high-angle gun
- noun
- Specialized
:
cañón de gran ángulo
- During the battle, their unit relied heavily on a single high-angle gun for close support fire.
Examples
-
The soldiers positioned the high-angle gun to target enemy trenches on the hillside.
-
Many armies use high-angle guns for short-range attacks.
-
A high-angle gun can deliver shells over obstacles that would block flatter trajectories.
-
The military deployed a high-angle gun for the operation.
-
The soldiers positioned the high-angle gun to target enemy trenches on the hillside.
-
During the battle, their unit relied heavily on a single high-angle gun for close support fire.
-
Many armies use high-angle guns for short-range attacks against fortified positions.
Synonyms
10
9.9
A large gun with a short barrel that fires shells high to hit nearby targets
How High
Surface Forms
Morphology
high-angle + gun
The noun is directly compositional: 'high-angle' (literally at a steep or high elevation) modifies 'gun' (a firearm/artillery), so a learner who knows both words can infer a gun that fires at a high angle for shorter ranges. Although somewhat technical, the adjective+noun combination follows ordinary compositional patterns and is thus predictable to B1 learners.
Etymology
High-angle gun: The name comes from how the weapon is aimed — the gun is tilted to a very high angle, so shells fly up and then fall down behind walls or hills like a ball thrown high into the air. So, the term describes a weapon made for 'firing at a high angle' to reach targets at short distances or 'behind obstacles'.