How To Play Sea Battle Game Pigeon? Top 99 Best Answers

Unlike chess, a complex game that spawned hundreds of strategy books, Battleship strategy is not very complicated. Basically, there are only two simple choices in your Battleship game. First you have to figure out where to hide your ships, and then you have to figure out how to shoot at your opponent’s board.

The Spruce / Marina Li

Placement of your ships

The goal of placing your ships on the board is for your opponent to take as long as possible before finding them all. At the most basic level, this means that your ships should be placed somewhat randomly. All other placement guidelines are based on considerations of how your opponent is likely to attack.

Don’t place your ships so that they touch: an opponent that scores a hit in your grid will likely circle that point, looking for the rest of the ship. If your opponent finds two ships at once, you just lost an extra ship.

Place a ship on the edge of the board: Many opponents will fire most of their shots towards the center of the board, so having at least one ship on the edge can give you an advantage. Don’t place all your ships on the edge, or your opponent might guess the pattern of your tactics.

Be Asymmetric: In other words, don’t mirror your ship placements. If you have a ship one space from either edge in the bottom left, don’t do that in the top right. The human mind looks for patterns, so your opponent is more likely to find both ships after finding the first.

Be Unpredictable: If you’ve followed the above rules a few games in a row against the same opponent, then break them. This will confuse your opponent and ensure you are not too easily outwitted.

Leo Cox Photography/Getty Images

Take your shots

The goal of your shotgun fire is to locate and sink your opponent’s ships as quickly as possible. Unless you’re a mind reader whose random guesses are likely to be right, you should fire your shots in a logical and orderly manner.

Guess in diagonal lines: In other words, if your first shot is fired at C-1, you should fire your next shot at F-4 and your next shot at I-7. By firing shots along a diagonal line, you guarantee that each of your shots will be in a new row and column, maximizing the number of rows and columns you shoot into.

Don’t combine your shots too early: your initial goal is to cover as much ground as possible, so don’t start firing shots side-by-side, even diagonally. Instead, leave a few spaces between shots. After your opening salvo, you can go back and fill in the gaps in your diagonal lines. Once you’ve fired enough shots to draw some diagonal lines, you’ll find that you’ve used those lines to divide the board into small pieces. From this point on, you should try to systematically shoot at every chunk to eliminate the possibility that your opponent’s largest remaining ship exists in that region.

Consider the checkerboard method: if you imagine the fire grid as a giant checkerboard with alternating white and black squares, you can hit all enemy ships by only shooting at black squares. This goes well with the diagonal line strategy and means that you never have to shoot at half the squares in the game (the “white” squares) except to sink a ship you’ve already hit. If you get a hit, keep firing adjacent shots to try to further sink the enemy boat.

Tanks is one of the best and most played games on GamePigeon. The goal of this game is to avoid getting your tanks hit by your enemies while destroying your enemy tanks at the same time. You can use explosive missiles, landmines, and airstrikes, but there are also defensive strategies you can use to ensure success.

You can achieve this in a number of ways, check out the game rules before you start playing and make sure you fully understand them. They’re simple rules, but really important to make sure you succeed against your friends.

How to Play Tank GamePigeon

The good thing is that you don’t need much experience to play tanks. The gameplay is relatively simple, although not quite as simple as other GamePigeon games like Gomoku. First things first, you need to know the basic rules, which are;

Choose the terrain you want to play on. The two most important types of terrain are flat and valley. You will be prompted to click target practice to prepare for the game. You must get the highest score to win a multiplayer challenge.

These are the simple rules of the game, but it doesn’t explain exactly how to play it. First you need to open the Tanks game in iMessage. When it’s your turn, adjust the angle and power to drop bombs on your enemy’s tanks. Finally, tap “Fire” once you’ve set the angle and power.

Winning tanks on iMessage depends on your in-game reaction speed.

You also have to anticipate moves from other players. I can’t stress this enough; Don’t just charge up and shoot everything you see because it won’t work if you’re up against an experienced player. It’s a strategy game, after all you can’t force wins like you probably want when you first start playing.

There are some things that allow you to be successful against other players.

Top tips for playing tanks

As one of the most popular games that Game Pigeon has on their platform, it can get pretty competitive. Here are a few tips that might help you gain a competitive edge over your opponent.

Practice, practice, practice before you start competing. Practice will familiarize you with the intricacies of the game. There are also features that are best learned to use so that you can apply them during multiplayer games. When defending your tank from enemy missiles fired, launch a dirt slinger into the air from a 90 degree angle. Dirt will protect your tank and reduce the damage you encounter. To better protect your own tanks, build a magic wall inside your banker, this will help stop underground attacks. Choose the Dirt Mover, aim your run at 270 degrees. Before increasing the firepower to 100 and then firing the shot. That way you can then shoot halfway through a banker. When making a choice on where to play, you should choose an area that matches the type of tank you currently own. For example, don’t choose the valley terrain if you don’t have the equipment. Don’t stay on one side of the game, try to move a lot so you don’t get hit. Don’t shoot unnecessarily or you’ll lose your armor. Use the boost because it will help you save a life, which in turn will help you defeat your opponents. You can buy boosts as an in-app purchase. Try not to get distracted in real life as if you are distracted you will miss defensive countermeasures while being attacked. Use better tanks, use bigger tanks, these two attributes mean you can shoot more and take more penalties. Finally, choose your opponents strategically. The level of competition determines how well your skills will improve. Start with less experienced players in the beginning as this will help you get used to this skill. As you learn more, gaining experience levels becomes easier.

Conclusion

To sum up, the best way to play this game is to use prediction and deduction methods, try to guess what your opponents will do and counter them as quickly as possible by using all the features within of the game to your advantage. The only way to do this is practice.

Above I’ve listed some of the most effective methods you can use while playing this game, but remember that it’s all about strategy and speed, so stay alert.

Players accuse me of cheating! Overall, I have to say that this guide was very effective in blowing away the competition.”

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“This strategy guide has improved my overall win/loss ratio against many different players to the point where some

Rules for BattleShip (a Milton Bradley game)

The goal of Battleship is to try to sink all other players before they sink all of your ships. All of the other player’s ships are somewhere on their board. You try to hit them by calling the coordinates of one of the squares on the board. The other player also tries to hit your ships by calling out coordinates. Neither you nor the other player can see each other’s board, so you must try to guess where they are. Each board in the physical game has two grids: the bottom (horizontal) section for the player’s ships, and the top (vertical during gameplay) section for recording the player’s guesses.

Each player places the 5 ships anywhere on their board. The ships can only be placed vertically or horizontally. Diagonal placement is not permitted. No part of a ship may overhang the edge of the board. Ships may not overlap. Ships may not be placed on top of another ship.

Once the guessing begins, players are not allowed to move the ships.

The 5 ships are: carrier (occupies 5 spaces), battleship (4), cruiser (3), submarine (3) and destroyer (2).

Players take turns guessing by calling out the coordinates. The opponent responds with “hit” or “miss” as appropriate. Both players should mark their board with pens: red for hits, white for misses. For example, if you call F6 and your opponent doesn’t have a ship on F6, your opponent would reply “Miss.” You note the error F6 by placing a white pencil on the bottom of your board at F6. Your opponent notes the miss by placing.

If all squares occupied by one of your ships have been hit, the ship will be sunk. They should announce “hit and sink”. In the physical game, a red peg is placed at the top edge of the vertical board to indicate a sunken ship.

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Tips to win Battleship

ship placement

Just like real naval conflicts, many Battleship matches are won or lost before the first shot is fired. Correct ship placement is crucial.

The goal of placing your ships on the board is that your opponent will not be able to find them all. It is best to place your fleet randomly. All other placement guidelines are based on guessing how your opponent will attack.

Don’t place your ships so they touch. An enemy that scores a hit on your grid will likely circle that point, looking for the rest of the ship. If your opponent finds two ships at once, you just lost an extra ship. Place asymmetrically. The human mind looks for patterns. So don’t mirror or copy your ship placements. If you moved a ship one space from either edge in the top left, don’t do the same in the bottom right, or your opponent is more likely to find both ships after finding the first one. Place a ship at the edge of the field. Many players will fire most of their shots in the middle of the board. Having at least one or two ships on an edge can give you an advantage. But don’t place all your ships on the edge, otherwise your opponent might guess the pattern. Be unpredictable. If you and your opponent know each other, use this psychology to your advantage. If she thinks you always place your ships close together, opt for a more spacious layout. If you’ve followed the above rules for a few games in a row against the same opponent, break them to confuse your opponent. It’s a great way to knock experienced opponents out of the game…until they figure out what you’re doing.

Shoot your targets

Unless you’re a mind reader whose random guesses are likely hits, you should fire your shots in a logical and orderly fashion.

overview

In Sea Battle, two players form fleets of ships and use strategy and battle tactics to try to capture their opponent’s port. Naval combat is practically a certainty and players will use cannons, torpedoes and mines to attack and sink enemy ships blocking their way to the enemy port.

