Ships and Navies

[Patrick Waterson]

This is a thread for the ships, the crews, the practices and basically what we know about the fleets of our period of study, as per Mark G's suggestion.

Ship sizes, dimensions, layout, effectiveness, carrying capacity, tactics and techniques and anything else useful are all welcome, as are source accounts for and informed scholarship about various actions.  Members' own thoughts, opinions and findings are also encouraged.

While the initial emphasis will probably be on classical ships and navies, all periods and cultures are welcome.

Patrick

[Patrick Waterson]

One way to start would be to run through a little of what is known (or surmised) about various warships of the classical period.  Members can expand with their own knowledge as desired.

Triakonter - 30-oared ship (15 per side), assumed to be one of the earliest warship configurations.  Open-decked, may have possessed a ram.

Pentekonter - 50-oared ship (25 oarsmen a side), the basis of warfleets prior to the Trojan War (and perhaps for some time afterward).  Open-decked, possessed a ram.  (Wikipedia article: http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Penteconter_%28ship%29)

Bireme - 120-oared ship (60 oarsmen per side), probably of Phoenician origin, open-decked, possessed ram.  (Wikipedia article here http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Bireme)

Trireme - 170-oared ship (85 oarsmen per side), possibly of Phoenician origin (although the first trireme navy was fielded by Periander of Corinth c.600 BC).  Decked, possessed a ram.  (Wikipedia article: http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Trireme)

Athenian triremes had a secret: the hypozomata.  This was two cables running the length of the ship internally, connecting the bow and stern under tension, and provided Athenian triremes with greater resilience, structural integrity and shock-absorbing capability than their counterparts.  It was actually a state secret!

Quadrireme - here we enter unknown, or at least uncertain, territory.  From various hints (including one that a quadrireme crew had less oarsmen than a trireme crew) we might assume 160 oars (80 per side, in decks of 20/20/20/20), making a quadrireme shorter and handier (and lighter) than a trireme.  Fully decked, possessed a ram.  There may have been quadriremes and quadriremes, so a 200-oar configuration (4x25 per side) is possible for some.  Favoured warship of Rhodian navies.

Quinqureme - 300-oared ship (at least in Polybius I.26, giving 150 oarsmen per side in decks of 5x30), conceivably of Phoenician origin, staple warship of Roman and Carthaginian navies.  The Carthaginian design was lighter, faster and sufficiently superior that the Romans did not win the First Punic War until after they had reconstituted their fleet with copies of it.

Polyremes - anything with six or more banks of oars is nowadays denoted as a polyreme, and much often furious discussion is expended upon how well they performed and exactly how many banks of oars they could have possessed.  Plutarch (Life of Demetrius 43) describes the fifteens and sixteens built by Demetrius Poliorketes:

Up to this time no man had seen a ship of fifteen or sixteen banks of oars ... However, in the ships of Demetrius their beauty did not mar their fighting qualities, nor did the magnificence of their equipment rob them of their usefulness, but they had a speed and effectiveness which was more remarkable than their great size.

Speed, effectiveness and great size almost certainly came with great cost, and although polyremes were often used as flagships, the trireme, quadrireme and quinquereme seem to have remained the backbone of Hellenistic and Roman Republican navies.

Patrick

[tadamson]

Michael Lahanas' website includes a lot of the background material for those interested..

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/GiantShips.htm

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/Trireme.htm
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/Trireme2.htm

etc...

[Patrick Waterson]

Excellent site, Tom, and well worth a look.

Mr Lahnas evidently belongs to the many-men-to-an-oar rather than many-banks-of-oars school of thinking.  Do members have any thoughts about this?

Patrick

[Jim Webster]

I think the problem lies in the fact that some later galleys (later than the ancient period) seem to have had many men to the oar

Jim

[Erpingham]

Mr Lahnas evidently belongs to the many-men-to-an-oar rather than many-banks-of-oars school of thinking.  Do members have any thoughts about this?

I don't think you will find many people seriously championing the idea that the rating of hellenistic warships was based on the number of levels of oars these days. 

[Jim Webster]

At least once you got past trireme 

Jim

[Erpingham]

At least once you got past trireme 

Jim

True   And lets not even get into Renaissance triremes, which were rowed on one level.

BTW - is this one of those "classical " terminology discussions or are we going to cover other eras and places?

