Lissa's ramming and forward-fire legacy

Lissa's afterlife mattered as much as the battle itself. Because officers remembered a melee of ramming attempts and forward fire, navies became more interested in rams, gun arcs, and turrets that could bear ahead or astern. That logic carried into HMS Dreadnought's wing turrets, which theoretically let six of her eight broadside guns bear forward or aft. The practical firing arcs were less generous than that 75-percent figure suggests, but the design still preserved the perceived need for heavy end-on fire. Poor gunnery and training distorted the evidence from Lissa, most starkly in Ancona's unloaded broadside.