Sea Battle was developed by Ken Smith at APh Technological Consulting and published for Intellivision in 1980. It was part of the Action Network game series, and like many titles developed by APh, Sea Battle was also one of the first games released for the Intellivision console. Sears also released Sea Battle under its Tele-Games Super Video Arcade brand. In 2000, an Atari 2600 port was released as a limited edition product for collectors. On March 24, 2010, Sea Battle was part of the first wave of games to become available on the Xbox 360 Game Room.

It’s important to note that Sea Battle has no enemy AI, so the game loses a significant portion of its entertainment value without two human players.

playing style

In each game of Sea Battle, players start with the same choice of 13 ships that can be deployed in a variety of ways from their port. The ocean map is always the same, as are the port locations for both sides. Player 1 commands the gray navy, whose ships always face east, and player 2 commands the tan navy, whose ships always face west.

objective

Enemy ports and fleets

The goal of Sea Battle is to steer ships into your enemy’s port who will capture it and end the battle. Initially, the only two ships capable of capturing the ports are the aircraft carrier and the troop carrier. However, if both sides lose those ships, any ship can capture the port.

An important key to this goal is that while combat is almost certain, it is not a necessity to win the game. Cunning naval maneuvers and a careless enemy could result in an easy victory without engaging ships in combat.

Ships

Each player starts with 13 ships in their navy and can create a maximum of four fleets, each consisting of three ships, at any one time. The various characteristics for each ship are as follows:

Number Available: How many of these ships are in your Navy. Once the ship sinks, it’s gone for the rest of the game.

How many of these ships are in your navy. Once the ship sinks, it’s gone for the rest of the game. Top Speed: The fastest speed at which the ship can move. Fleets move as fast as the slowest ship in them.

The fastest the ship can move. Fleets move as fast as the slowest ship in them. Acceleration: How long it takes for a ship to reach top speed or change direction. This is much more crucial when navigating in combat, since out of combat ships rarely have a reason to move swiftly.

How long it takes for a ship to reach top speed or change direction. This is much more crucial when navigating in combat, since out of combat ships rarely have a reason to move swiftly. Armor: The number of hit points or HP of damage a ship can withstand before sinking. For example, if a ship has 10 HP of armor, it will sink after taking 11 HP of damage – 10 HP for the armor and another 1 HP to sink it.

The number of hit points or HP of damage a ship can withstand before sinking. For example, if a ship has 10 HP of armor, it will sink after taking 11 HP of damage – 10 HP for the armor and another 1 HP to sink it. Weapon Type: There are three types of weapons in Sea Battle: cannons, torpedoes and mines. Turrets must aim accurately and hit a target at their landing point in the reticle to deal damage. Torpedoes do not require this level of accuracy and will inflict damage if they hit a target anywhere on the path to the target crosshair. Mines are only deployed out of combat, and up to four minefields can be placed invisibly in the strategic phase.

There are three types of weapons in Sea Battle: cannons, torpedoes and mines. Turrets must aim accurately and hit a target at their landing point in the reticle to deal damage. Torpedoes do not require this level of accuracy and will inflict damage if they hit a target anywhere on the path to the target crosshair. Mines are only deployed out of combat, and up to four minefields can be placed invisibly in the strategic phase. Weapon Strength: The amount of damage the weapon deals when it successfully hits a target.

The amount of damage the weapon deals when it successfully hits a target. Weapon Range: The distance a ship’s reticle can travel to fire weapons. Short-range weapons, of course, require a ship to get closer to its target before opening fire.

aircraft carrier

aircraft carrier

Number available: 1

1 Maximum speed: 30 knots

30 knots Acceleration: Slow

Slow Armor: 25 HP

25 HP Weapon Type: Gun

Weapon Weapon Strength: 10 HP

10 HP Weapon Range: Long

The aircraft carrier is a slow-moving hull with excellent armor and decent weaponry to compensate for its slow movement. While it’s tempting to go into battle, care should be taken that the aircraft carrier is hovering, as it’s one of two ships that can capture the enemy port at any time (the troop carrier is the other ship).

troop transport

troop transport

Number available: 1

1 Maximum speed: 30 knots

30 knots Acceleration: Slow

Inert Armor: 25 HP

25 HP Weapon Type: Gun

Weapon Weapon Strength: 7 HP

7 HP Weapon range: Very short

The troop carrier can withstand quite a bit of damage, similar to the aircraft carrier, but its armament is far below average for defending against enemy ships. While it is always capable of capturing the enemy port, the troop carrier will almost certainly need other ships to defend it from attack.

Battleship

Battleship

Number available: 2

2 Maximum speed: 35 knots

35 knots of acceleration: Average

Average armor: 30 HP

30 HP Weapon Type: Gun

Weapon Weapon Strength: 12 HP

12 HP Weapon Range: Long

The battleship is the most heavily armored ship in the game, and both its speed and weapons are above average. It might not be the most maneuverable ship available, but it’s a good all-round choice for attacking enemies and protecting high-value ships.

Submarine

Submarine

Number available: 1

1 Maximum speed: 35 knots

35 knots of acceleration: Fast

Fast Armor: 15 HP

15 HP Weapon Type: Torpedo

Torpedo Weapon Strength: 20 HP

20 HP Weapon range: Very long

The submarine is destined for destruction. It is very fast and extremely agile in water, and its torpedoes are the most powerful weapons available in the combat phase. Its trade-off for incredible attack power is sub-par armor, which means caution is advised in hectic combat. However, the only weapons that will completely sink a submarine in one hit are mines or another submarine’s torpedoes, so it’s by no means fragile.

destroyer

destroyer

Number available: 3

3 Maximum speed: 40 knots

40 knots of acceleration: Fast

Fast Armor: 15 HP

15 HP Weapon Type: Gun

Weapon Weapon Strength: 9 HP

9 HP Weapon Range: Moderate

What the destroyer lacks in armor and armament, it makes up for in speed. It’s not the ideal choice for most battles, but a skilled navigator could overcome its shortcomings. Also, as the most numerous ship available, it can fill out any fleet formation decently.

PT boat

PT boat

Number available: 2

2 Maximum speed: 40 knots

40 knots of acceleration: Very fast

Very Fast Armor: 5 HP

5 HP Weapon Type: Torpedo

Torpedo Weapon Strength: 12 HP

12 HP Weapon Range: Short

The heart and soul of the PT boat is in the run and shoot. It is without a doubt the fastest ship available and its torpedoes make it a very dangerous threat. However, its armor is essentially nonexistent, allowing any other ship to sink the PT boat with a direct hit. His best chance of survival is to cruise past a slow ship, fire torpedoes, and retreat for another run as quickly as possible.

mine shift

mine shift

Number available: 1

1 Maximum speed: 20 knots

20 knots of acceleration: Average

Average armor: 15 HP

15 HP Weapon Type: Rifle/Mines

Weapon/Mines Weapon Strength: 6 HP/20 HP

6 HP/20 HP Weapon range: Very short

The Minelayer is a terrible ship in a head-on battle and doesn’t stand much of a chance of surviving against most other ships. The minelayer’s true advantage lies in its ability to place up to four minefields in the ocean during the strategic phase. These minefields are completely invisible, and the only way the enemy can know for sure where one is is to sail across it with a fleet, which deals 20 HP damage instantly to the fleet flagship and an additional 20 HP every few seconds if they do it. You’re careless enough to stay in the minefield. While an extremely dangerous trait, each navy only has one minelayer, and losing the ability to place mines early in a battle could be a crucial mistake.

minesweeper

minesweeper

Number available: 2

2 Maximum speed: 30 knots, 15 knots in sweep mode

30 knots, 15 knots in sweep mode Acceleration: Average

Average armor: 20 HP

20 HP Weapon Type: Gun

Weapon Weapon Strength: 6 HP

6 HP Weapon range: Very long

The Minesweeper is another ship that should probably avoid direct naval conflict, with incredibly weak weaponry and slightly above average armor. His talent lies in countering the minelayer, and he can switch to sweep mode at any time, which will remove any minefields that the minesweeper’s fleet is traveling over. However, there is no indication that a minefield has been successfully removed, and switching to Sweep mode drops the minesweeper to an extremely slow speed, making it very vulnerable to interception by enemy forces.

strategy phase

Sea Battle begins in the strategy phase with a map of the battlefield, which is an ocean dotted with islands. A constant sonar beep sounds to indicate the passage of time. Each side’s ships will begin to dock at their port, and to begin with, both sides must start forming fleets.

