Gunboat

A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.

History

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 cannons. A gunboat could carry one or two masts or be oar-powered only, but the single-masted version of about 15 m (49 ft) length was most typical. Some types of gunboat carried two cannons, or else mounted a number of swivel guns on the railings.

The advantages of this type of gunboat were that since it only carried a single cannon, the boat could be manoeuvred in shallow or restricted areas, where sailing was difficult for larger ships, such as rivers or lakes. The gun that such boats carried could also be quite heavy; a 32-pounder for instance. As such boats were cheap and quick to build, swarm tactics were favoured; while a single hit from a frigate's broadside would destroy a gunboat, a frigate facing a large squadron of gunboats could be seriously damaged before it could manage to sink them all. An example of this would be the Battle of Alvøen, where 5 Dano-Norwegian gunboats defeated the lone HMS Tartar during the Gunboat War. Gunboats used in the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain during the American Revolutionary War were mostly built on the spot, attesting to the speed of their construction.

Gunboat (video game)

Gunboat is a simulation video game developed and released by Accolade in 1990 for Amiga, DOS, TurboGrafx-16 and ZX Spectrum. It is a combat simulator of a Patrol Boat, River (PBR).

Gameplay

The game starts out in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. When the player earns a second lieutenant's bar, the game moves on to battle the drug kingpins of Colombia. After making the grade of lieutenant commander, the player may begin patrolling the Panama Canal Zone.

The player uses the keyboard, the function keys, and the joystick to move through a number of stations aboard the PBR, including those for the pilot, the stern gunner, and the midship gunner. The pilot controls the searchlights and the ship's speed, and can identify targets for the gunners, and command the crew to open or cease fire.

Reception

Gunboat was rated 9/10 in VideoGames & Computer Entertainment. The PC version of the game received 4 out of 5 stars in Dragon, while the Amiga version of the game received 3 out of 5 stars. A 1992 Computer Gaming World survey of wargames with modern settings gave the game three stars out of five.