embrasures for fore and aft fire from the amidships battery's end guns. Later ironclads like HMS Alexandra featured embrasures which were 'open to the sky' in that they had no overhanging structure above the recessed area. This 'open-topped' embrasure became the standard arrangement for many cruisers and battleships of the pre-WW1 period. Once hull-mounted broadside weapons disappeared from the world's navies, so did the term.