General Quarters or Battle Stations is an announcement made aboard a naval warship to signal the crew to prepare for battle or imminent damage.
When the call to General Quarters (GQ) is made, the crew prepares the ship to join battle. Off-duty or sleeping crewmembers report to their stations and prepare for action. Watertight doors between bulkheads are shut and security is increased around sensitive areas such as the bridge and engineering rooms.
While the term 'General Quarters' is used in navies such as the United States Navy, other navies, such as the Royal Navy use the term 'Action Stations'. In French, the term is Aux postes de combat ("to combat stations"), and used to be branle-bas de combat, literally meaning that sleeping hammocks should be cleared off the gun deck, rolled, and stowed on the upper deck of the ship as protection against musket fire. The German Navy uses the term "Gefechtsstationen", meaning literally "battle stations". In Spanish the expression is "Zafarrancho de combate" (literally, "prepare stations to combat"). The Dutch Koninklijke Marine use "Gevechtswacht op post!" ("Combatants to stations").
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In modern navies, a call to General Quarters is made over the ship's intercom system. It is a time to pass news and information from higher ranking sailors to lower ranking ones.
Historically, a drum pattern called the beat to quarters was played to signal the crew. This involved clearing the main gun deck(s) by taking all extraneous gear and equipment and stowing it down in the hold. All the cannons were primed with gunpowder and loaded with the proper type of ammunition (roundshot, chainshot, barshot, canister shot/caseshot, or grapeshot). It was common during times of war for all ships to beat to quarters shortly before dawn, as enemies might be sighted during sunrise. Drum beats were replaced in the 20th Century by klaxons or bells.
General Quarters, or Beating to Quarters, is called whenever the ship or crew may face danger beyond what is necessarily expected of them in a life at sea. Quarters are called during storms, battles, and random sightings in the fog. The general philosophy is that of preparedness. If a ship is to face the danger of the elements and should happen upon an enemy, it is much better to be prepared.
All crew members are assigned their general quarters upon being accepted as a crewmember aboard even a modern naval vessel. When GQ is called, all crewmembers must drop and stow what they are doing and report to the general-quarters station. Then a roll is called and duties are assigned according to the situation requiring the GQ alarm.
The original bell signal for Beating to Quarters was a rapidly rung bell 5 times, at 5 second repeats. Today, the GQ alarm is a rapidly repeating electronic klaxon bell rung in the same or a similar manner. There are different klaxon signals for different conditions. For example, a chemical-warfare signal (requiring the crew to don gas masks) is a high-pitched solid whistle in the United States Navy, and a klaxon indicates combat stations, battle ensuing. The original "Beat to Quarters" drum signal was a three-second drum roll with two beats in between the rolls, i.e., tap tap roll tap tap roll, etc.