SKU: broadside

In Naval terms, a broadside is the simultaneous firing of all guns on one side of the ship.  In actual combat this in fact rarely happened after the initial salvo had been fired.  The differences in target bearings, gun crew efficiencies, accumulated combat damage, roll rates and many other factors such as visibility and casualties affected the rate of fire.  However, the effects of an opening broadside could be devastating and Royal Navy gun crews were masters of this technique.  the combined weight of the cannonballs fired in a single broadside was also used as a gauge to measure the firing power of any given vessel.  Pictured is HMS Ambuscade.