Ancient Warfare - Naval Warfare

Naval Warfare

The first dateable recorded sea battle occurred about 1210 BC: Suppiluliuma II, king of the Hittites, defeated a fleet from Cyprus, and burned their ships at sea.

The Persian Wars were the first to feature large-scale naval operations: not only sophisticated fleet engagements with dozens of triremes on each side, but combined land–sea operations. Ships in the ancient world could operate only on the relatively quiet waters of seas and rivers; the oceans were off limits. Navies were almost always used as auxiliaries to land forces, often essential to bringing them supplies. They would rarely strike out on their own. With only limited-range weapons, naval galleys would often attempt to ram their opponents with their reinforced bow to cause damage or sink the enemy warships which often caused the two ships to become joined together, and initiated a boarding battle. Only occasionally was a decisive naval battle fought, such as the Battle of Lade in which a Persian navy destroyed the Greek navy.

The Punic Wars led to innovation on the high seas. Rome previously had hardly touched naval warfare, being only concerned with the Italian peninsula, while Carthage was a trading civilization, and so had developed a large fleet. Only by examining the ruins of Carthaginian ships did the Romans come to build an effective navy. Moreover, they developed an implement called the corvus which was a way of dropping a gangplank onto an enemy ship, this gave the Romans an enormous advantage as their superiority in close-quarters combat could come into play as legionnaires boarded the Carthaginian ships and slaughtered the crews with ease.