Naval Warfare

4/3/2014 Naval warfare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The French (left) and British (right) lines at the Battle of the

Chesapeake

Naval warfareFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Naval warfare is combat in and on seas,oceans, or any other major bodies of watersuch as large lakes and wide rivers.

Contents

1 History

1.1 Oars people of the

Mediterranean Sea

1.2 Ancient China

1.3 Europe, Middle Eastand North Africa

1.4 East and South Asia

1.5 Sails and empires

1.6 From wood and wind

to steel and steam

1.7 Above and below thesurface

2 Naval history of nations and

empires

3 See also

4 Notes5 References

6 Further reading

7 External links

History

Further information: Naval history

Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Land navigation, until the advent of extensiverailroads was extremely dependent upon river systems and canals.

The latter were crucial in the development of the modern world in the United Kingdom, the Low Countries andnorthern Germany, for they enabled the bulk movement of goods and raw materials without which the IndustrialRevolution would not have occurred. Prior to 1750, things moved by barge or sea, or not much at all. Thus armies,with their exorbitant needs for food, ammunition and fodder, were tied to the river valleys throughout the ages.



An ancient Greek trireme vessel

The oceanic influences throughout pre-recorded history (Homeric Legends, e.g. Troy), and classical works like theOdyssey underscore the past influences. The Persian Empire united and strong couldn't prevail against themight of the Athenian fleet combined with that of lesser city states in several attempts to conquer the Greek citystates. Phoenicia's and Egypt's power, Carthage's and even Rome's depended in no mean way upon control of theseas.

So too did the Venetian Republic dominate Italy's city states, thwart the Ottoman Empire, and dominate commerceon the Silk Road and the Mediterranean in general for centuries. For three centuries, the Northmen commonlycalled the Vikings raided and pillaged and went where they willed, far into central Russia and the Ukraine, and evento far off Constantinople (both via the Black Sea tributaries and through the Strait of Gibraltar).

Many sea battles through history also provide a reliable source of shipwrecks for underwater archaeology. A majorexample, albeit not very commonly known, is the exploration of the wrecks of various warships in the PacificOcean.

Oars people of the Mediterranean Sea

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

Assyrian reliefs from the 8th century BC show Phoenicianfighting ships, with two levels of oars, fighting men on a sortof bridge or deck above the oarsmen, and some sort of ramprotruding from the bow. No written mention of strategy ortactics seems to have survived.

Josephus Flavius (Antiquities IX 283-287) reports a navalbattle between Tyre and the king of Assyria who was aided by the other cities in Phoenicia. The battle took placeoff the shores of Tyre. Although the Tyrian fleet was much smaller in size, the Tyrians defeated their enemies.

The Greeks of Homer just used their ships as transport for land armies, but in 664 BC there is a mention of a battleat sea between Corinth and its colony city Corcyra.

The Persian Wars were the first to feature large-scale naval operations, not just sophisticated fleet engagementswith dozens of triremes on each side, but combined land-sea operations. It seems unlikely that all this was theproduct of a single mind or even of a generation; most likely the period of evolution and experimentation was simplynot recorded by history.

After some initial battles while subjugating the Greeks of the Ionian coast, the Persians determined to invade Greeceproperly. Themistocles of Athens estimated that the Greeks would be outnumbered by the Persians on land, butthat Athens could protect itself by building a fleet (the famous "wooden walls"), using the profits of the silver minesat Laurium to finance them.

The first Persian campaign, in 492 BC, was aborted because the fleet was lost in a storm, but the second, in 490BC, captured islands in the Aegean Sea before landing on the mainland near Marathon. Attacks by the Greekarmies repulsed these.



The Battle of Actium, 31BC, a part of the Final War

of the Roman Republic.

The third Persian campaign, under Xerxes I of Persia ten years later (480 BC), followed the pattern of the first inmarching the army via the Hellespont while the fleet paralleled them offshore. Near Artemisium, in the narrowchannel between the mainland and Euboea, the Greek fleet held off multiple assaults by the Persians, the Persiansbreaking through a first line, but then being flanked by the second line of ships. But the defeat on land atThermopylae forced a Greek withdrawal, and Athens evacuated its population to nearby Salamis Island.

