Wooden ships, and the damage they could sustain 1600s

[elkarlo]

I finished a book about Lepanto recently, and in it, it talked about how light the Ottoman Galleys were. The places where their archers were mounted were not meant to take a sustained amount of damage. It stated that the arquebus shots of the HL would have soon pierced the Galley's siding. The HL had 6 galleasses, which seemed to have knocked out 60-70 Ottoman ships. It seems like the Ottoman ships were meant for speed, and had little protection for the combined 180-220 guns of the galleasses to do that much damage.

During the Armada, the Spanish and English ships really had trouble knocking out each other's ships. I saw on a doc which used the eras cannons, where the shot wouldn't have gone threw a ship of that era.

I also read that even up to the Anglo-Dutch wars, that it was hard for ships to outright sink each other. From a combination of the fact that the ships were wooden, the angle of fire, and that the cannons of that era were still relatively weak.

My question is, how much damage the average non converted warship could sustain?

I also am asking this, as I think in general armor and the such are generally not given a good account in history.

 

[Sior]

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/history/82469-britains-first-wmd-elizabethan-cannon.html

 

[elkarlo]

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/history/82469-britains-first-wmd-elizabethan-cannon.html

Thanks, I also wonder what that cannon's shot would do when hitting a ship. Unfortunatley seeing pirate movies gives us the image of cannon balls whipping threw and exiting out the other side.

I didn't realize that 10 rounds an hour was a normal rate of fire. I guess this is why the Spanish had more of s close and board tactic.

 

[Sior]

http://www.royal-navy.org/lib/index.php?title=Elizabethan_Period

An 18 pounder long gun with a charge of 5 pounds of powder was capable of penetrating nearly 2½ feet into oak at a range of 400 yards, and over one foot at 1000 yards.

 

[MNP]

The Aubrey/Matarin books are also quite accurate in this regard for their time.

 

[Falastur]

The thing is that this period was right at the crunch point when bombardment was about to become the prime method of carrying out naval conflict. The reason that the Ottoman galleys were so light? Because they were used to getting up close and personal and using a flood of soldiers to capture their opponents' ships. The Spanish used the same tactics, using grapples to the rigging and boarding them with overwhelming force. The standard cannonball of the pre-1600 era was, unlike the standard idea of naval battles, not an iron cannonball the size of a small melon but in this era was a bronze cannonball the size of your fist - much lighter, and with a far slower muzzle velocity. They were used more for doing damage as ships got close, to be followed by boarding; ship tactics just didn't count on strafing runs and line of battle in this era - those tactics developed in the 1640s. The English were just bringing out iron cannonballs around this period as iron was far more plentiful and cheap for the English, where other naval powers were far more capable of mass-producing bronze. Their cannonballs were still small, though, as this was the era of cannons with barrels about as long as an outstretched leg. The larger iron cannonballs could punch through two sides of a ship (at close range). Bronze cannonballs couldn't - only at extreme close range could they break a hull, and even then it depended on the type, thickness and angle of the wood they hit, and small iron cannonballs couldn't either. The tactics of the English and Dutch during the Spanish Armada was to stay out of range of the Spanish, who would simply wait for a chance to get close, while they (the English) peppered the Spanish with cannonballs. But because they stayed at ranges in excess of 100 metres they lacked the ability to pierce the Spanish hulls. Hence, only a single Spanish ship was lost, and that was because it ran aground. There was a point where the Spanish flagship was separated from the Armada with five other ships (the day after the English used fire-ships to split up the Armada) but tellingly, though the English pummeled it with thirty ships for five hours before the rest of the Armada rushed to save it, they still failed to sink it.

So to cut a long story short, 1600 was about the turning point in naval tactics, but until decent iron cannonry developed as it was slowly doing, cannonballs simply lacked the punch that they are famous for having later on. That is the state that naval warfare was in in 1600.

 

[MNP]

The thing is that this period was right at the crunch point when bombardment was about to become the prime method of carrying out naval conflict. The reason that the Ottoman galleys were so light? Because they were used to getting up close and personal and using a flood of soldiers to capture their opponents' ships. The Spanish used the same tactics, using grapples to the rigging and boarding them with overwhelming force.

Yep, Lepanto was a battle of ship to ship close-combat, and is usually considered one of the last major battles to be so. The Spanish were somewhat farther along on the transition than the Ottomans (since it was the Spanish that were needing to play catch up in the early 1500s, necessity) but Lepanto still ended up being a case where the Tercios just whipped the Janissaries mano-a-mano if I may generalize.

