How did naval combat work in medieval days, before the advent of cannons? Were they firing arrows at them, ramming each other, what?
>Faggot OP kills a thread to ask a question that the most cursory glace at Wikipedia could've answered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_warfare#History
>>65488276>Were they firing arrows at them, ramming each other,yes.
>>65488645Also a lot of ground warfare... just on boats. Getting on the enemy ship and killing them has been a stable of wooden ship battles even after cannons. The one big thing about wood is that it floats naturally so even with cannon, blowing a bunch of holes in the side of the ship doesn't really sink it. Most ships were captured or burned, not sunk in battle in the modern sense. Explosive shells and indirect fire really changed how naval warfare was conducted, boarding and capturing enemy warships became an extreme rarity instead of the norm.
>>65488276Assuming that you're talking about ship-to-ship combat then pretty much, yeah. The Romans did some funnies with artillery (probably out of sheer boredom, honestly) but by and large the only reliable way to dumpster an enemy vessel before the advent of cannon was to ram (assuming that your ship was designed for that, or you'd probably damage yourself just as badly) and/or burn (assuming that you could do so without catching your own ship on fire) it and that was secondary to the strategy of just lashing up to them and engaging in a boarding action.Also worth noting for the sake of pedantry is that there's ~150 years of overlap between the medieval period and naval cannon, as gunpowder-based weapons were used on ships as early as they were on foot. The bongs were using deck guns to shoot at the French in the fucking 1330s. IMO the real diving line in naval warfare is the gunport.
>>65488311checked, linking to Wikipedia doesn't answer or even explain everything for every topic
>>65488276Naval combat mainly occurs near the shore or ports. Ships were not really combatants, just transports for moving land armies around. Ramming, boarding and Greek fire were the main ways of naval warfare.
>>65488311>NOOO you can't discuss things!Leave now and never come back.
>>65488276Depends where you're fighting, but it was mostly boarding and ramming all around.
>>65491043you would think the boats would have railings so that the armored dudes would not fall off accidentally
>>65496513Really weird yesI feel like reconstructions miss something
would a human powered paddlewheel have been more or less efficient at propelling a boat than oars?
>>65488276This is actually something I'm really interested in.In the early years, Greeks and Romans and such, I believe it was mostly boarding actions, arrows and ramming. Later Rome I believe did mess around with small artillery. Eventually as ship designs changed they moved away from ramming and rowers in general (except the east which seems to have kept oarsmen around due to a "more efficient" rowing style) boarding actions were back on the menu, which suck with armor, don't slip. In fact ships became more fortified to account for these boarding actions (it's where forecastle comes from, the castle like structure at the fore). I'm not fully familiar on the full kinds of ships curing this time, carvals and manowars and such. But eastern and wester naval combat was pretty similar at this time, like land war but on floating lands, boarding actions if you can, mostly shooting at each other to soften the target, however fire was more common, enter the byzantine navy with a fairly modern flame thrower design used to torch hostile navies with Greek fire. Everyone else made due how they could. One interesting ship gesign was like a "T" with the wide part forward, as cannons became more prevalent these vessels had all the guns concentrated at the front, good enough when you're facing less advanced vessels, obviously this design fell out of favor. That's a poorly constructed dump of my knowledge, here's a picture.
>>65497131I don’t know about the North Sea or the Channel but rowing vessels like galleys remained very popular in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic all the way into the 1700s.I was really surprised to find out that France still operated galleys during the time of Louis XIV.>>65496513Some Greek art does have railings on ships.
>>65488311It's a bot thread.
>>65491643Important to note that early cannon were very small, basically the size hand weapons would eventually reach in caliber, just massively overbuilt so the gun wouldn’t explode or break due to the relatively awful metallurgy of the era. They were shooting at each other with cannons in 1330, but the vast majority of those cannons were smaller than chaser guns of the age of sail and basically were just supplemental weapons not even firing cannon balls but arrows, bolts, or even just sized rocks and scraps.
>>65497105Obviously much less efficient and certainly less maneuverability
>>65491043the scale shown here is a bit off, the upper deck of a trireme holds 2 men shoulder to shoulder, max
>>65497131>I'm not fully familiar on the full kinds of ships curing this timeIf you mean the middle ages in northern/atlantic Europe then Cogs and Hulks were the main type. Both usually had flat bottoms to cope with the harsh differences in height due to the tides and the large mudflats in those areas but Hulks were generally larger and rounder (preferred for trading) while Cogs were more angular and smaller (preferred for war). But mixtures of both types existed as early naval architecture was much more fluid. Caracks came about in the middle of the 14th century and featured a far more elaborate sail plan, more masts and were also larger overall.>manowars That is a generic and broad 17th/18th century term for any proper ship (not a boat) armed with guns and primarily used for war. This included 6th-rate frigates and first-rate ships of the line. >enter the byzantine navy with a fairly modern flame thrower design used to torch hostile navies with Greek fire. Everyone else made due how they could.Fire arrows and other incendiary devices existed in northern Europe too. I suggest the series Tod's Workshop did on them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNCU4WndtYk Still boarding was the most common tactic (and remained so well into the 19th century).>One interesting ship gesign was like a "T" [...]Do you mean the early modern war galleys?
>>65497333>I don’t know about the North Sea or the Channel but rowing vessels like galleys remained very popular in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic all the way into the 1700s.Both France and England fielded galleys in the channel during the 16th century. But only really Sweden and Russia continued to employ larger galley fleets in northern Europe well into the 18th century.
And remember, it was impossible for ancient people to get to Sardinia. It was so far away that it would have taken boats many years to make the crossing, but boats couldn't sail over open ocean at that time.
>>65497516russians were still using galleys during the crimean war, and so did the turks at least a few decades prior.
>>65497510>If you mean the middle ages in northern/atlantic Europe then Cogs and HulksOh wow, very neat, thanks for the elaboration. I've been curious about those differences for a bit.>That is a generic and broad 17th/18th century termAh I see, whoops. Wrong era.>I suggest the series Tod's Workshop did on them.Oh wow, this guy really knows his stuff. I just figured archers modified their holds, I see the design really got refined, neat all the kinds of relics the average person doesn't know about. I like his video on flails, I remember folks vehemently insisting war flails never existed.>Do you mean the early modern war galleys?Possibly, I don't remember it too well, that would make sense design and heritage wise.
*burns your path*
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH RAMMING SPEED AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun*
>>65488276Well, I don't know how true this is but my history professor in high school (cool guy) said that Romans sucked at fighting naval battles until they found out they could make naval battles ground battles by making their ships into battering rams with the rostra and boarding fuckers with the corvi around the time of the first Punic war.
>>65498385>Wrong era.My main point is that the term Man-of-War doesn't designate a specific ship. Modern media (that assassins creed pirate game and Blag Flags) applies this term only to the large ships of the line and galleons whereas a frigate with in total 20 guns would also be classified as such. >Possibly, I don't remember it too well, that would make sense design and heritage wise.Pic rel. The galleys got wider than their ancient counterparts, they forsake the stacked banks of oarsmen and the front became a platform for artillery.
Was the cylindrical proto-turret seen in some modern depictions of the galleass historical?
>>65500549Good questions. All 16th and 17th century depictions of galleasses show them with rectangular forecastles.
The only depiction of a galeass with a round forecastle I could find comes from a 1906 book that questions contemporary naval history.