The ensuing Battle of Salamis was one of the decisive engagements of history. Themistocles trapped the Persians ina channel too narrow for them to bring their greater numbers to bear, and attacked them vigorously, in the endcausing the loss of 200 Persian ships vs 40 Greek. Aeschylus wrote a play about the defeat, called The Persians,which was performed at a Greek theatre contest a few years after the battle. It is the oldest known surviving play.At the end, Xerxes still had a fleet stronger than the Greeks, but withdrew anyway, and after losing at Plataea in thefollowing year, returned to Asia Minor, leaving the Greeks their freedom. Nevertheless, the Athenians and Spartansattacked and burned the laid-up Persian fleet at Mycale, and freed many of the Ionian towns. These battles wouldall involve triremes or biremes as the standard fighting platform, and the focus of the battle would be on rammingyour opponent with a reinforced prow. The opponent would try to maneuver and deny you this opportunity, oralternately rush all the marines to the side about to be hit, thus tilting the boat. When the ram had withdrawn and themarines dispersed, the hole would now be above the waterline and not a critical injury to the ship.

During the next fifty years, the Greeks commanded the Aegean, but not harmoniously. After several minor warsabout which we know little, tensions exploded into the Peloponnesian War (431 BC) between Athens' DelianLeague and the Spartan Peloponnese. Naval strategy was critical; Athens walled itself off from the rest of Greece,leaving only the port at Piraeus open, and trusting in its navy to keep supplies flowing while the Spartan armybesieged it. This strategy worked, although the close quarters likely contributed to the plague that killed manyAthenians in 429.

There were a number of sea battles between galleys; atRhium, Naupactus, Pylos, Syracuse, Cynossema, Cyzicus,Notium. But the end came for Athens in 405 atAegospotami in the Hellespont, where the Athenians haddrawn up their fleet on the beach, and were surprised bythe Spartan fleet, who landed and burned all the ships.Athens surrendered to Sparta in the following year.

Navies next played a major role in the complicated wars ofthe successors of Alexander the Great.

The Roman Republic had never been much of a seafaringnation, but it had to learn, and learn fast. In the Punic Warswith Carthage, Romans developed the technique ofgrappling and boarding enemy ships with soldiers. TheRoman Navy grew gradually as Rome found itself involvedin more and more Mediterranean politics; by the time of the Roman Civil War and the Battle of Actium in 31 BC,hundreds of ships were involved, many of them quinqueremes mounting catapults and fighting towers. Following theEmperor Augustus transforming the Republic into the Roman Empire, Rome gained control of most of theMediterranean. Without any significant maritime enemies, the Roman navy was reduced mostly to patrolling forpirates and transportation duties. It was only on the fringes of the Empire, in newly gained provincies or defensivemissions against barbarian invasion, did the navy still engage in actual warfare.



Ancient China

Main article: Naval history of China

In ancient China, the first known naval battles took place during the Warring States period (481221 BCE) whenvassal lords battled against one another. Chinese naval warfare in this ancient period featured grapple-and-hook, as

well as ramming tactics with ships called "stomach strikers" and "colliding swoopers".[1] It was written in the HanDynasty that the people of the Warring States era had employed chuan ge ships (dagger-axe ships, or halberdships), thought to be a simple description of ships manned by marines carrying dagger-axe halberds as personalweapons.

The 3rd century writer Zhang Yan asserted in his writing that the people of the Warring States period named theboats this way because halberd blades were actually fixed and attached to the hull of the ship in order to rip into thehull of another ship while ramming, to stab enemies in the water that had fallen overboard and were swimming, orsimply to clear any possible dangerous marine animals in the path of the ship (since the ancient Chinese did believein sea monsters, see Xu Fu for more info).

Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221207 BCE), owed much of his success in unifying China(specifically southern China) to naval power, although an official navy was not yet established (see Medieval Asiasection below). The people of the Zhou Dynasty were known to use temporary pontoon bridges for general meansof transportation, but it was during the Qin and Han dynasties that large permanent pontoon bridges wereassembled, and used for purposes of warfare (first written account of a pontoon bridge in the West being theoversight of the Greek Mandrocles of Samos in aiding a military campaign of Persian emperor Darius I over theBosporus).

