This March 1984 All Hands Magazine spread surveys the long arc of naval firepower, from the bronze-beaked galleys of ancient Greece and Rome through the towering broadside fleets of the age of sail, to the rifled turret guns, guided missiles, and electronic fire-control systems of the modern U.S. Navy. The feature illustrates how each era reshaped naval tactics to match its weapons, and how the drive for ever-greater range, accuracy, and hitting power has remained the constant thread running through three thousand years of sea warfare.
The article traces that progression era by era: the ram and boarding tactics of the oared galleys at Salamis and Actium; the shipboard catapults and Greek fire of the Byzantine dromon; the first shipboard cannon of the late Middle Ages; the broadside sailing man-of-war that ruled from the Spanish Armada through Trafalgar; the ironclad and the revolving turret introduced by Monitor and Merrimack in the Civil War; the all-big-gun dreadnought battleship and its long-range rifled main battery; and finally the aircraft carrier, the guided missile, and the electronic fire-control and radar systems that define the firepower of the modern fleet. The two scanned pages below reproduce the original All Hands feature in full — click either image to enlarge it for reading.
Click to enlarge
