What is Gunboat?
{{complex|date=September 2023}} {{Distinguish|gunship}} <!-- {{Redirect|Canonnière|the French frigate|French frigate Minerve (1794)}} --> [[Image:William Frederick Mitchell - H.M.S. Bramble, 1st class gunboat.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[Bramble-class gunboat (1886)|Bramble-class]] gunboat, built for the Royal Navy in 1886]] A '''gunboat''' is a naval [[watercraft]]. It is designed for carrying one or more [[gun]]s to [[shore bombardment|bombard coastal targets]], as opposed to those military craft designed for [[naval warfare]], or for [[troopship|ferrying troops]] or [[auxiliary ship|supplies]]. Gunboats were used since prior to the stream era, they changed with it. They were used in the American Civil War and were also used in e.g. World War I and II, and the Vietnam War. ==History== ===Pre-steam era=== In the [[age of sail]], a gunboat was usually a small undecked vessel carrying a single [[smoothbore]] [[cannon]] in the bow, or just two or three such [[cannon]]s. A gunboat could carry one or two masts or be oar-powered only, but the single-masted version of about {{convert|15|m|ft|abbr=on}} length was most typical. Some types of gunboats carried two cannons, or else mounted a number of [[swivel gun]]s on the railings. <!-- The small gunboat had advantages: if it only carried a single cannon, the boat could manoeuvre in shallow or restricted areas – such as rivers or lakes – where larger ships could sail only with difficulty. The gun that such boats carried could be quite heavy; a 32-pounder for instance. As such boats were cheap and quick to build, naval forces favoured swarm tactics: while a single hit from a [[sailing frigate|frigate's]] broadside would destroy a gunboat, a frigate facing a large squadron of gunboats could suffer serious damage before it could manage to sink them all. For example: in the [[Battle of Alvøen]] (1808) during the [[Gunboat War]] of 1807–1814, five Dano-Norwegian gunboats defeated the lone frigate {{HMS|Tartar|1801|6}}. Gunboats used in the [[Battle of Valcour Island]] (1776) on