Wing turret
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A wing turret is a gun turret so mounted along the side, or the wings, or a warship, off of the centreline. The positioning of a wing turret limits its arc of fire, so that it generally can contribute to only the broadside weight of fire. This is the major weakness of wing turrets. Attempts were made to mount wing turrets en echelon so that they could fire on either beam, but this tended to cause great damage to the ships deck from the gun blast.
Wing turrets were commonplace on capital ships and cruisers during the late 1800s up until the early 1910s. In pre-dreadnought battleships, the wing turret contributed to the secondary battery of sub-calibre weapons. In large armoured cruisers, wing turrets contributed to the main battery, although the casemate mounting was more common. At the time, large numbers of smaller calibre guns contributing to the broadside were thought to be of great value in demolishing a ships upperworks and secondary armaments, as distances of battle were limited by fire control and weapon performance.
In the early 1900s, weapon performance, armour quality and vessel speeds generally increased along with the distances of engagement; the utility of large secondary batteries reducing as a consequence. Therefore, the early dreadnought battleships featured "all big gun" armaments of 11 or 12 inches calibre, some of which were shipped in wing turrets. This arrangement was not satisfactory, however, as with the huge weight of big gun turrets, those on the wing with limited training were an expensive luxury of limited utility . Larger and later dreadnought battleships carried superfiring turrets (i.e one turret mounted higher than, and firing over, that in front and below it). This allowed all turrets to train on either beam, and increased the weight of fire forward and aft.
