Talk:Box battery

First days of gunpowder artillery at sea

Are we certain about black powder artillery being carried on broadside aboard warship from the very first days of it being used at sea? Did galleys in the Mediterranean, armed with cannon and swivel guns in varying mixtures, not tend to carry the heavier pieces at the bow? This would constitute a bow battery, not broadside arrangement, surely? Even given that lighter swivel guns were mounted along the rails above the thwarts?

It was my understanding that oared warships (a type in common use at the start of the medieval period) only really adopted broadside batteries of heavier ordnance for anti-ship work with the advent of the Renaissance galleass. Were heavily broadside-armed sailing vessels already in use much before this? what was the state of armament of ships like caravels at the time? Had these or Naos/carracks yet appeared when the galley to galleass development was occurring?

In short, can we be absolutely certain that our opening is correct and not unintentionally erroneous or misleading?

Edit: Wiki's article on 'Galley' contains the line "They were the first ships to effectively use heavy cannons as anti-ship weapons", which seems to be a strong claim in the other direction to this article's assertion. Where do we stand on this? 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:3063:2CFA:2CBB:6B4C (talk) 00:35, 12 November 2022 (UTC)