Mostly because any battle with my two favorite early-modern units going head to head makes me happy.

 

[elkarlo]

The thing is that this period was right at the crunch point when bombardment was about to become the prime method of carrying out naval conflict. The reason that the Ottoman galleys were so light? Because they were used to getting up close and personal and using a flood of soldiers to capture their opponents' ships. The Spanish used the same tactics, using grapples to the rigging and boarding them with overwhelming force. The standard cannonball of the pre-1600 era was, unlike the standard idea of naval battles, not an iron cannonball the size of a small melon but in this era was a bronze cannonball the size of your fist - much lighter, and with a far slower muzzle velocity. They were used more for doing damage as ships got close, to be followed by boarding; ship tactics just didn't count on strafing runs and line of battle in this era - those tactics developed in the 1640s. The English were just bringing out iron cannonballs around this period as iron was far more plentiful and cheap for the English, where other naval powers were far more capable of mass-producing bronze. Their cannonballs were still small, though, as this was the era of cannons with barrels about as long as an outstretched leg. The larger iron cannonballs could punch through two sides of a ship (at close range). Bronze cannonballs couldn't - only at extreme close range could they break a hull, and even then it depended on the type, thickness and angle of the wood they hit, and small iron cannonballs couldn't either. The tactics of the English and Dutch during the Spanish Armada was to stay out of range of the Spanish, who would simply wait for a chance to get close, while they (the English) peppered the Spanish with cannonballs. But because they stayed at ranges in excess of 100 metres they lacked the ability to pierce the Spanish hulls. Hence, only a single Spanish ship was lost, and that was because it ran aground. There was a point where the Spanish flagship was separated from the Armada with five other ships (the day after the English used fire-ships to split up the Armada) but tellingly, though the English pummeled it with thirty ships for five hours before the rest of the Armada rushed to save it, they still failed to sink it.

So to cut a long story short, 1600 was about the turning point in naval tactics, but until decent iron cannonry developed as it was slowly doing, cannonballs simply lacked the punch that they are famous for having later on. That is the state that naval warfare was in in 1600.

I agree with what you say. I have of a lot instances in that period where much like the armada ship, a lone ship is pummled by several others for a good while, and it could still sail away.

I wonder if what you say about cannons in 1600 is like armor in 1700, where the use of it radically changed(ie not all) while cannons became much more effective.

I also think it's interesting that merchant ships could just be so simply modified into war ships at that time. To me that's unbelievable to think that a merchantman could survive enough in batle to make it an actual option.

 

[carlton_bach]

I also think it's interesting that merchant ships could just be so simply modified into war ships at that time. To me that's unbelievable to think that a merchantman could survive enough in batle to make it an actual option.

That's more a function of the relatively limited damage guns did at the time. Oceangoing sailing ships built on the European model had to be big and strong to withstand the forces of the sea and carry as much sail and cargo as they did. The guns these ships could carry the time were capable of punching through their walls - much of the time - but that was the limit of their effectiveness. Bombarding a ship with cannonballs simply couldn't do enough structural damage to sink it, it just battered the hull above the waterline. Of course that was still serious - it destroyed the masts and rigging, compromised structural integrity and killed or injured crew. But unless you got a very unlucky hit below the waterline or something caught fire, you would routinely expect a defeated warship to remain afloat. There is a reason that battlefleets of the time sailed so many foreign prizes.

Armor as such wasn't really part of ship design at the time. Warships were, of course, made biugger and butcher than merchant hulls, but not by a lot. The stress of battle was less than what a ship had to withstand in a storm or when running aground. What killed the idea of using merchant ships for warfare was that their hull configuration ended up unsuitable to carrying the density of guns that warships increasingly needed. Merchant ships needed deep hulls and high decks, with the weight distributed low and no particular need for any deck to be flush. Warships needed decks running the entire length of the craft, and relatively low to carry the weight of their armament. In the late 17th century, the Royal Navy launched 24-gun ships on a merchant hull confighuration that had four heacy pieces on the lower deck, so low they could only fire in good weather, and light barkers along the top deck. In 1640, not a problem, but by then, as viable as a T34 in Able Archer..

 

[67th Tigers]

Armor as such wasn't really part of ship design at the time. Warships were, of course, made biugger and butcher than merchant hulls, but not by a lot. The stress of battle was less than what a ship had to withstand in a storm or when running aground.

