"Ancient Naval Battles As Seen From The Totally Ignorant" Topic

All About Ancient Naval Battles As Seen From The Totally Ignorant

So I'm looking at ancient naval battles. I'm looking at old board games, reading lukewarm reviews about games long out of print, seeing recommendations for online rules that seem to hold about a pint of historical flavor and yet presumably a great time was had by all. I rented "Ben Hur", and begun to realize that this was not only the inspiration for all these games, but it's close to a summary of what these games strive to recreate.

I read what books I have, and get these annoying sweeping big picture accounts when what I really want is in-depth blow-by-blow descriptions of splintering wood and crying wounded.

I'm not satisfied with what I'm seeing, and am not sure where to look.

I can understand you wanting to ram your opponent's ship in a "T" bone shape, and somehow still backing away before his sinking hulk drags you under. I can imagine the joy in successfully pulling in your oars so you can rub sides with your opponent when he hasn't gotten his oars shipped quite yet. But games don't seem to answer some nagging thoughts I keep having.

Assume you ram a ship, but not at the perfect right angle (either the world doesn't work on i-go-u-go moves, or you simply aren't the master of your set diameter turning template). Wouldn't two ships pretty much end up scraping side-to-side and snapping off oars? Wouldn't one of the primary concerns for a trireme captain be how the guys in the foremost oar positions are doing? Doesn't it seem a lot of individual ship's battles would be resolved from these jostling collisions?

Would a warship have sails up in combat? I would assume a square rigged ship wouldn't be too sprightly in the wind unless it came from the stern. But then, one might use sails instead of oars when you get in close simply to save those poor souls in the foremost oarlock positions.

Then there's the age-old question – why would a wood ship sink? Wood floats just fine.

Wanted: rules with depth, but not bulk. Books with information about the fate of a ship, not the entire fleet and city it represented

No sails up in combat.

Wooden ships sink because they fill up with water. When something is full of water it sinks enough, ships fill with water as they are watertight and when you put a hole in them.

Often oars snapped off, sometimes that was even a tactic.

Have you read Barry Strauss' Salamis?

Warships did not use sails in combat. A mast would surely topple over at the first collission.

Wooden ships float because they displace more water than they weigh. IOW, the water underneath pushes the ship upwards against the outside of the hull. When water enters the hull through a hole, the upward push lessens up to the point that gravity becomes the greater force. The ship then sinks. I might point out that not all wood floats and certainly not when you stand on top of it ;o)

Holing enemy ships was only one way of eliminating them. Crushing the oars with your ram or sides was another, as was boarding, although Greek ships, IIRC only had a few marines aboard, if any.

Crossing the T for hull penetration was the preferred attack. The obvious defence of course was to either flee or turn into your attacker to ram him instead. It then came down to timing, as the sturdy bows could not really harm eachother so the ships would try to scrape off the opponents oars. It was important to use your oars up until the last moment, because speed determined the amount of damage caused as well as your maneuverability. The one who pulled them up too late lost his oars and remained crippled and an easy prey for crossing the T.

Several kinds of offensive and defensive formations were invented to stimulate or counter these tactics. Even some kind of naval "square" IIRC!

Rules should therefore represent the connection between speed and damage and speed and maneuverability. IGUG would be unsatisfiying, but an initiative-based system could work. Though I never played it, I heard good things about Salamis.

It's fiction, but I would recommend Steven Pressfield's "The Tides of War". It has accounts of a few sea battles from the marine's point of view; and is a good read anyway. Perhaps others more knowledgeable could comment on it's accuracy?

I echo the above about masts and sinking. However, on the first I would like say that models look much better with a mast – they look more like boats – though I prefer the sial furled (See Xyston range). On the latter, gallies were quite top heavy, especially as most of the weight in oarsmen and marines are above the waterline, so gallies had ballast of stones etc. at the keel which would drag a holed ship down; but having said that I think there is some evidence for sunken gallies "floating" like an iceberg, with decks awash.

As regards ramming. Even small gallies are quite big, and with crew, very heavy. (From memory the Greek reconstruction of a trireme, the Olympias, weighed in at over 100 tons?). The Olympias is, with a trained crew, capable of about 10 knots. To hole a similar vessel it has been calculated that:

At 60 degrees a speed of 4 knots is reqiured.
At 45 degress a speed of 5 knots.
At 30 degrees a speed of 8 knots.

So it would appear that a trireme would take some stopping even at acute angles.

As for rules, I agree with you. U-go-I-go rules do not work. I have tried several versions of ancient rules over the last 30 years and have not been happy with any of them. I am a big fan of Piquet's Fields of Battle rules. These are for land warfare, but I adapted them for ancient naval. I think that the ammendments are in the files section of the Piquet Yahoo group site. We played just last week and all had a "smashing" time. IMHO this period is best played as a pick up game and just for fun.