During the Han Dynasty (202 BCE 220 CE), the Chinese discovered the use of the stern-mounted steeringrudder, as well as designed a new ship type, the junk. From the late Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period(220280 CE), significantly large naval battles such as the Battle of Red Cliffs marked the advancement of navalwarfare in the East. In the latter engagement, the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei destroyed a massive fleetcommanded by Cao Cao in a fire-based naval attack.

In terms of seafaring abroad, arguably one of the first Chinese to sail into the Indian Ocean and to reach Sri Lankaand India by sea was the Buddhist monk Faxian in the early 5th century, although diplomatic ties and land trade toPersia and India was established during the earlier Han Dynasty. However, Chinese naval maritime influence wouldnot present itself in the Indian Ocean until the medieval period.

Europe, Middle East and North Africa

While most of the barbarian invasions of the 4th century and later mostly occurred by land, some notable examplesof naval conflicts can be highlighted. In the late 3rd Century, in the reign of Emperor Gallienus, a large raiding party,composed by Goths, Gepids and Heruli, launched itself in the Black Sea, raiding the coast of Anatolia and Thrace,and crossing into the Aegean Sea, plundering mainland Greece (including Athens and Sparta) and going as far asCrete and Rhodes. In the twilight of the Empire in the late 4th Century, examples include that of Emperor Majorian,who, with the help of Constantinople, mustered a large fleet in a failed effort to expel the Germanic invaders fromtheir recently conquered African territories, and a defeat of an Ostrogothic fleet at Sena Gallica in the Adriatic Sea.



The Trojan women set fire to their

fleet

The naval battle of Sluys, 1340, from

Jean Froissart's Chronicles.

During the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, Arab fleets begin tomake an appearance, raiding Sicily in 652 (see History of Islam insouthern Italy and Emirate of Sicily), and defeating the Byzantine Navy in655. Constantinople is saved from a prolonged Arab siege in 678 by theinvention of Greek fire, an early form of flamethrower that wasdevastating to the ships in the besieging fleet. These were just the first ofmany encounters during the Byzantine-Arab Wars.

The Islamic Caliphate, or Arab Empire, became the dominant navalpower in the Mediterranean Sea from the 7th to 13th centuries, duringwhat is known as the Islamic Golden Age. One of the most significantinventions in medieval naval warfare was the torpedo, invented in Syriaby the Arab inventor Hasan al-Rammah in 1275. His torpedo ran onwater with a rocket system filled with explosive gunpowder materials and had three firing points. It was a very

effective weapon against ships.[2]

In the 8th century the Norse Vikings begin to make an appearance, although their usual style is to appear quickly,plunder, and disappear, preferably attacking undefended locations. King Alfred the Great of England built a fleetand was able to stay the Viking incursions, establishing the boundaries of Danelaw in a 884 treaty. Theeffectiveness of Alfred's 'fleet' has been debated; Dr. Kenneth Harl has pointed out that as few as eleven ships weresent to combat the Vikings, only two of which were not beaten back or captured.

The Norse also fought several sea battles among themselves. This wasnormally done by binding the ships on each side together, thus essentiallyfighting a land battle on the sea. However the fact that the losing sidecould not easily escape meant that battles tended to be hard 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 tradingtowns of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice stepped in to seize the opportunity,setting up commercial networks and building navies to protect them. Atfirst the navies fought with the Arabs (off Bari in 1004, at Messina in1005), but then they found themselves contending with Normans movinginto Sicily, and finally with each other. The Genoese and Venetians foughtfour naval wars, in 12531284, 12931299, 13501355, and 13781381. The last ended with a decisive victory for Venice, which gave themalmost a century to enjoy Mediterranean trade domination before other European countries started exploring to thesouth and west.

