Casemate

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Casemate

A casemate, sometimes rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, originally a vaulted chamber in a fortress. The word comes from the Italian casamatta, meaning "armed house", with the origins being in the words for "casa" (house) and "matta" (dull, dark or dim). In civilian use a casemate may be a tunnel cut into a rock face with armour

Armour

Armour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat....
ed doors, used for storing volatile goods.

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Armour

Cornice

The term cornice comes from Italian cornice, meaning ?ledge.?Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding which crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal....
.

In naval gunnery a casemate is a vertical armour plate with openings for guns. It is less protected than a gun turret

Gun turret

A gun turret is a device that protects the crew or mechanism of a artillery and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions....
and allows for a smaller field of fire. It is however much cheaper in terms of money and far lighter in weight for a given level of armor protection.

The American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several Naming the American Civil War, was a civil war in the United States....
saw the use of casemate ironclads: steel-built or armored steamboats with a very low freeboard

Freeboard

Freeboard or FREEBOARD may refer to: * Sporting Goods. The six-wheeled skateboard which acts like a snowboard .* Nautical....
and their guns on the main deck ('Casemate deck') protected by a sloped armored casemate. Although both sides of the civil war used casemate ironclads, the ship is mostly associated with the southern confederacy

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America formed as the government set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven Southern United States U.S. state of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S....
, the north more relying on turretted monitor

Monitor (warship)

A monitor was a type of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns and was used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of the World War II....
s. The most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads

Battle of Hampton Roads

The Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as the Battle of Monitor and Merrimack , was the most noted and arguably the most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies....
between the Union

Union (American Civil War)

During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the Federal government of the United States of the United States, which was supported by the twenty-three states which were not part of the secession attempt by the 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America....
turretted ironclad USS Monitor

USS Monitor

USS Monitor was the first ironclad warship warship commissioned by the United States Navy. She is most famous for her participation in the first-ever naval battle between two ironclad warships, the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862 during the American Civil War, in which Monitor fought the ironclad CSS Virginia of the Confedera...
and the Confederate

Confederate States of America

Casemate ironclad

The casemate ironclad is a type of iron or iron-armored gunboat briefly used in the American Civil War. Compared to the traditional ironclad warship, the casemate ironclad does not have its cannons in an armored gun deck, but instead has a casemate structure on the main deck housing the guns....
CSS Virginia

CSS Virginia

CSS Virginia was a steam-powered Floating battery design ironclad warship of the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War .She was one of the participants in the Battle of Hampton Roads in March, 1862 opposite the USS Monitor....
(built from the scuttled remains of the Merrimack

USS Merrimack (1855)

USS Merrimack was a frigate of the United States Navy, best known as the hulk upon which CSS Virginia was built during the American Civil War and then took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads ....
)

In 20th century battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily armour warship with a main artillery battery consisting of the largest calibre of guns. Battleships were larger, better armed, and better armored than cruisers and destroyers....
s, casemates were used to mount secondary guns for defending the ship against torpedo boat

Torpedo boat

A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast navy ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Torpedo#Self-propelled torpedoeses....
s. In practice, these guns were generally quite useless; usually mounted close to the water, casemate guns were often awash in spray, and sometimes swamped completely by the ship's rolling. More modern designs did away with casemate weapons entirely, favoring extra topside turret mounts for their secondary batteries.

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, most purpose-built Nazi German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
and Soviet Red Army

Red Army

The Red Army was the armed force first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918 and, in 1922, became the army of the Soviet Union....
tank destroyers and self-propelled guns essentially had turretless, armored steel casemates mounted onto (or built integrally into) conventional main battle tank chassis to carry heavier, forward firing guns—the German vehicles were dubbed Jagdpanzer
Jagdpanzer

Jagdpanzer , German language: "Hunting tank", is a name for Germany tank destroyers.It typically refers to anti-tank variants of existing tank chassis with a well-armoured casemate fixed superstructure, mounting an anti-tank gun with limited traverse in the front....
and Panzerjäger
Panzerjäger

Panzerj?ger are Nazi Germany armoured fighting vehicles of the World War II....
respectively, while their Soviet counterparts all bore an "SU-" prefix in their designations.

Casemate

See also