The ocean map at the beginning of the game

Fleets consist of groups of one to three ships. Each navy can deploy a maximum of four fleets at a time, and no fleet can have more than one ship of the same type. If the player attempts to deploy a duplicate ship in a fleet or selects a ship that is no longer in port, the game buzzes and the order is ignored. The first ship selected for a fleet is considered the flagship, and the second and third ships take command of the flagship in that order in the event of a sinking. While the fleet size is visible in the strategy phase, the ship types currently in the fleet are not displayed.

Players move one fleet at a time across the map, positioning them strategically or attempting to advance towards the enemy port. The active fleet flashes slowly while maneuvering around the map. When deployed in a fleet, a minelayer can deploy up to four invisible minefields at any one time.

If a fleet needs repairs or reorganization, it can be directed back to its home port and ordered to stop. This removes his ships from the ocean map and fully repairs any damage he took. The ships can then be used again as usual. Homeport Regrouping can only be performed a total of three times during the battle.

When two enemy fleets come within combat range, they will start blinking rapidly and the sonar sound will be interrupted. At this point, each side has about five seconds to engage the enemy and send the battle to the combat phase. In the unlikely event that neither side decides to engage in combat after five seconds, the strategy phase will continue, but if the fleets remain within combat range after a few seconds, they will be offered the opportunity to engage in combat again. If there is more than one fleet in combat range, the game will cycle through all possible battles, giving a player with multiple fleets in range the option to choose which fleet (if any) he would prefer to fight.

combat phase

As soon as one side decides to attack an enemy fleet, the combat phase begins. Here the screen zooms in on the region surrounding the two fleets, showing the exact ships in each fleet. Both players initially control their flagship and can switch ships while piloting one ship at a time against the enemy fleet.

Aim in the combat phase

Ships maneuver based on their top speed and acceleration and tend to exhibit inertia similar to that of heavy watercraft. To fire cannons or torpedoes, the aim button must be pressed (which will stop any thrust or steering) and a crosshair will appear, which can be moved. The limits of the aiming reticle are based on a ship’s weapon range, but once the reticle is brought out by aiming, it remains constant in its position relative to the ship as the ship moves further.

Once the player fires, a barrage or torpedo will fire at the reticle, depending on the ship, and the reticle will reset (meaning each shot must be aimed before firing). When the weapon connects to a ship, an explosion occurs; otherwise, a loud splash will be heard. A hit deals the weapon’s damage to the ship’s HP. Hitting land during the combat phase deals 12 HP damage every few seconds. This can be especially dangerous when a fleet enters combat mode near land, as their ships can spawn and take damage directly on land. When a ship loses its armor and takes further damage, it sinks.

A sinking ship in the midst of battle

There are two ways to end the combat phase: completely destroy a fleet or retreat. To retreat, a player must press the activation button to disengage. An alarm sounds and fifteen seconds elapse before the fleet retreats, so care must be taken to avoid further damage from the enemy. Regardless of the ending condition, the game then returns to the strategic phase. If the combat phase ended by retreating, the retreating fleet should move away from the enemy as quickly as possible. Otherwise, after a few seconds, the opponent will be given the opportunity to attack again.

basic strategy

In order to achieve victory in the naval battle, it is important to remember the initial condition for victory: sail an aircraft carrier or troop carrier to the enemy’s port. This means that a wise player should focus primarily on defending both their harbor and their conquering ships. Deploying a fleet at the port as a last line of defense is usually a good idea, and protecting the routes to the port by laying minefields is also helpful, especially as minefields cannot harm the team that placed them.

An early win. Don’t leave your harbor undefended!

Pairing conquering ships with more offensive ships in a fleet will help ensure their safety in the event they come under attack. Both capturing ships should not be in the same fleet as this will endanger them both in a combat situation. Consider making a ship other than the aircraft carrier or troop carrier the flagship of the fleet; If the fleet goes through a minefield in this way, the capturing ships will not be badly damaged, since minefields only damage the flagship at first. Battleships with 30hp to withstand the 20hp minefields are probably a good flagship in these cases. Additionally, the use of minesweepers to escort capturing ships could help repel an otherwise deadly attack. Losing both the aircraft carrier and the troop carrier early means losing the ability to claim victory until the enemy’s capturing ships can be destroyed.

Finally, while in the strategic phase it is useful to remember one’s fleet configuration, it is even more useful to find out what the enemy is using in their fleets. Faster fleets might only contain attack forces, while noticeably slower fleets might either be minelayers looking to lay dangerous minefields, or minesweepers trying to clear an opponent’s mines.

Atari 2600 version

At the Classic Gaming Expo in July 2000, a special version of Sea Battle for the Atari 2600 was released and made available to collectors. This port was likely created by Intellivision Productions, but it was released under the Retrotopia label, a term Intellivision Productions appears to be using for its sponsorship of the show.

This particular Atari 2600 version appears to have been a one-off production and does not appear to be for sale anywhere. Because of this, it’s probably pretty rare.

Xbox 360 game room

The Game Room version of Sea Battle. Note the similar colors of the ships.

Sea Battle was part of the first wave of titles unveiled on March 24, 2010 in the Xbox 360 Game Room.

The game is virtually the same visually, except that Player 2’s navy is a faint shade of green instead of orange. However, the need to invoke a “virtual number pad” to select fleets and orders not only makes the game cumbersome, but also ruins the secrecy of such orders, as players can easily see their opponent’s inputs. This effectively renders Sea Battle’s strategy component completely useless.

Battle with sea ships

Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, ocean or any other battlefield involving a larger body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Mankind has been fighting at sea for more than 3,000 years.[1] Even within large land masses, before the advent of extensive railroads, transportation depended largely on rivers, canals, and other navigable waterways.

The latter were crucial to the development of the modern world in Britain, the Netherlands and northern Germany, enabling the mass movement of goods and raw materials without which the Industrial Revolution would not have happened. Before 1800, war material was mostly transported by barge or seagoing vessel and required sea defense against enemies.

history [edit]

Mankind has been fighting at sea for more than 3,000 years.[1] Even within large land masses, before the advent of extensive railroads, transportation depended largely on rivers, canals, and other navigable waterways.

The latter were crucial to the development of the modern world in Britain, America, the Netherlands and northern Germany as they enabled the mass movement of goods and raw materials which aided the incipient Industrial Revolution. Before 1750, materials were mostly transported by barge or seagoing vessel. Armies with their exorbitant need for food, ammunition and fodder have always been tied to the river valleys.

Recorded history (Homeric legends, e.g. Troy) and classic works such as The Odyssey emphasize the sea. The Persian Empire – united and strong – failed in several attempts to conquer the Greek city-states against the power of the Athenian fleet combined with that of the smaller city-states. The power of Phenicia and Egypt, Carthage and even Rome depended largely on control of the seas.

Likewise, the Venetian Republic dominated Italy’s city-states, defeated the Ottoman Empire, and for centuries dominated trade on the Silk Road and the Mediterranean in general. For three centuries, the Vikings raided and plundered as far as central Russia and Ukraine, and even distant Constantinople (both via the Black Sea tributaries, Sicily, and through the Strait of Gibraltar).

Gaining control of the sea depended largely on a fleet’s ability to engage in naval battles. For most of naval history, naval warfare has revolved around two overarching concerns, namely boarding and anti-boarding. It was not until the late 16th century, when gunpowder technology had greatly developed, that the tactical emphasis at sea shifted to heavy ordnance.[2]

Many naval battles throughout history also provide a reliable source of shipwrecks for underwater archaeology. An important example is the exploration of the wrecks of various warships in the Pacific Ocean.

Mediterranean [edit]

A scene from an Egyptian temple wall depicts Ramses’ combined land and sea victory at the Battle of the Delta

The first recorded sea battle was the Battle of the Delta, the ancient Egyptians defeated the Sea Peoples in a sea battle around 1175 BC. As on the temple walls of the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramses III. Recorded in Medinet Habu, this repelled a major naval invasion near the coast of the eastern Nile Delta with a naval ambush and archers firing from both ships and shore.

Assyrian reliefs from the 8th century BC. show Phoenician battleships with two rows of oars, fighting men on some kind of bridge or deck above the oarsmen, and a kind of ram sticking out of the bow. No written mention of strategy or tactics seems to have survived.

Josephus Flavius ​​(Antiquities IX 283–287) reports a naval battle between Tire and the king of Assyria, supported by the other cities in Phenicia. The battle took place off the coast of Tire. Although the Tyrian fleet was much smaller, the Tyrians defeated their enemies.

Homer’s Greeks only used their ships to transport land armies, but in 664 B.C. A naval battle between Corinth and its colony city of Corcyra is reported.

Ancient descriptions of the Persian Wars were the first to include large-scale naval operations, not just elaborate naval engagements with dozens of triremes on each side, but combined land-sea operations. It seems unlikely that all of this was the product of a single mind or even a generation; Most likely, the time of evolution and experimentation was simply not recorded by history.

