Editing Two-decker (section)

{{short description|Type of warship}}

{{About|the type of warship|the bus type|Double-decker bus|other uses|Double decker (disambiguation){{!}}Double decker}}

[[File:HMS asia (1811).jpg|thumb|{{HMS|Asia|1811}}, British 74-gun warship]]
[[File:The Moonlight Battle- the Battle off Cape St Vincent, 16 January 1780 RMG BHC0430.jpg|thumb|''[[The Moonlight Battle]]'' by [[Dominic Serres]], with a British two-decker in the foreground.]]
A '''two-decker''' is a sail [[warship]] which carried her guns on two fully armed decks.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Romola |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Re-7AQAAQBAJ&dq=Two-decker+ship&pg=PA107-IA19 |title=A Short History of the Sailing Ship |last2=Anderson |first2=R. C. |date=2012-06-11 |publisher=Courier Corporation |isbn=978-0-486-14952-3 |language=en}}</ref> 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.

Two-deckers ranged all the way from the small 40-gun [[Fifth rate]] up to 80- or even 90-gun [[Ship of the line|ships of the line]], with the [[third-rate]] of seventy-four guns, or "[[seventy-four (ship)|seventy-four]]", being the archetype.