A two-decker is a sail warship which carried her guns on two fully armed decks.[1] Usually additional guns were carried on the upper works (forecastle and quarterdeck), but this was not a continuous battery and thus not counted as a full gun deck.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/HMS_asia_%281811%29.jpg/220px-HMS_asia_%281811%29.jpg)
Two-deckers ranged all the way from the small 40-gun Fifth rate up to 80- or even 90-gun ships of the line, with the third-rate of seventy-four guns, or "seventy-four", being the archetype.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Anderson, Romola; Anderson, R. C. (2012-06-11). A Short History of the Sailing Ship. Courier Corporation. ISBN 978-0-486-14952-3.