After some initial struggles to subdue the Greeks on the Ionian coast, the Persians decided to invade Greece proper. Themistocles of Athens estimated that while the Greeks would be outnumbered by the Persians on land, Athens could protect itself by building a fleet (the famous “Wooden Walls”), using the profits of the silver mines at Laurium to fund them.

The first Persian campaign in 492 BC. Canceled because the fleet was lost in a storm, but the second in 490 B.C. conquered islands in the Aegean before landing on the mainland near Marathon. Attacks by the Greek armies repulsed them.

The third Persian campaign in 480 BC. under Xerxes I of Persia followed the pattern of the second, marching the army across the Hellespont while the fleet paralleled them off the coast. Near Artemisium, in the narrow channel between the mainland and Euboea, the Greek fleet repelled several Persian attacks, the Persians breaking through a first line but then being flanked by the second line of ships. But defeat on land at Thermopylae forced a Greek retreat, and Athens evacuated its people to the nearby island of Salamis.

The Battle of Salamis that followed was one of history’s defining confrontations. Themistocles trapped the Persians in a channel too narrow for them to carry their larger numbers and attacked them vigorously, eventually causing the loss of 200 Persian ships to 40 Greeks. Aeschylus wrote a play about the defeat, The Persians, which was performed in a Greek theater competition a few years after the battle. It is the oldest known surviving play. In the end, Xerxes still had a fleet stronger than the Greeks, but retreated anyway and, after the defeat at Plataea the following year, returned to Asia Minor, leaving the Greeks their freedom. Despite this, the Athenians and Spartans attacked and burned the deployed Persian fleet at Mycale and liberated many of the Ionian cities. These battles included triremes or biremes as the standard combat platform, and the focus of combat was ramming the opponent’s ship with the boat’s reinforced bow. The opponent would try to maneuver and avoid contact, or alternatively, sidestepping all the marines to get hit, causing the boat to tip over. When the ram had withdrawn and the marines scattered, the hole would be above the waterline and would not pose a critical breach to the ship.

For the next fifty years the Greeks ruled the Aegean, but not harmoniously. After several minor wars, tensions exploded in the Peloponnesian War (431 BC) between Athens’ Delian League and the Spartan Peloponnese. Naval strategy was crucial; Athens secluded itself from the rest of Greece, leaving only the port of Piraeus open and relying on its navy to keep supplies going while the Spartan army besieged it. This strategy worked, although the close proximity likely contributed to the plague that struck in 429 BC. BC Killed many Athenians.

There were a number of naval battles between galleys; in Rhium, Naupactus, Pylos, Syracuse, Cynossema, Cyzicus, Notium. But the end came for Athens in 405 BC. BC at Aegospotami on the Hellespont, where the Athenians had stationed their fleet on the beach and were surprised by the Spartan fleet, which landed and burned all the ships. Athens surrendered to Sparta the following year.

Next, the navies played a major role in the complicated wars of Alexander the Great’s successors.

The Roman Republic had never been a great seafaring nation, but it had to learn. In the Punic Wars with Carthage, the Romans developed the technique of boarding and boarding enemy ships with soldiers. The Roman navy gradually grew as Rome became more involved in Mediterranean politics; By the time of the Roman Civil War and the Battle of Actium (31 BC), hundreds of ships were involved, many with quinqueremes mounting catapults and battle turrets. After Emperor Augustus transformed the republic into the Roman Empire, Rome gained control of most of the Mediterranean Sea. With no maritime enemies to speak of, the Roman navy was reduced mainly to patrolling for pirates and transport duties. Only on the fringes of the empire, in newly won provinces or on defensive missions against barbarian invasions, did the navy wage real warfare.

Europe, West Asia, and North Africa[ edit ]

While barbarian invasions in the 4th century and later were mainly overland, some notable examples of naval conflict are known. In the late 3rd century, during the reign of Emperor Gallienus, a large raiding force composed of Goths, Gepids and Herulians plunged into the Black Sea, raided the coasts of Anatolia and Thrace, and crossed the Aegean to plunder mainland Greece (including Athens and Athens). Sparta) and as far as Crete and Rhodes. The twilight of the Roman Empire in the late 4th century includes examples such as that of Emperor Majorian, who, with the help of Constantinople, assembled a large fleet to drive the Germanic invaders from their recently conquered African territories, and a defeat of an Ostrogothic fleet at Sena Gallica in the Adriatic Sea.

During the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, Arab fleets first appeared, raiding Sicily in 652 (see History of Islam in southern Italy and the Emirate of Sicily) and defeating the Byzantine navy in 655. Constantinople was saved from a prolonged Arab siege in 678 by the invention of Greek fire, an early form of flamethrower that was devastating to the ships of the besieging fleet. These were the first of many encounters during the Byzantine-Arab Wars.

The Islamic Caliphate, or Arab Empire, became the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean from the 7th to the 13th centuries, during what is known as the Golden Age of Islam. One of the most significant inventions in medieval naval warfare was the torpedo, invented in Syria in 1275 by the Arab inventor Hasan al-Rammah. Its torpedo ran on water with a missile system filled with explosive gunpowder materials and had three firing points. It was an effective weapon against ships.[6]

In the 8th century the Vikings appeared, although their usual style was to appear, plunder and disappear quickly, preferring to attack undefended places. The Vikings raided locations along the coasts of England and France, with the greatest threats lying in England. They would raid monasteries for their wealth and lack of formidable defenders. They also used rivers and other auxiliary waterways to work their way inland in the eventual invasion of Britain. They wreaked havoc across Northumbria and Mercia and the rest of Anglia before being stopped by Wessex. King Alfred the Great of England stopped the Viking invasions with a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington. Alfred defeated Guthrum and settled the borders of Danelaw in a treaty of 884. The effectiveness of Alfred’s “fleet” has been debated; dr Kenneth Harl has pointed out that only eleven ships were sent to fight the Vikings, only two of which were not repulsed or captured.

The Vikings also fought several sea battles among themselves. This was usually done by tying the ships together on each side, essentially fighting a land battle at sea.[1] However, the fact that the losing side could not escape easily meant that the fighting was fierce and bloody. The Battle of Svolder is perhaps the most famous of these battles.

As Arab power in the Mediterranean began to wane, the Italian trading cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice seized the opportunity to establish trading networks and build fleets to protect them. First the fleet fought with the Arabs (off Bari 1004, at Messina 1005), but then they fought with the Normans who advanced into Sicily and finally with each other. The Genoese and Venetians fought four naval wars, 1253–1284, 1293–1299, 1350–1355, and 1378–1381. The last ended in a decisive Venetian victory, giving it almost a century to enjoy commercial dominance in the Mediterranean before other European countries began to expand south and west.

In Northern Europe, the near-continued conflict between England and France was characterized by raids on coastal towns and ports along the coasts and the securing of sea routes to protect troop transports. The Battle of Dover in 1217 between a French fleet of 80 ships under Eustace the Monk and an English fleet of 40 under Hubert de Burgh is notable as the first recorded battle to use sailing ship tactics. The Battle of Arnemuiden (September 23, 1338), which ended in a French victory, marked the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War and was the first battle involving artillery.[7] However, the Battle of Sluys, fought two years later, saw the destruction of the French fleet in a decisive action that gave the English effective control of the sea lanes and the strategic initiative for much of the war.

East, South, and Southeast Asia[ edit ]

A model of the 17th century Vietnamese ship “Mông đồng”. The ship appears to be powered by twenty oars and is armed with a bombardment and a smaller culverin. The roof should be protected against projectiles with fur or bronze plates.

The Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties of China were involved in several naval affairs over the triple polities that ruled medieval Korea (Three Kingdoms of Korea) and in Asuka-era naval bombardments of the peninsula Kingdom of Yamato (Japan).

The Tang dynasty supported the Korean kingdom of Silla (see also Unified Silla) and expelled the Korean kingdom of Baekje from the Korean peninsula with the help of Japanese naval forces (see Battle of Baekgang) and conquered Silla’s Korean rivals Baekje and Goguryeo by 668. In addition, the Tang maintained Maritime trade, tributary, and diplomatic ties to modern Sri Lanka, India, Islamic Iran and Arabia, and Somalia in East Africa.

From the Axumite kingdom in present-day Ethiopia, the Arab traveler Sa’d ibn Abi-Waqqas sailed from there to Tang China during the reign of Emperor Gaozong. Two decades later he returned with a copy of the Koran and established the first Islamic mosque in China, the Guangzhou Memorial Mosque. Increasing rivalry between Arabs and Chinese for control of Indian Ocean trade ensued. In his book Cultural Flow Between China and the Outside World, Shen Fuwei notes that ninth-century Chinese merchants regularly landed in Sufala, East Africa, to cut out Arab middlemen.[8]

The Chola dynasty of medieval India was a dominant naval power in the Indian Ocean, a keen sea trader, and a diplomatic entity with Song China. Rajaraja Chola I (r. 985 to 1014) and his son Rajendra Chola I (r. 1014–42) sent a major naval expedition that occupied parts of Myanmar, Malaya and Sumatra. The Cholas were the first rulers known to have had a fleet in the Indian subcontinent. There are at least two pieces of evidence for the use of navies. Narasimhavarman Pallava I transported his troops to Sri Lanka to help Manavarman regain the throne. Shatavahanahas were known to possess a navy that was widely used to influence Southeast Asia, but the extent of their use is unknown.

