Battery — what it means in chess
Two or more pieces lined up on a file, rank, or diagonal to multiply pressure.
Two or more pieces lined up on a file, rank, or diagonal to multiply pressure.
A battery is two or more pieces stacked on the same line — rooks doubled on a file, or a queen and bishop sharing a diagonal — so that the front piece can capture or invade knowing the rear piece recaptures. The power of a battery is arithmetic: on any square the line touches, you count two attackers where your opponent may only count one defender, and the exchange sequence that follows runs in your favor.
Batteries are built before they fire. Doubling rooks on an open file is the most common construction in the game, and the queen-and-bishop battery aimed at h7 or h2 is the engine behind half the attacking patterns in this glossary. The rear piece matters as much as the front one: it is the reason the front piece can afford to be brave.
[[board startfen="3r2k1/5ppp/3p4/8/8/3R4/5PPP/3R2K1 w - - 0 1" pgn="1. Rxd6 Rxd6 2. Rxd6" caption="Doubled rooks: the front rook captures because the rear rook recaptures." notes="White to move. Two White rooks stacked on the d-file against one defender of the d6 pawn. Rxd6 — the front rook takes. Alone, this loses a rook for a pawn. Rxd6 — Black recaptures, and for a moment the material favors Black. Rxd6 — the rear rook completes the arithmetic: rook for rook, pawn in the bank, and the file belongs to White."]]
A battery pointed at the enemy king often ends with a rook landing on the seventh rank; a battery pointed through an enemy piece becomes an x-ray.
The Endgame Society glossary defines more than 240 chess terms — rules, notation, tactics, strategy, pawn structures, endgames, and openings — in language a beginner can act on rather than dictionary shorthand.