As the vast majority of a ships of that era’s guns were side mounted, it meant the engaged enemy could only reply with a small number of front mounted weapons. Even if that enemy was to turn to into the threat, the setup of this definitive naval tactic was to bring multiple ships into a line so the targeted enemy was attacked relentlessly by all ships in the armada. The process basically rewarded the attacker with the time to aim and to use their weapons accurately while restricting the enemy to the use of their smallest and least effective guns. This would heavily damage these ships sail and leave them vulnerable to further destruction and their eventual sinking.

This attack was used in naval tactics until the eventual development of ‘Turreted’ guns, giving the largest and most effective navy guns the ability to not only rotate and track horizontal targets, but elevate the barrel for target range accuracy.