Some argue that there is no evidence to support naval warfare as it is understood today. Others say ships routinely carried bands of soldiers to keep pirates at bay. However, since the Arabs were known to use catapults, naphtha, and ship-mounted devices to prevent groups from boarding, one can conclude that the Chola navy not only transported troops, but also support, protection, and offensive capabilities against enemy targets bot.

Full-size replica of the 8th century AD Borobudur ship. This had gone on an expedition to Ghana in 2003-2004 and had simulated the navigation and exploration of Srivijayan and Medang.

Large ocean-going ships of more than 50 m in length and 5.2-7.8 m freeboard have been operating in the Nusantara Archipelago since at least the 2nd century AD, connecting India with China.[9]: 347 [ 10]: 41 Srivijaya Empire controlled the sea of ​​the western part of the archipelago since the 7th century AD. The Kedukan Bukit inscription is the oldest record of Indonesian military history and mentions a 7th-century sacred Srivijayan Siddhayatra journey led by Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa. He is said to have brought 20,000 soldiers with him, including 312 people in boats and 1,312 foot soldiers.[11]: 4 The 10th-century Arabic text Ajayeb al-Hind (Wonders of India) reports an invasion of Africa by people called Wakwak or Waqwaq,[ 12]: 110 probably the Malay people of Srivijaya or the Javanese people of Medang,[13]: 39 in AD 945–946. They arrived on the coast of Tanganyika and Mozambique with 1000 boats and tried to conquer the citadel of Qanbaloh to take, but eventually failed. The reason for the attack is that this place had goods suitable for their country and for China such as ivory, tortoise shells, panther skins and ambergris and also because they wanted black slaves from Bantu people (from the Arabs Zeng or called Zenj). Jenggi of Javanese) who were strong and made good slaves.[12]:110 Before the 12th century Srivijaya was a land-based polity rather than a sea power, fleets are available but served as logistical support to facilitate land power projection . Later, naval strategy degenerated into a raiding fleet. Their naval strategy was to force merchant ships to dock in their ports which, if ignored, will send ships to destroy the ship and kill the occupants. It is believed that the Srivijaya’s main warship was an outrigger ship called the Borobudur ship.[16]

In 1293, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty launched an invasion of Java. The Yuan sent 500–1000 ships and 20,000–30,000 soldiers but was eventually defeated by a surprise attack on land, forcing the army to retreat to the beach. In the coastal waters, Javanese junks had already attacked the Mongol ships. After all the troops boarded the ships on the coast, the Yuan army fought the Javanese fleet. After repelling it, they sailed back to Quanzhou. The Javanese naval commander Aria Adikara intercepted another Mongol invasion.[17]:145 [13]:107–110 Although information is scarce, travelers who passed through the region, such as Ibn Battuta and Odoric of Pordenone, noted that Java was invaded by the Mongols had been attacked by Mongols several times, always failing.[18][19] After these failed invasions, the Majapahit Empire grew rapidly and was conquered in the 14th-15th centuries. Century dominant sea power. The use of cannons in the Mongol invasion of Java[20]: 245 led to the use of cetbang cannons by the Majapahit fleet in the 13th century.[21] The main warship of the Majapahit Navy was the Jong. The jongs were large transport vessels capable of carrying 100–2000 tons of cargo and 50–1000 people, 28.99–88.56 meters long.[22]: 60–62 The exact number of jong deployed by Majapahit is unknown, but the largest number The number of jong used in an expedition is about 400 jong when Majapahit attacked 1350 Pasai.[23] In this era, even up to the 17th century, the marines of Nusantaran on their ships called Balai fought on a platform and performed boarding actions. Scattershots fired from Cetbang are used to counter this type of fights fired at staff.[20]:241 [24]:162

In the 12th century, China’s first permanent navy was established by the Southern Song Dynasty, the headquarters of the admiralty stationed in Dinghai. This happened after the conquest of northern China by the Jurchen people (see Jin dynasty) in 1127, while the Song imperial court was fleeing south from Kaifeng to Hangzhou. Armed with the magnetic compass and knowledge of Shen Kuo’s famous treatise (on the concept of true north), the Chinese in their day became skilled experts in navigation. They increased their naval strength from just 11 squadrons with 3,000 marines to 20 squadrons with 52,000 marines in a century.

Through the use of paddlewheel vehicles and trebuchets that threw gunpowder bombs from the decks of their ships, the Southern Song dynasty became a formidable enemy of the Jin dynasty in the 12th-13th centuries during the Jin Song Wars. There were naval engagements at the Battle of Caishi and the Battle of Tangdao.[25][26] With a powerful navy, China also dominated maritime trade throughout Southeast Asia. The Song used their naval power to defend themselves against the Jin in the north until 1279, when the Mongols finally conquered all of China. After the Song Dynasty, the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty of China was a powerful naval power in the Indian Ocean.

The Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan attempted to invade Japan twice with large fleets (Mongolian and Chinese), in 1274 and again in 1281, with both attempts being unsuccessful (see Mongol invasions of Japan). Building on the technological advances of the earlier Song dynasty, the Mongols also used early cannons on the decks of their ships.[27][page needed]

While Song China was building its naval strength, the Japanese also had considerable naval capabilities. The strength of the Japanese naval forces was shown in the Genpei War at the Great Battle of Dan-no-ura on April 25, 1185. Minamoto no Yoshitsune’s forces were 850 ships strong, while Taira no Munemori had 500 ships.

In the mid-14th century, rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) seized power in the south, along with many other rebel groups. Its early success was due to able officials like Liu Bowen and Jiao Yu and their gunpowder weapons (see Huolongjing). But the decisive battle that cemented his success and the founding of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) was the Battle of Poyang Lake, considered one of the greatest naval battles in history.[27]: 228–231

In the 15th century, Chinese admiral Zheng He was commissioned to assemble a vast fleet for several diplomatic missions abroad, sailing the waters of the Southeast Pacific and Indian Oceans. During his missions, Zheng’s fleet came into conflict with pirates several times. Zheng’s fleet also became involved in a conflict in Sri Lanka, where the King of Ceylon then traveled back to Ming China to formally apologize to the Yongle Emperor.

Japanese samurai attacking a Mongol ship, 13th century

The Ming Imperial Navy defeated a Portuguese navy led by Martim Afonso de Sousa in 1522. The Chinese destroyed one ship by targeting its gunpowder magazine and captured another Portuguese ship. A Ming army and navy led by Koxinga defeated a Western power, the Dutch East India Company, at the Siege of Fort Zeelandia, the first time China defeated a Western power. The Chinese used guns and ships to bombard the Dutch into surrendering.[31][32]

In the Sengoku period of Japan, Oda Nobunaga unified the country through military might. However, he was defeated by the Mōri clan’s navy. Nobunaga invented the tekkosen (large atakebune equipped with iron plates) and with six armored warships defeated 600 ships of the Mōri Navy (Battle of Kizugawaguchi). The navy of Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi employed clever close-range arquebus-rifle tactics on land, but also relied on firing muskets at close range in grappling-and-plank-style naval engagements. When Nobunaga died in the Honnō-ji Incident, Hideyoshi succeeded him and completed the unification of the whole country. In 1592, Hideyoshi ordered the daimyos to send troops to Joseon Korea to conquer Ming China. The Japanese army, which landed at Pusan ​​on April 12, 1502, occupied Seoul within a month.[33] The Korean king fled to the northern region of the Korean Peninsula and Japan completed its occupation of Pyongyang in June. The Korean Navy, then led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin, defeated the Japanese Navy in consecutive naval battles, namely Okpo, Sacheon, Tangpo, and Tanghangpo.[34] The Battle of Hansando on August 14, 1592 resulted in a decisive Korean victory over the Japanese Navy.[35] In this battle, 47 Japanese warships were sunk and another 12 ships captured, while no Korean warship was lost.[36] The defeats at sea prevent the Japanese Navy from adequately supplying the Japanese Army.[37]

Yi Sun-sin was later replaced by Admiral Won Gyun, whose fleets faced defeat.[38] The Japanese army, stationed near Busan, overwhelmed the Korean navy at the Battle of Chilcheollyang on August 28, 1597 and began advancing towards China. This attempt was halted when the reappointed Admiral Yi won the Battle of Myeongnyang.[39]

Ming China’s Wanli Emperor sent forces to the Korean Peninsula. Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin continued to successfully attack the Japanese Navy with 500 Chinese warships and the reinforced Korean fleet. In 1598 the planned conquest of China was aborted by the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Japanese military withdrew from the Korean Peninsula. On their way back to Japan, Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin attacked the Japanese navy at the Battle of Noryang, inflicting heavy damage, but top Chinese official Deng Zilong and Korean commander Yi Sun-sin were killed in a Japanese army counterattack . The remainder of the Japanese army returned to Japan at the end of December.[43] In 1609, the Tokugawa shogunate ordered warships to be ceded to the feudal lord. The Japanese Navy stagnated until the Meiji period.