They were armoured, it's just the armour was wood. Watch Master and Commander and see the 9pdrs fail to penetrate... that's armour.

 

[elkarlo]

Yep, Lepanto was a battle of ship to ship close-combat, and is usually considered one of the last major battles to be so. The Spanish were somewhat farther along on the transition than the Ottomans (since it was the Spanish that were needing to play catch up in the early 1500s, necessity) but Lepanto still ended up being a case where the Tercios just whipped the Janissaries mano-a-mano if I may generalize.

Mostly because any battle with my two favorite early-modern units going head to head makes me happy.

The Ottoamans, and the East in general seems to care less about armor than the West. That just seems to be the case. At this time armor was pretty dang proof against small arms fire, except for maybe the rare crank crossbow. Even the Jannisaries weren't armored and they were elite, I wonder why there was no real trend to become armored, as in the 1500's armor became cheaper and better.

 

[Falastur]

]I wonder if what you say about cannons in 1600 is like armor in 1700, where the use of it radically changed(ie not all) while cannons became much more effective.

It was a direct by-product of the English switching to iron. Bronze was something like 5 times more expensive to manufacture, which was why the cannons stayed small. The English made small iron cannons in the same calibre as bronze, then realised it actually wasn't really that expensive to make them bigger with iron. With bigger calibre cannon they could penetrate hulls (though obviously as until this period the calibres and designs of cannon even on a single ship were totally random there wasn't a sudden turning point when the English started bossing fights, it was gradual) and France, the Dutch and Spain realised there was a sea-change in naval warfare going on and switched to iron themselves.

That is my understanding anyway. I could be wrong on details of how the other nations picked it up off the English but I reckon I've got it right.

I wonder why there was no real trend to become armored, as in the 1500's armor became cheaper and better.

Because, in slight contradiction to some of the other details you mentioned, while 15th/early 16th century armour was given a shot in the torso by an arquebus to prove its strength (if the arquebus pierced the armour the armour was rejected) as arquebuses turned to muskets, the guns began to be able to pierce the armour after all. Archery was phased out, and essentially it became no advantage to have armour on. Cuirassiers on horseback kept it sporadically all the way to the 19th century, but then their swift-moving and manoeuvrable nature meant that their cuirasses (torso armour) could sometimes deflect shots, whereas if they were walking slowly on foot they likely would be wounded or killed. Hence, armour became unpopular except as a status symbol, which is why the gallant portraits of nobles associated with the army into the 1700s usually show them wearing a breastplate.

Of course, this doesn't explain the janissaries, but then janissaries were originally light skirmishers IIRC and became elite via their fierce reputation instead.

 

[Atreus]

The thing is, there really isn't that much firepower around on the naval battlefield at the time. I mean, the British didn't start reloading their cannons inboard until the mid-17th century. At that time the Dutch still made a habit of including converted merchantmen in their main battle fleets. I don't think that 32 pounders were terribly common until around this time. The European states are in the middle of the transition towards what we would recognize as the line of battle, and the state of weaponry more or less mirrors that.

 

[elkarlo]

It was a direct by-product of the English switching to iron. Bronze was something like 5 times more expensive to manufacture, which was why the cannons stayed small. The English made small iron cannons in the same calibre as bronze, then realised it actually wasn't really that expensive to make them bigger with iron. With bigger calibre cannon they could penetrate hulls (though obviously as until this period the calibres and designs of cannon even on a single ship were totally random there wasn't a sudden turning point when the English started bossing fights, it was gradual) and France, the Dutch and Spain realised there was a sea-change in naval warfare going on and switched to iron themselves.

That is my understanding anyway. I could be wrong on details of how the other nations picked it up off the English but I reckon I've got it right.



Because, in slight contradiction to some of the other details you mentioned, while 15th/early 16th century armour was given a shot in the torso by an arquebus to prove its strength (if the arquebus pierced the armour the armour was rejected) as arquebuses turned to muskets, the guns began to be able to pierce the armour after all. Archery was phased out, and essentially it became no advantage to have armour on. Cuirassiers on horseback kept it sporadically all the way to the 19th century, but then their swift-moving and manoeuvrable nature meant that their cuirasses (torso armour) could sometimes deflect shots, whereas if they were walking slowly on foot they likely would be wounded or killed. Hence, armour became unpopular except as a status symbol, which is why the gallant portraits of nobles associated with the army into the 1700s usually show them wearing a breastplate.

