"Did Renaissance galleys use ramming techniques?" Topic

Did Renaissance galleys, ie Lepanto, still try to ram and sink the enemy ship? My impression was that the 'spur' was more for boarding than ramming.

Few, if any, rowed vessels of that time had an underwater ram. At best it was suitable for damaging an opponent's oars or breaching his side to allow boarders to cross.

Ramming, though assumed by many to be the tactic of galleys throughout ancient times, was actually only a battle winner for short periods. You needed a skilled crew and the right sort of vessel to make it work well enough to risk using it as your main tactic. If a ram went wrong in a ship not prepared for boarding actions, you were lost.

No. Renaissance (& Medieval) galley combat was all about shooting and boarding. There were no below-water rams on period ships. Your impression is correct, as far as modern scholarship extends.

There's a popular ruleset out, that I'm planning on using for my 15mm galleys. I like everything about the rules, but the 'ramming' part seemed a little off. Probably just use the rest and drop that.

To be clear: galleys in the Medieval/Renaissance period could and did still ram, they just didn't sink ships that way. The "ram" was actually an abovewater spur to used (as GildasFacit mentioned) to punch through the scantlings along the side of the target vessel, causing a few casualties, providing a hole for boarding, acting as a bridge across the water gap, holding fast the enemy vessel, etc. I suppose it could also be used by really facile crews to cripple an oar bank (breaking oars or even taking out a few oar benches), but I think any part of a ship run right into an enemy oar bank would do the same.

Underwater rams don't seem to have caught on again after the Pax Romana ended, and no other ship-killing weapons really developed. Everybody used fire, the Byzantines used Greek fire projectors for a while, and in the 1400s the Italians started the tradition of putting bombards in galley bows, but these were mostly used to clear the enemy deck prior to boarding. It takes fire a while to sink a vessel, and guns were never very good at hitting below the waterline (and still aren't).

- Ix

I took this shot of Juan de Austria's flagship at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 (full size replica) in Barcelona last year.

It's not a ram but a massive prow almost made for boarding. The second shot was added to give you some idea of the scale of the thing. This shot is of the model next to it. It nicely shows the flat top of the prow that would allow it to be used as a bridge.

I love that replica. My heart skips a few beats every time I see pictures of it.

For the uninitiated, Don Juan's flagship is one of the larger galleys of the Lepanto period, and about "standard battle galley" size 100 years later.

- Ix

I'm with you Admiral!
I wish someone would set up a camera in the
middle so I can get a 360