In Korea, the longer range of Korean guns along with the brilliant naval strategies of Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin were the main factors in the eventual defeat of Japan. Yi Sun-sin is credited with improving the geobukseon (turtle ship), which was mainly used for spearhead attacks. They were best used in confined areas and around islands rather than in the open sea. Yi Sun-sin effectively cut off the possible Japanese supply line that would have passed through the Yellow Sea to China, and severely weakened Japanese strength and morale in several heated engagements (many consider the critical Japanese defeat to be the Battle of Hansan Island). The Japanese faced diminishing hopes of further supplies due to repeated losses in naval battles at the hands of Yi Sun-sin. As the Japanese army was about to return to Japan, Yi Sun-sin decisively defeated a Japanese navy at the Battle of Noryang.

Ancient and Medieval China[edit]

An Eastern Han (AD 25–220) Chinese pottery boat, adapted for river and sea voyages, with an anchor at the bow, a rudder at the stern, covered compartments with windows and doors, and miniature sails

Wujing Zongyao Ein Louchuan aus der Song-Dynastie mit einem Trebuchet, dargestellt in der

Im alten China fanden die ersten bekannten Seeschlachten während der Zeit der Streitenden Reiche (481–221 v. Chr.) statt, als Vasallenherren gegeneinander kämpften. Die chinesische Seekriegsführung in dieser Zeit bestand aus Enterhaken und Rammtaktiken mit Schiffen, die als “Magenstreikende” und “kollidierende Swooper” bezeichnet wurden. In der Han-Dynastie wurde geschrieben, dass die Menschen der Ära der Streitenden Staaten Chuan-Ge-Schiffe (Dolch-Axt-Schiffe oder Hellebarden-Schiffe) eingesetzt hatten, was als einfache Beschreibung von Schiffen gedacht war, die von Marinesoldaten bemannt waren, die Dolch-Axt-Hellebarden als persönliche Waffen trugen .

Der Schriftsteller Zhang Yan aus dem 3. Jahrhundert behauptete, dass die Menschen in der Zeit der Streitenden Reiche die Boote so benannten, weil Hellebardenklingen tatsächlich am Rumpf des Schiffes befestigt und befestigt waren, um beim Rammen in den Rumpf eines anderen Schiffes zu reißen und zu stechen Feinde im Wasser, die über Bord gefallen waren und schwammen, oder einfach, um alle möglichen gefährlichen Meerestiere im Weg des Schiffes zu beseitigen (da die alten Chinesen an Seeungeheuer glaubten; siehe Xu Fu für weitere Informationen).

Qin Shi Huang, der erste Kaiser der Qin-Dynastie (221–207 v. Chr.), verdankte einen Großteil seines Erfolgs bei der Vereinigung Südchinas der Seemacht, obwohl noch keine offizielle Marine gegründet wurde (siehe Abschnitt Mittelalterliches Asien weiter unten). Die Menschen der Zhou-Dynastie waren dafür bekannt, temporäre Pontonbrücken als allgemeine Transportmittel zu verwenden, aber während der Qin- und Han-Dynastien wurden große permanente Pontonbrücken zusammengebaut und in der Kriegsführung eingesetzt (erster schriftlicher Bericht über eine Pontonbrücke im Westen). die Aufsicht über die griechischen Mandrokles von Samos bei der Unterstützung eines Feldzugs des persischen Kaisers Darius I. über den Bosporus).

Während der Han-Dynastie (202 v. Chr. – 220 n. Chr.) begannen die Chinesen, das am Heck montierte Steuerruder zu verwenden, und sie entwarfen auch einen neuen Schiffstyp, die Dschunke. Von der späten Han-Dynastie bis zur Zeit der Drei Königreiche (220–280 n. Chr.) markierten große Seeschlachten wie die Schlacht an den Roten Klippen den Fortschritt der Seekriegsführung im Osten. In letzterem Gefecht zerstörten die alliierten Streitkräfte von Sun Quan und Liu Bei eine große Flotte, die von Cao Cao in einem feuerbasierten Seeangriff kommandiert wurde.

In Bezug auf die Seefahrt im Ausland war der buddhistische Mönch Faxian im frühen 5. Jahrhundert wohl einer der ersten Chinesen, die in den Indischen Ozean segelten und Sri Lanka und Indien auf dem Seeweg erreichten, obwohl diplomatische Beziehungen und Landhandel nach Persien und Indien aufgebaut wurden während der früheren Han-Dynastie. Der maritime Einfluss der chinesischen Marine würde jedoch bis zum Mittelalter in den Indischen Ozean eindringen.

Early modern period[edit]

Die in der Vasa ausgestellte Vasa mit ihrer hohen Heckburg und den Doppelbatteriedecks war ein Übergangsdesign zwischen den Vorlieben für die im Vasa-Museum in Stockholm ausgestellte Galeone aus dem frühen 17. Jahrhundert mit ihrer hohen Heckburg und der Doppelbatterie Decks, war ein Übergangsdesign zwischen den Vorlieben für Entertaktiken und der Kampflinie

Das späte Mittelalter sah die Entwicklung der Koggen, Karavellen und Karackenschiffe, die in der Lage waren, die harten Bedingungen des offenen Ozeans zu überleben, mit genügend Reservesystemen und Besatzungserfahrung, um lange Reisen zur Routine zu machen.[1] Außerdem wuchsen sie von 100 Tonnen auf 300 Tonnen Hubraum, genug, um Kanonen als Bewaffnung zu tragen und immer noch Platz für Fracht zu haben. Eines der größten Schiffe der Zeit, die Great Harry, verdrängte über 1.500 Tonnen.

Die Entdeckungsreisen waren grundsätzlich eher kommerzieller als militärischer Natur, obwohl die Grenze manchmal verschwommen war, da der Herrscher eines Landes nicht über der Finanzierung von Erkundungen für persönlichen Profit stand, noch war es ein Problem, militärische Macht einzusetzen, um diesen Profit zu steigern. Später trennten sich die Linien allmählich, da die Motivation des Herrschers für den Einsatz der Marine darin bestand, Privatunternehmen zu schützen, damit sie mehr Steuern zahlen konnten.

Like the Egyptian Shia-Fatimids and Mamluks, the Sunni-Islamic Ottoman Empire centered in modern-day Turkey dominated the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The Ottomans built a powerful navy, rivaling the Italian city-state of Venice during the Ottoman–Venetian War (1499–1503).

Although they were sorely defeated in the Battle of Lepanto (1571) by the Holy League, the Ottomans soon rebuilt their naval strength, and afterwards successfully defended the island of Cyprus so that it would stay in Ottoman hands. However, with the concurrent Age of Discovery, Europe had far surpassed the Ottoman Empire, and successfully bypassed their reliance on land-trade by discovering maritime routes around Africa and towards the Americas.

The first naval action in defense of the new colonies was just ten years after Vasco da Gama’s epochal landing in India. In March 1508, a combined Gujarati/Egyptian force surprised a Portuguese squadron at Chaul, and only two Portuguese ships escaped. The following February, the Portuguese viceroy destroyed the allied fleet at Diu, confirming Portuguese domination of the Indian Ocean.

In 1582, the Battle of Ponta Delgada in the Azores, in which a Spanish-Portuguese fleet defeated a combined French and Portuguese force, with some English direct support, thus ending the Portuguese succession crisis, was the first battle fought in mid-Atlantic.

In 1588, Spanish King Philip II sent his Armada to subdue the English fleet of Elizabeth, but Admiral Sir Charles Howard defeated the Armada, marking the rise to prominence of the English Royal Navy. However it was unable to follow up with a decisive blow against the Spanish navy, which remained the most important for another half century. After the war’s end in 1604 the English fleet went through a time of relative neglect and decline.

In the 16th century, the Barbary states of North Africa rose to power, becoming a dominant naval power in the Mediterranean Sea due to the Barbary pirates. The coastal villages and towns of Italy, Spain and Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked, and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants; after 1600 Barbary pirates occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland.

