gunneries

Noun

gunnery (usually uncountable, plural gunneries)

1. (usually) The science of guns and gunfire, including aspects of bullet flight and impact.
   • When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery— / When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery,—1879, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, “I am the very pattern of a modern major-general”, in The Pirates of Penzance […], Philadelphia: J.M. Stoddart & Co., published 1880...
2. (usually) The design and manufacture of guns, particularly those of a large caliber.
   • Originally, doubtless, that petty officer's function was the instruction of the men in the use of arms, sword, or cutlass. But very long ago, owing to the advance in gunnery, making hand-to-hand encounters less frequent, and giving to nitre and sulphur the preeminence over steel, that function...1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter VII.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC, page 244
3. (usually) The firing of guns.
   • Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, / Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.1920, Wilfred Owen, “Exposure”, in Poems, London: Chatto & Windus, page 18
4. (countable, usually) A place where guns are tested, or where people are trained in their use.