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I'm trying to identify an SF novel that features a giant Terran warship that gets tricked into a space storm and when stressed to a danger point, breaks up into smaller individual self powered ships. I believe the story involves a battle against a rebellious colony.

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    Do you know what language it was in? Around when it was published? Was the book hardcover? Even these minor details help! See this checklist for more!
    – user112267
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 20:08
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    It was in English. The copy I had was a Corgi or Sphere paperback. I'm not sure when the story was first published. The copy I had was possibly 1970s.
    – VWSinger
    Commented Jun 6, 2019 at 22:26

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This happens in the van Vogt story "The Storm".

And still everything was according to the original purpose of the superb engineering firm that had built her. The limit of unit strain reached, she dissolved into her nine thousand separate sections. Streamlined needles of metal were those sections, four hundred feet long, forty feet wide; sliverlike shapes that sinuated cunningly through the gases, letting the pressure of them slide off their smooth hides.

It's not a novel though, but it may have been incorporated into one.

It's online here: https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v32n02_1943-10_cape1736/page/n7

Note: the original link I posted misled me as to the name of the short story. The fix-up novel "The Mixed Men" is the same.

Thanks to the commenters for helping me to "fix-up" this answer.

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    "Concealment" was incorporated into the fix-up novel The Mixed Men aka Mission To The Stars. isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?22964
    – Winchell Chung
    Commented Jun 7, 2019 at 1:19
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    Thanks! I knew vV had a habit of doing that, but I'm far from my normal sources and tools.
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Jun 7, 2019 at 1:44
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    A. E. van Vogt actually coined the term"fixup novel"
    – Winchell Chung
    Commented Jun 7, 2019 at 2:38
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    Here is the publication history of "Concealment": isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?46735 But I would have expected that "the Storm" was teh story with the space storm: isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?46736
    – M. A. Golding
    Commented Jun 7, 2019 at 14:50
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    Thanks to the commenters for leading me to realize that the first link I posted had the name of the story wrong, and for supplying the name of the fix-up novel. I have corrected the answer and posted a link to the original publication.
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Jun 8, 2019 at 0:08

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