page_title: Gun turret
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gun turret / Warships / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Gun or Mortar cask raft and proposed Cupola ship Plate from Eardley-Wilmot: The Development of Navies Please do not rotate this copy
context_page_description: A gun turret is a platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and some cone of fire. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of azimuth and elevation.
context_section_description: Designs for a rotating gun turret date back to the late 18th century. In the mid 19th century, during the Crimean War, Captain Cowper Phipps Coles constructed a raft with guns protected by a 'cupola' and used the raft, named the Lady Nancy, to shell the Russian town of Taganrog in the Black Sea during the Siege of Taganrog. The Lady Nancy "proved a great success" and Coles patenting his rotating turret design after the war.
caption: Captain Cowper Coles' proposed cupola ship, 1860.
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