What is "gunboats"

Usage examples of "gunboats".

The assumption had been that the Bugs had finally decided that pinnaces did too little damage, even as kamikazes, to make practical weapons—particularly because they were much easier to kill than gunboats were.

But the vast majority were still stabilizing when the gunboats opened fire upon them.

By the very nature of things, gunboats were designed to be lost, and the degradation of the Enemy's pre-attack bombardment was well worth the price.

They were putting out plenty of fire when Shaaldaar's gunboats pulled out, anyway.

And even if whoever launched them doesn't see us directly when we launch our own birds, that many gunboats are bound to spot us pretty damned quick.

A matter for somewhat greater concern than the absolute numbers was the presence of gunboats among the more usual attack craft.

There was neither time nor means to adjust for their presence, however, and the second wave of the fleet's own gunboats separated from their racks.

It would probably be his best opportunity to defeat the gunboats in detail.

But the human gunboats were armed with all-up AFHAWKs, and they salvoed their less numerous but heavier weapons from outside even FM2 range.

The two or three first-wave gunboats to evade destruction were no longer headed for the flotilla.

Only twenty-six of them were coming home again—barely four full strength squadrons from all three carriers—and he had only eighteen surviving gunboats to support them.

His gunboats, in particular, reached the flotilla bare minutes before their Bug pursuers, although the fleeter fighters had been given at least a little more precious time.

The gunboats were far less numerous than the kamikazes, but they were also faster and far harder to kill, and so he was forced to commit his fighters against them.

And what Ivashkin said about expendable assets is true for more than just gunboats under these circumstances.

And such maneuvers left the Bugs in less-than-optimum formation to meet the fighters and Gorm gunboats that followed.