Gun Batteries

In military science, a battery is a unit of artillery guns, mortars, or rockets, so grouped in order to facilitate battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion. The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. more...

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Land usage

On land, batteries are usually grouped in larger units sometimes called battalions, which are further grouped into regiments or brigades, which may be artillery or combined arms.

Historically the term 'battery' referred to a group of 'guns' in action, typically besieging a fortress or town. Such batteries could be a mixture of types of guns, howitzers or mortars. A siege could involve many batteries. The term also came to be used for a group of guns in a fixed fortification, for coastal or frontier defence, and for the placement of guns in a temporary field position during a battle. During the 18th Century 'battery' started being used as an organizational term for a permanent unit of artillery in peace and war. By the late 19th Century this use had become normal and mostly replaced earlier terms for artillery units such as company or troop.

Around the middle of the 19th Century some armies started grouping their batteries into larger field units. Previously groups of batteries, etc, were grouped for administrative purposes not field deployment. The term adopted for the field group of batteries has varied between armies and periods. They include 'battalion', 'field brigade', 'group' and 'regiment'. To further confuse the issue some armies have at various times grouped artillery battalions or regiments into 'regiments', 'groups' or 'brigades', and in a few cases 'artillery brigades' have been grouped into 'artillery divisions'. Coastal artillery sometimes had completely different organizational terms.

Batteries also have sub-divisions. These too vary across armies and periods. They include 'platoon' or 'troop'. Individual guns may be called a 'section', or 'sub-section' where a section comprises two guns.

The rank of a battery commander has also varied, but is usually a captain or major.

The number of guns, howitzers, mortars or launchers in an organizational battery has also varied. The calibre of guns has usually been an important consideration. In the 19th Century 4 or 6 guns was usual. In the 20th it has varied between 1 and 12 for field artillery. Other types of artillery such as anti-tank or anti-aircraft have sometimes been larger. Some batteries have been 'dual-equipped' with two different types of gun or mortar, and taking whichever was most appropriate when they deployed for operations.

During the American Civil War, artillery batteries often consisted of six field pieces for the Union Army and four for the Confederate States Army, although this varied. Batteries were divided into sections of two guns apiece, each section normally under the command of a lieutenant. The full battery was typically commanded by a captain. Often, particularly as the war progressed, individual batteries were grouped into battalions under a major or colonel of artillery. See Field Artillery in the American Civil War.

Read more at Wikipedia.org