James

Actually ancient galley wrecks wouldn't automatically sink and go to the bottom some would just swamp and drift about for a while with only the top bits above water causing navigational hazards for active ships. Securing the salavageable wrecks (and recovering crews floating on the debris) was an important part of winning an ancient naval battle.

Pulling in your oars as in Ben Hur is Hollywood. The trick was to put yourself at an angle (say about 30 degrees or so). Let his momentum carry his hull past your ram which is snapping his oars off. Then when he goes by crippled your companion vessel in the second line can go in for the kill.

I agree about pulling in oars. I never thought that was a realistic option. You have a long oar, attached to the thole either by a pin or some other device, and cramped quarters with lots of oarsmen. Doesn't seem likely that a crew is going to be rowing at full strength then just at the right time stop rowing (all at the same time), have someone unconnect the oar (however that is done) and pull in the oar (which is probably wider than the ship to begin with!) And then, reverse the process to get the oar back in the water, attached to the thole and everyone rowing at the same cadence so you can get out of there as quickly as possible.

Most of what is said about ancient galley warfare is, at best, educated guesswork but some is no more than useless drivel. The problem is sorting out which is which.

We have very little in the way of contemporary descriptions of the minutae of galley warfare in classical times and yet some scholars have made an attempt to reconstruct how it worked. Morrison & Anderson are two good authors to look for but there are a few others

Below is the bibliography from the 'Corvus' rules published by the Society of Ancients. The rules are by Richard Lee (and don't necessesarily fit my ideas of how ancient galley warfare works – but they do give a good game) but some of additional material is mine

The Age of the Galley (Conway's ‘History of the Ship')
John Morrison (Editor) plus various authors Pub. Conway Maritime Press 1995 ISBN 0 85177 554 3
Probably the best single source for information related to the ships and their development but not much detail of battles. Covers vessels from pre-classical times to gunpowder, the next volume is arguably better for the period covered by these rules.
Greek & Roman Oared Warships 399-31BC J Morrison & J Coates Pub. OUP 1994
A more detailed treatment of the period covered by these rules and probably the best account of all aspects of naval warfare during this period. Quite academic in style, be prepared to read some names in Greek.
Oared Fighting Ships from Classical Times to the Coming of Steam
R C Anderson Pub. ??? 1976
One of the pioneering works, now rather out of date in some respects, but still an interesting read.
Greek and Roman Naval Warfare W L Rodgers Pub. ??? 1937
Naval Warfare under Oars W L Rodgers Pub. ??? 1940 (reprinted 1980)
Much of the content in both of these volumes relating to the ships has been superseded by more recent scholarship but they are still well worth reading for their excellent accounts of the naval campaigns and battles of the period, much of which has not been changed by recent research.
Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World Lionel Casson Pub. ??? 1971 (2nd ed. 1986)
Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times Lionel Casson Pub. BMP 1994 ISBN 0 7242 1735 8
All Casson's books are worth a read. The last is a good, fairly short, summary of the first with some newer findings incorporated.

I have only included volumes that I feel cover the subject in adequate depth but remain readable. There are many other publications around but, sadly, many (including some of those above) are now out of print. Further details can also be found in various journals covering the history of the Classical and Roman periods and maritime history and archaeology.

Hope this helps a bit

Tony Hughes

I have struggled with the concept for about 20 plus years. I currently am play testing my rules (Raven vs. Ram) where the focus is on Squadron and Fleet actions. Using a mechanism where an initiative roll is give to each side and the sides roll on D6 for every ship in their command. The players allocate all their D6 dice with #6 having the highest priority for movement. Once all dice have been allocated the side which won the initiative moves all the ships he designated with 6's then the other player does the same with all his ships with a D6. NOTE that the sides roll all the dice then allocate from all their dice before any movement. The sequence continues until all ships have been moved.

I also have "movement bands based on size and speed. A ship has at every speed a minimum number of inches to move and a maximum. The player has to move the minimum but can move the maximum if so desired. Also orders to decrease or increase movement have to be given to a ship before starting it move. Ship turns are also harder then most games and should be will planned out. Number of turns and distance moved before making a turn are determined by speed and class of the ship.

It sound a lot harder then it is. My goal was to have the rules scalable to different ship sizes, and to have more detailed add on rules for fewer ships. The same basic mechanism is used regardless of level of command or scale of ships.

All the comments above are very good and add a great deal to the basic understanding of how we "think" galleys operated at war.
VR
James Mattes