Main battery

With the evolution of technology the term has come to encompass guided missiles and torpedoes as a warship's principal offensive weaponry, deployed both on surface ships and submarines.

Between the age of sail and its cannons and the dreadnought era of large iron warships fighting ships' weapons deployments lacked standardization, with a variety of naval rifles of mixed breach and caliber scattered throughout vessels.

As air superiority became all-important early in World War II, weight of broadside fell by the wayside as a vessel's principal fighting asset.

Anti-aircraft batteries of scores of small-caliber rapid-fire weapons came to supplant big guns even on large warships assigned to protect vital fast carrier task forces.

At sea, ships such as small, fast destroyers assigned to convoy protection, essential in the transport of the enormous stock of materials required for land war particularly in the European Theater, came to rely more on depth charge projectors.