[Patrick Waterson]

BTW - is this one of those "classical " terminology discussions or are we going to cover other eras and places?

Yes. 

As mentioned at the beginning of this thread, bring in whatever you like - if it is in period and it floats (or sinks), it is relevant.

Patrick

[tadamson]

In terms of oar banks, I can't think of any naval or military academic in the last 100 years that believed that anything larger than a 'three' used a 'one man one oar' design. You get the odd classicist that just sees 'four', 'six', 'ten' etc and blindly says oars.

Anyhow there are surviving Roman ships (well wrecks) with long sweeps that had more than one man each (one of the Pisa ships, one of the Naples ships, and possibly the second Nemi ship) and it was standard practice from the 14th C.

Ship sheds for 4s and 5s appear to have been slightly wider but no longer than those for 3s. Indeed sheds for 3s were reused by some states.

Regards,

Tom..

[Patrick Waterson]

In terms of oar banks, I can't think of any naval or military academic in the last 100 years that believed that anything larger than a 'three' used a 'one man one oar' design. You get the odd classicist that just sees 'four', 'six', 'ten' etc and blindly says oars.

Not blindly: Livy XXVIII.30.11 is explicit in the matter.

[11] While between the triremes an indecisive battle controlled by chance was in progress, the Roman quinquereme, whether because she was steadier by reason of her weight or more easily steered as her more numerous banks of oars⁶ [pluribus remorum ordinibus] cleft the whirling waters, sank two triremes and shooting past another swept away the oars on one side.

I include a footnote from an academic within the last 100 years ... 

6 If a quinquereme had but one bank of oars, each oar pulled by five men, as many now incline to believe, it remains unexplained how Livy in comparing a quinquereme in battle with triremes could simply say that the former had more ordines remorum, unless he thought that to be the case. In XXIV. xxxiv. 7 exteriore ordine remorum includes all the oars on one side of a ship but does not tell us whether in a single bank or in five. Certainly the quinquereme, however rowed, was a more impressive sight from the shore than a trireme even to a landlubber; cf. XXIX. xi. 4*. For the whole question see A. Köster, Das antike Seewesen 143 ff.; and in Kromayer- Veith, Heerwesen, etc. 182 f.; 616 f.; W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments 124 ff.; and-in Journal of Hellenic Studies, XXV. 137 ff., 156, 204 ff.; Starr, C.G., Class. Philol. XXXV. 353 ff.; 373.

*Livy XXIX.11.4 reads:
To these [ambassadors] five quinqueremes were assigned, in order that, in a manner suitable to the dignity of the Roman people, they might visit those lands where it was important to gain respect for the Roman name.

The 'academic' is Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Colombia University, 1949 (at least he edited the work).  (Perseus Project link: http://tinyurl.com/9ft86lh)

The case is still open.

Incidentally in XXVIII.30.5 Livy notes that a quinquereme is slower than a trireme, or at least the one used by Adherbal was.

Patrick

[tadamson]

Guilty as charged 100 was a bit optimistic.

Though the Livy quotes also support the "a 5 was a 3 with extra men on the two upper oars" theory, and ties in with the odd quotes of longer or thicker oars representing those pulled by two men (but could be bigger oars for higher oarsmen in a 1 per 1 arrangement  ).

Some years back Anderson suggested that by Imperial times Roman 3s and 4s were all light, fast two bankers, which ties in with Roman illustrations and mechanical theories.

Sadly, with very little physical evidence we are left with supposition (and the commonly accepted "fact" that with more than 4 or 5 banks, the required oar lengths for upper oars are just too big for practical use - though more than 3 men per oar requires walking the sweeps and also limits the number of banks you can have).

Tom..

[Patrick Waterson]

It is one of those things that can attract diehard adherents on both sides; my own feeling is that whichever approach needs to explain away least is probably on the right track.

It is a pity that so few engineers are interested in these matters, because some detailed modelling (on a what-can-be-done basis rather than prove-at-any-cost) could put some substance into what are essentially hypotheses hovering around a few fragments of evidence.

Patrick

[Erpingham]

I would recommend to you Gardiner's The Age of the Galley, which has several articles on the technical aspects of oar systems and construction.  Generally speaking, it can be said that the engineers favour the multiple men to an oar theories, on the grounds of practical difficulty and mechanical issues.

[Patrick Waterson]

Does Gardiner's book feature the creation of models, or is it limited to engineering theory on paper?