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[[Image:FNLave1854.jpg|thumb|French Navy ironclad floating battery ''[[Lave]]'', 1854. This [[Dévastation-class ironclad floating battery|ironclad]], together with the similar ''Tonnante'' and ''Dévastation'', vanquished Russian land batteries at the [[Battle of Kinburn (1855)]].]]▼
{{more citations needed|date=September 2016}}
[[Image:DevastationClassCrimeanWinter1855-1856.JPG|thumb|Ironclad floating battery of the [[Dévastation class ironclad floating battery|Dévastation class]], spending the winter in Crimea, winter of 1855–1856]]▼
[[File:Wash drawing of a floating artillery battery.jpg|alt=Wash drawing of a floating battery. On the battery are a number of cannon and mortars as well as multiple artillery men.|thumb|Wash drawing of a floating artillery battery from the 18th century.]]
[[Image:PaixhanFloatingBatteries.jpg|thumb|The floating battery ''[[Paixhans]]'' (1862), designed for war in [[Cochinchina]]]]▼
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[[File:Arrogante 1864.jpg|thumb|French armoured floating battery ''Arrogante'' (1864)]]
A '''floating battery''' is a kind of armed watercraft, often improvised or experimental, which carries a heavy armament but has few other qualities as a [[warship]].▼
▲A '''floating battery''' is a kind of armed watercraft, often improvised or experimental, which carries
An early appearance was during the [[Great Siege of Gibraltar]], and its invention and usage is attributed to Spanish lieutenant general [[Antonio Barceló]].▼
== History ==
A purpose-built floating battery was ''Flådebatteri No. 1'',<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.orlogsbasen.dk/tegn/106-2000.jpg | title = Orlogsbasen | place = [[Denmark |DK]] | format = JPEG}}.</ref> designed by Chief Engineer [[Henrik Gerner]] in 1787; it was 47 m long, 13 m wide and armed with 24 guns, and was used during the 1801 battle of Copenhagen under command of [[Peter Willemoes]]. The British made limited use of floating batteries during the [[French Revolutionary Wars|French Revolutionary]] and [[Napoleonic Wars]], with the two-vessel [[Musquito-class floating battery| ''Musquito'']] and [[Firm class floating battery|''Firm'']]-class floating batteries, and some individual vessels.▼
Use of [[Timber rafting|timber rafts]] loaded with cannon by Danish defenders of Copenhagen against bomb ketches of a combined British-Dutch-Swedish fleet is attested by Nathaniel Uring in 1700.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Uring, Nathaniel. |title=A History of the Voyages and Travels of Captain Nathaniel Uring. |publisher=W Wilkens for J Peele, Pater-noster Row, London 1726. |pages=26}}</ref>
In 1727, Spanish engineer Juan de Ochoa proposed King [[Philip V of Spain|Philip V]] his project of the ''barcaza-espín'' ("barge-porcupine"), heavily armored floating batteries moved by rows and fitted with multiple [[naval ram|ram]]s. The end of the [[Anglo-Spanish War (1727–1729)|Anglo-Spanish War]], however, buried the project without it being ever implemented.<ref>{{cite book|title=Disquisiciones náuticas, tomo 1|authorlink=Cesáreo Fernández Duro|last=Fernández Duro|first=Cesáreo|year=1876|publisher=Michigan University}}</ref>
▲An early appearance was
▲A purpose-built floating battery was ''Flådebatteri No. 1'',<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.orlogsbasen.dk/tegn/106-2000.jpg | title = Orlogsbasen | place = [[Denmark
The most notable floating batteries were built or designed in the 19th century, and are related to the development of the first steam warship and the [[ironclad warship]].
''[[Demologos]]'', the first steam-propelled warship, was a floating battery designed for the protection of [[New York Harbor]] in the [[War of 1812]].
In the 1850s, the British and French navies deployed iron-armoured floating batteries as a supplement to the wooden steam battlefleet in the [[Crimean War]]. The role of the battery was to assist unarmoured mortar and gunboats bombarding shore fortifications. The French used their batteries in 1855 against the defenses at [[Battle of Kinburn (1855)|Kinburn]] on the [[Black Sea]], where they were effective against Russian shore defences. The British planned to use theirs in the [[Baltic Sea]] against [[Kronstadt]], and may have been influential in causing the Russians to sue for peace.<ref name = "Iron">Lambert A., "Iron Hulls and Armour Plate"; Gardiner, ''Steam, Steel and Shellfire'', pp. 47–55</ref> However, Kronstadt was widely regarded as the most heavily
Traditional floating battery called [[kotta mara]] was used by the [[Banjar people|Banjar]] and [[Dayak people|Dayak]] against the Dutch during the [[Banjarmasin War|Banjar war]] (1859–1906). The battery is made by adding walls (sloped and unsloped) to a raft made by large logs. Some of them shaped like a castle and had [[bastion]]s with 4 cannons on each bastion. The kotta mara could resist the Dutch 30-pounder cannons until 24.5 m range, the range which the cannon could effectively penetrate it.<ref>van Rees, Willem Adriaan (1867). ''De Bandjermasinsche Krijg van 1859-1863 nader toegelicht.'' Arnhem: D.A. Thieme.</ref>
Floating batteries were popularly implemented by both the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] and the [[Confederate States of America| Confederacy]] during the [[American Civil War]]. The first was the Confederate [[Floating Battery of Charleston Harbor]], which took an active part in the [[Battle of Fort Sumter|bombardment of Fort Sumter]] in April 1861. Experimental ironclad vessels that proved too cumbersome or were underpowered were often converted into floating batteries and posted for river and coastal waterway control. Here too, Civil War batteries and even ironclads such as the famed monitors, were acutely vulnerable to mines protected in turn by forts. As a result, the combined defences of Charleston, South Carolina, for example, were never overwhelmed by the Union navy.▼
▲Floating batteries were popularly implemented by both the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] and the [[Confederate States of America|
==
* [[United States floating battery Demologos|United States floating battery ''Demologos'']]
* [[Arsenal ship]]
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
==Bibliography==
*{{cite journal |last1=Sieche |first1=Erwin |title=Question 50/81 |journal=Warship International |date=1984 |volume=XXI |issue=3 |pages=324–326 |issn=0043-0374}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Warren|last2=Sturton|first2=Ian|title=Question 15/46: French 1859 Armored River Gunboats |journal=Warship International |date=2010 |volume=XLVII |issue=2 |pages=103–104 |issn=0043-0374|name-list-style=amp}}
* {{cite journal|last1=van Dijk |first1=Anthonie|year=1988|title=The Mysterious Floating Batteries of the Royal Netherlands Navy|journal=Warship International|volume=XXV|issue=3 |pages=229–238 |issn=0043-0374}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Floating Battery}}
[[Category:Naval artillery]]
[[Category:Ship types]]
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