According to Robert Davis[45][46] as many as 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. These slaves were captured mainly from seaside villages in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and from farther places like France, England, the Netherlands, Ireland and even Iceland and North America. The Barbary pirates were also able to successfully defeat and capture many European ships, largely due to advances in sailing technology by the Barbary states. The earliest naval trawler, xebec and windward ships were employed by the Barbary pirates from the 16th century.[47]

From the middle of the 17th century competition between the expanding English and Dutch commercial fleets came to a head in the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the first wars to be conducted entirely at sea. Most memorable of these battles was the raid on the Medway, in which the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter sailed up the river Thames, and destroyed most of the British fleet. This remains the greatest English naval defeat, and established Dutch supremacy at sea for over half a century. Very few ships were sunk in naval combat during the Anglo-Dutch wars, as it was difficult to hit ships below the water level; the water surface deflected cannonballs, and the few holes produced could be patched quickly. Naval cannonades damaged men and sails more than they sunk ships.

Late modern [ edit ]

18th Century[ edit ]

The 18th century developed into a period of seemingly continuous international wars, each larger than the last. At sea, the British and French were bitter rivals; the French aided the fledgling United States in the American Revolutionary War, but their strategic purpose was to capture territory in India and the West Indies – which they did not achieve. In the Baltic Sea, the final attempt to revive the Swedish Empire led to Gustav III’s Russian War, with its grande finale at the Second Battle of Svensksund. The battle, unrivaled in size until the 20th century, was a decisive Swedish tactical victory, but it resulted in little strategical result, due to poor army performance and previous lack of initiative from the Swedes, and the war ended with no territorial changes.

Even the change of government due to the French Revolution seemed to intensify rather than diminish the rivalry, and the Napoleonic Wars included a series of legendary naval battles, culminating in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, by which Admiral Horatio Nelson broke the power of the French and Spanish fleets, but lost his own life in so doing.

19th Century[ edit ]

Trafalgar ushered in the Pax Britannica of the 19th century, marked by general peace in the world’s oceans, under the ensigns of the Royal Navy. But the period was one of intensive experimentation with new technology; steam power for ships appeared in the 1810s, improved metallurgy and machining technique produced larger and deadlier guns, and the development of explosive shells, capable of demolishing a wooden ship at a single blow, in turn required the addition of iron armour.

Although naval power during the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties established China as a major world seapower in the East, the Qing dynasty lacked an official standing navy. They were more interested in pouring funds into military ventures closer to home (China proper), such as Mongolia, Tibet, and Central Asia (modern Xinjiang). However, there were some considerable naval conflicts involving the Qing navy before the First Opium War (such as the Battle of Penghu, and the capture of Formosa from Ming loyalists).

The Qing navy proved woefully undermatched during the First and Second Opium Wars, leaving China open to de facto foreign domination; portions of the Chinese coastline were placed under Western and Japanese spheres of influence. The Qing government responded to its defeat in the Opium Wars by attempting to modernize the Chinese navy; placing several contracts in European shipyards for modern warships. The result of these developments was the Beiyang Fleet, which was dealt a severe blow by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895).

The battle between CSS Virginia and USS Monitor in the American Civil War was a duel of ironclads that symbolized the changing times. The first fleet action between ironclad ships was fought in 1866 at the Battle of Lissa between the navies of Austria and Italy. Because the decisive moment of the battle occurred when the Austrian flagship SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max successfully sank the Italian flagship Re d’Italia by ramming, in subsequent decade every navy in the world largely focused on ramming as the main tactic. The last known use of ramming in a naval battle was in 1915, when HMS Dreadnought rammed the (surfaced) German submarine, U-29. The last surface ship sunk by ramming happened in 1879 when the Peruvian ship Huáscar rammed the Chilean ship Esmeralda. The last known warship equipped with a ram was launched in 1908, the German light cruiser SMS Emden.

With the advent of the steamship, it became possible to create massive gun platforms and to provide them with heavy armor resulting in the first modern battleships. The Battles of Santiago de Cuba and Tsushima demonstrated the power of these ships.

20th Century[ edit ]

In the early 20th century, the modern battleship emerged: a steel-armored ship, entirely dependent on steam propulsion, with a main battery of uniform caliber guns mounted in turrets on the main deck. This type was pioneered in 1906 with HMS Dreadnought which mounted a main battery of ten 12-inch (300 mm) guns instead of the mixed caliber main battery of previous designs. Along with her main battery, Dreadnought and her successors retained a secondary battery for use against smaller ships like destroyers and torpedo boats and, later, aircraft.

Dreadnought style battleships dominated fleets in the early 20th century. They would play major parts in both the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. The Russo-Japanese War saw the rise of the Imperial Japanese Navy after their underdog victory against the waning Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima; while WWI pitted the old Royal Navy against the new Kaiserliche Marine of Imperial Germany, culminating in the 1916 Battle of Jutland. The future was heralded when the seaplane carrier HMS Engadine and her Short 184 seaplanes joined the battle. In the Black Sea, Russian seaplanes flying from a fleet of converted carriers interdicted Turkish maritime supply routes, Allied air patrols began to counter German U-boat activity in Britain’s coastal waters, and a British Short 184 carried out the first successful torpedo attack on a ship.

In 1918 the Royal Navy converted an Italian liner to create the first aircraft carrier, HMS Argus, and shortly after the war the first purpose-built carrier, HMS Hermes was launched. Many nations agreed to the Washington Naval Treaty and scrapped many of their battleships and cruisers while still in the shipyards, but the growing tensions of the 1930s restarted the building programs, with even larger ships. The Yamato-class battleships, the largest ever, displaced 72,000 tons and mounted 18.1-inch (460 mm) guns.

The victory of the Royal Navy at the Battle of Taranto was a pivotal point as this was the first true demonstration of naval air power. The importance of naval air power was further reinforced by the Attack on Pearl Harbor, which forced the United States to enter World War II. Nevertheless, in both Taranto and Pearl Harbor, the aircraft mainly attacked stationary battleships. The sinking of the British battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were in full combat manoeuvring at the time of the attack, finally marked the end of the battleship era.[48] Aircraft and their transportation, the aircraft carrier, came to the fore.

During the Pacific War of World War II, battleships and cruisers spent most of their time escorting aircraft carriers and bombarding shore positions, while the carriers and their airplanes were the stars of the Battle of the Coral Sea,[49] Battle of Midway,[49] Battle of the Eastern Solomons,[50] Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands[50] and Battle of the Philippine Sea. The engagements between battleships and cruisers, such as the Battle of Savo Island and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, were limited to night-time actions in order to avoid exposure to air attacks.[51] Nevertheless, battleships played the key role again in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, even though it happened after the major carrier battles, mainly because the Japanese carrier fleet was by then essentially depleted. It was the last naval battle between battleships in history.[52] Air power remained key to navies throughout the 20th century, moving to jets launched from ever-larger carriers, and augmented by cruisers armed with guided missiles and cruise missiles.

Roughly parallel to the development of naval aviation was the development of submarines to attack underneath the surface. At first, the ships were capable of only short dives, but they eventually developed the capability to spend weeks or months underwater powered by nuclear reactors. In both world wars, submarines (U-boats in Germany) primarily exerted their power by using torpedoes to sink merchant ships and other warships. In the 1950s, the Cold War inspired the development of ballistic missile submarines, each loaded with dozens of thermonuclear weapon-armed SLBMs and with orders to launch them from sea if the other nation attacked.

Against the backdrop of those developments, World War II had seen the United States become the world’s dominant sea power. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, the United States Navy maintained a tonnage greater than that of the next 17 largest navies combined.[53]

The aftermath of World War II saw naval gunnery supplanted by ship to ship missiles as the primary weapon of surface combatants. Two major naval battles have taken place since World War II.

The Indo-Pakistani Naval War of 1971 was the first major naval war post World War II. It saw the dispatch of an Indian aircraft carrier group, heavy utilisation of missile boats in naval operations, total naval blockade of Pakistan by the Indian Navy and the annihilation of almost half of Pakistan’s Navy.[54] By the end of the war, the damage inflicted by the Indian Navy and Air Forces on Pakistan’s Navy stood at two destroyers, one submarine, one minesweeper, three patrol vessels, seven gunboats, eighteen cargo, supply and communication vessels, as well as large-scale damage inflicted on the naval base and docks located in the major port city of Karachi.[55] Three merchant navy ships, Anwar Baksh, Pasni, and Madhumathi,[56] and ten smaller vessels were captured.[57] Around 1,900 personnel were lost, while 1,413 servicemen (mostly officers) were captured by Indian forces in Dhaka.[58] The Indian Navy lost 18 officers and 194 sailors[59] and a frigate, while another frigate was badly damaged and a Breguet Alizé naval aircraft was shot down by the Pakistan Air Force.[60]

In the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, a Royal Navy task force of approximately 100 ships was dispatched over 7,000 miles (11,000 km) from the British mainland to the South Atlantic. The British were outnumbered in theatre airpower with only 36 Harriers from their two aircraft carriers and a few helicopters, compared with at least 200 aircraft of the Fuerza Aérea Argentina, although London dispatched Vulcan bombers in a display of long-distance strategic capacity. Most of the land-based aircraft of the Royal Air Force were not available due to the distance from air bases. This reliance on aircraft at sea showed the importance of the aircraft carrier. The Falklands War showed the vulnerability of modern ships to sea-skimming missiles like the Exocet. One hit from an Exocet sank HMS Sheffield, a modern anti-air warfare destroyer. Over half of Argentine deaths in the war occurred when the nuclear submarine Conqueror torpedoed and sank the light cruiser ARA General Belgrano with the loss of 323 lives. Important lessons about ship design, damage control and ship construction materials were learnt from the conflict. The battle for the Falklands is often considered the last major naval action in terms of tonnage.

