Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications.
An Ottoman redoubt of the Dardanelles Fortified Area. The weapon is possibly a German-made 28 cm SK L/40 gun on a coast defense mount.
50-pounder Model 1811 Columbiad (7.25 inch or 184 mm bore) and center-pivot mounting designed by George Bomford as an experimental coastal defense gun. This gun was built in 1811 as a component of the Second System of US fortifications.
Japanese 11-inch howitzer firing; shell visible in flight
A model of site no. 4 Heliodor Laskowski's Artillery Battery No. 31 (XXXI)
Seacoast defense was a major concern for the United States from its independence through World War II. Before airplanes, many of America's enemies could only reach it from the sea, making coastal fort
Coastal artillery
…were the responsibility of the Royal Garrison Artillery. In the United States, coastal artillery was established in 1794 as a branch of the Army and a series of construction programs of coastal defenses began: the "First System" in 1794, the "Second System" in 1804, and the "Third System" or "Permanent System" in 1816. Masonry forts…
The outer works of Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor, although built in the 1860s, are broadly similar to early First and Second System forts built before the War of 1812, with low earthworks, although mounting much larger cannon and reinforced with masonry. The cannon are 8-inch converted rifles (lined down from 10-inch Rodman guns) and a 15-inch Rodman gun, typical of the post-Civil War era.
The Statue of Liberty is built on top of Fort Wood of the Second System
Fort Point – San Francisco – example of a mid-1800s Third System fort