Masked by land

September 27, 2026 · naval combat

A warship's director rides high on the mast; her turrets sit twenty to thirty metres lower. Lay on an enemy past a low island and the sight sees a clean line of sea, while the guns, firing flat, put the salvo into the rocks. Until now nothing told you. Now the gunsight does.

From the Dreadnought's bridge: a wooded island ahead between two cruisers, a thin red X standing on its crest, and the readout under the sight reading GUNS 9/9 · 4 MASKED BY LAND — steam clear in red — Four of the Dreadnought's nine rounds are going into that island. The red X says which rock.

Why the sight sees what the guns can't

The gunsight looks out from the top of the mast: on a Dreadnought, nearly fifty metres over the water. Her turrets stand at seventeen and twenty-one. A naval gun fires flat, so laid on a ship six kilometres off, a shell passing an island half a kilometre away is barely forty metres up. A hill the sight clears by a few metres can stand square in the line of fire. The ring sat on open water, you pulled the trigger, and the whole salvo burst on a rock, three reloads running before you worked out why. The enemy's captains always knew to hold their fire behind an island. You were never told.

The gunsight flies the salvo first

Now, before you fire, the gunsight flies every turret's rounds out along their real arcs, from their real mounts, over the real ground. If land is going to take them short of the ring:

The GUNS readout under the sight turns red and counts them: GUNS 9/9 · 4 MASKED BY LAND — steam clear.
A red X stands on the rock where they'll burst, square to your line of fire, so you see exactly which island is in the way, from the bridge or through the binoculars.
If the island would take the whole broadside, the ring on the water goes slate. Nothing you laid it on is going to be hit.

It counts rounds, not guns

A salvo isn't one shell. It's a pattern, some rounds a hair high and some a hair low. A rock off your bow takes the lot. A low island just short of your target takes the low rounds, while the high ones clear its crest and splash on past it, and the readout says 4 MASKED rather than all nine. Fire anyway and the island takes about what the readout promised.

A spotter's view of the same broadside: the Dreadnought's guns smoking in the foreground, and on the island ahead her shells bursting right on the red X — Right on the X: the island takes its share of the broadside, exactly where the gunsight said it would.

Steam clear

A few hundred metres of way changes everything: the line of fire slides off the rock. Or swing onto another target, or open the range. A longer shot leaves the barrels steeper and climbs over a low island that a short one can't. On a phone the readout keeps it short, MASKED BY LAND, and the X does the pointing.

In the Brick Gulf, where the fleet shells the shore, the same warning covers the hill in front of a tank and the houses of a town. A round that meets a wall bursts on the wall, and now you'll know before you fire.