Of course, this doesn't explain the janissaries, but then janissaries were originally light skirmishers IIRC and became elite via their fierce reputation instead.

I guess a gradual and random change is harder to register than an outright revoution like say iroclads were a pretty quick change.

Well I kinda disagree, a lot of armor went from body to breasrplates and helmets. From what I've read is that the amount of people wearing armor increased for most of the 1500's, as it got cheaper, and actually stopped a lot. So it behooved a lot to wear it. While actual muskets seemed to have mad armor ceremonial. Also a lot of cav were armored until the late 1600's.

That's what puzzles me. Armor gives people surviability. Why not give the guys a chance, as they were elite and expensive. A lot of times during sieges the Westerners had an advantage, as the Ottomans seemed to have died in piles, Janissaries and all. Given a bit of armor they may have not been killed on such a level. Also at Malta they wouldn't have been burned aka lit on fire.

 

[carlton_bach]

That's what puzzles me. Armor gives people surviability. Why not give the guys a chance, as they were elite and expensive. A lot of times during sieges the Westerners had an advantage, as the Ottomans seemed to have died in piles, Janissaries and all. Given a bit of armor they may have not been killed on such a level. Also at Malta they wouldn't have been burned aka lit on fire.

I guess there's more to combat effectiveness than just armour. But the Ottomans did care about armor, just not for the Janissaries, probably because they were formation infantry. Keep in mind Landsknecht infantry was also almost completely unarmoured and Swiss only lightly, if at all. I suppose it has more to do with the weapons used and their main role than with an objective 'better'.

Another thing may have been the problem of increasing weight. 'Adequate protection' is a moving target, and while a fifteenth-century suit can still offer it for the whole body at a bearable weight, you couldn't wear one that was entirely 'of proof' i.e. could withstand bullets. I'm not sure how the average seventeenth-century footslogger would have reacted to the suggestion he carry even a bulletproof breastplate around, day in day out, till one day it might be useful in battle.

 

[Blair152]

I finished a book about Lepanto recently, and in it, it talked about how light the Ottoman Galleys were. The places where their archers were mounted were not meant to take a sustained amount of damage. It stated that the arquebus shots of the HL would have soon pierced the Galley's siding. The HL had 6 galleasses, which seemed to have knocked out 60-70 Ottoman ships. It seems like the Ottoman ships were meant for speed, and had little protection for the combined 180-220 guns of the galleasses to do that much damage.

During the Armada, the Spanish and English ships really had trouble knocking out each other's ships. I saw on a doc which used the eras cannons, where the shot wouldn't have gone threw a ship of that era.

I also read that even up to the Anglo-Dutch wars, that it was hard for ships to outright sink each other. From a combination of the fact that the ships were wooden, the angle of fire, and that the cannons of that era were still relatively weak.

My question is, how much damage the average non converted warship could sustain?

I also am asking this, as I think in general armor and the such are generally not given a good account in history.

If it's the same doc I saw, it was probably about the weather. The Spanish
Armada was mostly made of galleons. These galleons were also used as treasure ships. The gulf stream, which was little-known at the time, drove
some of the Spanish ships ashore on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, they were wrecked there. Queen Elizabeth I was so grateful that she had
medals struck with the inscription: "God blew his breath and the enemy scattered," or something similar to that.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Yep, Lepanto was a battle of ship to ship close-combat, and is usually considered one of the last major battles to be so. The Spanish were somewhat farther along on the transition than the Ottomans (since it was the Spanish that were needing to play catch up in the early 1500s, necessity) but Lepanto still ended up being a case where the Tercios just whipped the Janissaries mano-a-mano if I may generalize.

Mostly because any battle with my two favorite early-modern units going head to head makes me happy.

No, that's not really true. It was the presence of the galleasses and way, way superior numbers of cannon that was decisive, and the presence of two separate and rival admirals on the Ottoman side who totally failed to coordinate and support each other that was decisive, not any imbalance in hand-to-hand performance.

 

[elkarlo]

If it's the same doc I saw, it was probably about the weather. The Spanish
Armada was mostly made of galleons. These galleons were also used as treasure ships. The gulf stream, which was little-known at the time, drove
some of the Spanish ships ashore on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, they were wrecked there. Queen Elizabeth I was so grateful that she had
medals struck with the inscription: "God blew his breath and the enemy scattered," or something similar to that.

I think they also stated that at that time ships couldn't sail into the wind very well, so they just got beat up.

Man the BBC and TLC used to have good stuff