battleworthy

comparative more battleworthy · superlative most battleworthy

1. Fit for service in battle.

   "Oh yes, sir. Seaworthy enough with the weather moderating. And we'll have the holes patched in a brace of shakes." "Seaworthy but not battleworthy," said Krause.

   1955, C S Forester, The Good Shepherd

   1 more example

   The Americans had proved themselves so eminently battleworthy in their first confrontals with the hard-pressing Germans that [Ferdinand] Foch wanted an American regiment attached to each French division as a stiffening element.

   1961, Richard O’Connor, “Cantigny . . . Belleau Wood . . . Soissons”, in Black Jack Pershing: A Candid Biography of the United States’ Only Six-Star General since George Washington, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →LCCN, part two (Soldier on the Western Front), page 265