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eyeCinfinitee t1_jcl5k5h wrote

Reply to comment by Ramguy2014 in Grad Student Explores Ancient Warfare With Naval Ram Project by kratos2025

It sorta depends. While the idea of putting a ram on a ship and just going “bonk” is pretty intuitive, there’s some nuance to it.

Ancient vessels got quite large, and could have crews numbering in the hundreds depending on size and the number of oars. Some larger vessels would such as a quinquereme would likely be able to withstand more than one bonk, which might be catastrophic to a smaller bireme or trireme. By necessity the oarsmen were close to or under the waterline, and as such were rather vulnerable. A breach caused by a ram could flood the lower levels of a galley and force the oarsmen to either abandon their post or drown. It’s similar to a mobility kill in armored warfare, where you knock a tread or a wheel off of a vehicle. Galleys are unusual in the sense that as long as the seas are calm they’re very maneuverable, and if the first bonk was insufficient an experienced crew would be able to reverse and bonk once again.

Most galleys carried a contingent of what we would now call Marines, either to defend the ship in case it got stuck or to attack the crew of the ship it was stuck to. The Romans famously committed themselves to this during the first Punic War. Inexperienced with naval warfare but possessing phenomenal heavy infantry, they used a device called a Corvus to turn naval engagements into infantry engagements.

Fire was another ancient favorite, for obvious reasons, but could be a high risk endeavor. A burning ship could ignite anything nearby, and weapons such as fire ships were almost totally at the mercy of the wind.

Large fleet engagements could also turn into pseudo-land battles, as galleys rammed each other and became interlocked. Crews would fight hand to hand deck to deck, with a very real danger of the ship they were standing in sinking or burning down as the battle progressed.

Of course we don’t know a whole lot about ancient naval warfare, as the article states, and what we do know is the source of serious contention between archeologists and classicists. There are however decent records regarding galley combat from the late medieval and early modern periods, with the arguable high point being the colossal Battle of Lepanto in 1571, but galleys continued to be used as warships as late as the early 19th century, where they squared off (and lost pretty badly) to American and Swedish warships during the Barbary War. I got a little carried away, but I hope this answered some of your questions!

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samurguybri t1_jclcmxw wrote

Great response! Thanks.

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eyeCinfinitee t1_jcldivt wrote

You’re welcome! Naval warfare has always been fascinating to me, I blame my dad for reading me Master and Commander as a bedtime story when I was a kid.

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Astroglaid92 t1_jclhufk wrote

What game in your view has the best naval combat?

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eyeCinfinitee t1_jclvojf wrote

When I was a teen I was obsessed with the naval combat in Empire Total War, although I now know that to be pretty flawed. Currently I would say it’s the Ultimate Admiral series. The first game (Age of Sail) is a masterpiece, and Dreadnoughts is excellent if a bit janky. There’s really no good Ancient era naval game, although I’ll never get tired of bonking ships in Rome Total War 2. If you’re in to submarines U-Boat is excellent.

I’m gonna throw in a curveball recommendation as well in the form of Nebulous: Fleet Command. It’s a hard sci-fi naval simulator that is in my opinion the most accurate portrayal of what space combat would be like. It’s akin to a bunch of submarines trying to find each other in the Atlantic. You’re basically playing hide and seek with nuclear missiles and emissions control and battle cruisers instead of children.

I’ve messed around with games like World of Warships but I’m more of a single-player strategy guy.

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TheCandelabra t1_jcllbbm wrote

I just ordered that book! I didn't even consider reading it to my kid as a bedtime story, that's genius. Do you remember what age you were when he started reading it to you?

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eyeCinfinitee t1_jclrsok wrote

God, I must have been three or four. My grandfather was a commercial fisherman in New Jersey, my family has always been pretty nautical. I grew up on and around boats.

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TheCandelabra t1_jclxtrb wrote

Oh wow, that's pretty young. I have to assume most of it would have gone over your head lol.

Have you seen the movie btw? It's top-tier.

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eyeCinfinitee t1_jcm2vqm wrote

Hell yeah I have, it’s in my top five favorite movies. And yeah, I agree that I was pretty young for the subject material. My dad read all sorta of random stuff to me when I was little, I got a bunch of Dumas and Tolstoy as well. This isn’t me bragging or pretending I was some sort of wunderkind, I was just a kid with a literature nerd for a dad.

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Ramguy2014 t1_jcllu3n wrote

This is fascinating stuff. So it looks like the Corvus is pretty different from these naval rams in that it’s less like an axe head and more like a hook you can march a battalion across.

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eyeCinfinitee t1_jcltrbr wrote

Exactly, it’s less a ram in and of itself and more like a naval version of a drawbridge or siege tower. The Romans knew they were ass at naval warfare as they didn’t really have any sort of maritime tradition compared to the Carthaginians or the various Greek polities. In that classic pragmatic Roman way they just went “well we’re bad sailors but really good soldiers, can we make naval combat more like land combat?”.

There’s two main overarching themes there, with regards to Rome. The first is that Rome has a tendency to get involved in a war, get their asses handed to them, and then reevaluate and come back even stronger. It’s a pretty unique feature of the Roman state in this period, the ability to suffer a major reverse and keep plugging along. It’s doubtful that any of their peers could take an L as bad as Cannae and almost immediately field another army. Secondly, the Roman Navy (called the Classis) was a massive afterthought throughout the Roman Republic and into the Imperial period. Service in the navy was something to be avoided at all costs, and didn’t bring nearly as much glory and honor to a Roman man as service in the Legions.

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