In military terms, this is known as “ enfilade fire“. It also makes ranging errors less critical for the ship doing the crossing, while simultaneously more critical for the ship being crossed. However, moving ahead of the enemy line on a perpendicular course (crossing the T) enables a ship to launch salvos at the same target with both the forward and rear turrets, maximising the chances for a hit. Each ship in the line generally engages its opposite number in the enemy battle line which moves in a parallel course. This allows each ship to fire over wide arcs without lofting salvos of projectiles over friendly vessels. When going into battle, ships would assume a battle line formation called “line astern”, in which one vessel follows another in one or more parallel lines. Refer to Raking Fire and Enfilade and Defilade. In this example the Blue’s are crossing the Red’s ‘T’.
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