21st Century [ edit ]

At the present time, large naval wars are seldom-seen affairs, since nations with substantial navies rarely fight each other; most wars are civil wars or some form of asymmetrical warfare, fought on land, sometimes with the involvement of military aircraft. The main function of the modern navy is to exploit its control of the seaways to project power ashore. Power projection has been the primary naval feature of most late-century conflicts including the Korean War, Suez Crisis, Vietnam War, Konfrontasi, Gulf War, Kosovo War, the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. A major exception to that trend was the Sri Lankan Civil War, which saw a large number of surface engagements between the belligerents involving fast attack craft and other littoral warfare units.[61][62]

The lack of large fleet-on-fleet actions does not, however, mean that naval warfare has ceased to feature in modern conflicts. The bombing of the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, claimed the lives of seventeen sailors, wounded an additional thirty-seven, and cost the Cole fourteen months of repairs.[63][64] Though the attack did not eliminate the United States’ control of the local seas, in the short-term, it did prompt the US Navy to reduce its visits to far-flung ports, as military planners struggled to ensure their security.[65] This reduced US Naval presence was ultimately reversed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, as part of the Global War on Terrorism.[66]

Even in the absence of major wars, warships from opposing navies clash periodically at sea, sometimes with fatal results. For example, 46 sailors drowned in the 2010 sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, which South Korea and the United States blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack.[67] North Korea, in turn, denied all responsibility, accused South Korea of violating North Korean territorial waters, and offered to send its own team of investigators to “examine the evidence.”[68]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the armed forces of both Russia and Ukraine have openly targeted and destroyed each other’s ships. Though many of these are supporting vessels, such as landing ships, tugs, and patrol boats,[69][70] several larger warships have also been destroyed. Notably, the Ukrainian Navy scuttled its flagship, the frigate Hetman Sahaidachny, to prevent its capture,[71] while the patrol ship Sloviansk was sunken by Russian air attack.[72] The Russian Navy lost the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, in what the Ukrainian Navy has claimed as a successful Neptune anti-ship missile strike.[73] The Russian Navy, while not admitting to the Ukrainian claims of a missile attack, has confirmed the sinking of the Moskva.[74] As of May 2022, the naval war between Russia and Ukraine is ongoing, as the Russian Navy attempts to dominate Black Sea trade routes, and the Ukrainian Military attempts to erode Russian naval control.[75]

Naval history of nations and empires [ edit ]

See also[edit]

References[ edit ]

Sources[edit]

Shen, Fuwei (1996). Cultural Flow Between China and the Outside World . China Books & Periodicals. ISBN 978-7-119-00431-0

. China Books & Periodicals. ISBN 978-7-119-00431-0 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. Volume 4, Part 3. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.

Further reading[edit]

Holmes, Richard, et al., eds. The Oxford companion to military history (Oxford University Press, 2001), global.

(Oxford University Press, 2001), global. Howarth, David British Sea Power: How Britain Became Sovereign of the Seas (2003), 320 pp. from 1066 to present

(2003), 320 pp. from 1066 to present Padfield, Peter. Maritime Dominion and the Triumph of the Free World: Naval Campaigns That Shaped the Modern World 1852-2001 (2009)

(2009) Potter, E. B. Sea Power: A Naval History (1982), world history

(1982), world history Rodger, Nicholas A.M. The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815 . Vol. 2. (WW Norton & Company, 2005).

. Vol. 2. (WW Norton & Company, 2005). Rönnby, J. 2019. On War On Board: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Early Modern Maritime Violence and Warfare. Södertörn Archaeological Studies 15. Södertörn Högskola.

Sondhaus, Lawrence. Naval Warfare, 1815–1914 (2001).

(2001). Starr, Chester. The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History (1989)

(1989) Tucker, Spencer, ed. Naval Warfare: An International Encyclopedia (3 vol. Cambridge UP, 2002); 1231 pp; 1500 articles by many experts cover 2500 years of world naval history, esp. battles, commanders, technology, strategies and tactics,

(3 vol. Cambridge UP, 2002); 1231 pp; 1500 articles by many experts cover 2500 years of world naval history, esp. battles, commanders, technology, strategies and tactics, Tucker, Spencer. Handbook of 19th century naval warfare (Naval Inst Press, 2000).

(Naval Inst Press, 2000). Willmott, H. P. The Last Century of Sea Power, Volume 1: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894–1922 (2009), 568 pp. online in ebrary

(2009), 568 pp. online in ebrary Willmott, H. P. The Last Century of Sea Power, vol. 2: From Washington to Tokyo, 1922–1945. (Indiana University Press, 2010). xxii, 679 pp. ISBN 978-0-253-35359-7 online in ebrary

Warships [ edit ]

George, James L. History of warships: From ancient times to the twenty-first century (Naval Inst Press, 1998).

(Naval Inst Press, 1998). Ireland, Bernard, and Eric Grove. Jane’s War at Sea 1897–1997: 100 Years of Jane’s Fighting Ships (1997) covers all important ships of all major countries.

(1997) covers all important ships of all major countries. Peebles, Hugh B. Warshipbuilding on the Clyde: Naval orders and the prosperity of the Clyde shipbuilding industry, 1889–1939 (John Donald, 1987)

(John Donald, 1987) Van der Vat, Dan. Stealth at sea: the history of the submarine (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995).

Sailors and officers [ edit ]

Conley, Mary A. From Jack Tar to Union Jack: representing naval manhood in the British Empire, 1870–1918 (Manchester UP, 2009)

(Manchester UP, 2009) Hubbard, Eleanor. “Sailors and the Early Modern British Empire: Labor, Nation, and Identity at Sea.” History Compass 14.8 (2016): 348–58.

14.8 (2016): 348–58. Kemp, Peter. The British Sailor: a social history of the lower deck (1970)

(1970) Langley, Harold D. “Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War.” Journal of Military History 69.1 (2005): 239.

69.1 (2005): 239. Ortega-del-Cerro, Pablo, and Juan Hernández-Franco. “Towards a definition of naval elites: reconsidering social change in Britain, France and Spain, c. 1670–1810.” European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire (2017): 1–22.

(2017): 1–22. Smith, Simon Mark. “‘We Sail the Ocean Blue’: British sailors, imperialism, identity, pride and patriotism c. 1890 to 1939” (PhD dissertatation U of Portsmouth, 2017. online

First World War [ edit ]

Bennett, Geoffrey. Naval Battles of the First World War (Pen and Sword, 2014)

(Pen and Sword, 2014) Halpern, Paul. A naval history of World War I (Naval Institute Press, 2012).

(Naval Institute Press, 2012). Hough, Richard. The Great War at Sea, 1914–1918 (Oxford UP, 1987)

(Oxford UP, 1987) Marder, Arthur Jacob. From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (4 vol. 1961–70), covers Britain’s Royal Navy 1904–1919

(4 vol. 1961–70), covers Britain’s Royal Navy 1904–1919 O’Hara, Vincent P.; Dickson, W. David; Worth, Richard, eds. To Crown the Waves: The Great Navies of the First World War (2013) excerpt also see detailed review and summary of world’s navie before and during the war

(2013) excerpt also see detailed review and summary of world’s navie before and during the war Sondhaus, Lawrence The Great War at Sea: A Naval History of the First World War (2014). online review

Second World War [ edit ]

Barnett, Correlli. Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (1991).

(1991). Campbell, John. Naval Weapons of World War Two (Naval Institute Press, 1985).

(Naval Institute Press, 1985). Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (1963) short version of his 13 volume history.

(1963) short version of his 13 volume history. O’Hara, Vincent. The German Fleet at War, 1939–1945 (Naval Institute Press, 2013).

(Naval Institute Press, 2013). Roskill, S.K. White Ensign: The British Navy at War, 1939–1945 (United States Naval Institute, 1960); British Royal Navy; abridged version of his Roskill, Stephen Wentworth. The war at sea, 1939–1945 (3 vol. 1960).

(United States Naval Institute, 1960); British Royal Navy; abridged version of his (3 vol. 1960). Van der Vat, Dan. The Pacific Campaign: The Second World War, the US-Japanese Naval War (1941–1945) (2001).

Historiography [ edit ]