In the north of Europe, the near-continuous conflict between England and France was characterised by a number ofraids on coastal towns and ports along each other's coastlines and the securing of sea lanes to protect transportscarrying troops from England to France. The Battle of Dover in 1217, between a French fleet of 80 ships underEustace the Monk and an English fleet of 40 under Hubert de Burgh, is notable as the first recorded battle usingsailing ship tactics. The battle of Arnemuiden (23 September 1338), which resulted in a French victory, marked the

opening of the Hundred Years War and was the first battle involving artillery.[3] However the battle of Sluys, foughttwo years later, saw the destruction of the French fleet in a decisive action which allowed the English effectivecontrol of the sea lanes and the strategic initiative for much of the war.



A Chinese Song Dynasty naval

river ship with a Xuanfeng

traction-trebuchet catapult on its

top deck, taken from an

illustration of the Wujing Zongyao

(1044)A Chinese paddle-wheel driven

ship from a Qing Dynasty

encyclopedia published in 1726

A replica of Korean Turtle ship.

East and South Asia

The Sui Dynasty (581 - 618) andTang Dynasty (618 - 907) of Chinawere involved in several naval affairsover the triple-set of polities rulingmedieval Korea (Three Kingdoms ofKorea), along with engaging navalbombardments on the peninsula fromAsuka period Yamato Kingdom(Japan).

The Chinese Tang Dynasty aided theKorean kingdom of Silla (see alsoUnified Silla) and expelled theKorean kingdom of Baekje with theaid of Japan naval forces from theKorean peninsula (see Battle ofBaekgang) and conquered Silla'sKorean rivals, Baekje and Goguryeoby 668. In addition, the Chinese TangDynasty had maritime trading,tributary, and diplomatic ties as far as

modern-day Sri Lanka, India, Islamic Iran and Arabia, as well as Somalia inEast Africa.

From the Axumite Kingdom in modern-day Ethiopia, the Arab traveller Sa'dibn Abi-Waqqas sailed from there to Tang China during the reign ofEmperor Gaozong. Two decades later, he returned with a copy of theQuran, establishing the first Islamic mosque in China, the Mosque ofRemembrance in Guangzhou. What followed was a rising rivalry betweenthe Arabs and Chinese for control of trade in the Indian Ocean. In his bookCultural Flow Between China and the Outside World, Shen Fuwei notesthat maritime Chinese merchants in the 9th century were landing regularly at

Sufala in East Africa to cut out Arab middle-men traders.[4]

The Chola Dynasty of medieval India was a dominant seapower in theIndian Ocean, an avid maritime trader and diplomatic entity with SongChina. Rajaraja Chola I (reigned 985 to 1014) and his son Rajendra Chola I (reigned 101442), sent out a greatnaval expedition that occupied parts of Myanmar, Malaya, and Sumatra. The Cholas were the first rulers noted tohave a naval fleet in the Indian subcontinent; there are at least two evidences to cite use of navies.Narasimhavarman Pallava I transported his troops to Sri Lanka to help Manavarman to reclaim the throne.Shatavahanahas was known to possess a navy that was widely deployed to influence Southeast Asia, however theextent of their use is not known.

Some argue that there is no evidence to support naval warfare in a contemporary sense. Others say that shipsroutinely carried bands of soldiers to keep pirates at bay. However, since the Arabs were known to use catapults,naptha, and devices attached to ships to prevent boarding parties, one can reasonably conclude that Chola navies



A 17th century model of

Vietnamese "Mng ng" ship.

The vessels appears to be

propelled by a score of oars and

armed with one bombard and a

smaller culverin. The roof is

recorded to be protected with hide

or bronze plates against projectiles

not only transported troops but also provided support, protection, andattack capabilities against enemy targets.

In the 12th century, China's first permanent standing navy was established bythe Southern Song Dynasty, the headquarters of the Admiralty stationed atDing-hai. This came about after the conquest of northern China by theJurchen people (see Jin Dynasty) in 1127, while the Chinese court fled southfrom Kaifeng to Hangzhou. Equipped with the magnetic compass andknowledge of Shen Kuo's famous treatise (on the concept of true north), theChinese became proficient experts of navigation in their day. They raisedtheir naval strength from a mere 11 squadrons of 3,000 marines to 20squadrons of 52,000 marines in a century's time.

Employing paddle wheel crafts and trebuchet's throwing gunpowder bombsfrom the decks of their ships, the Chinese became a formidable foe to the JinDynasty during the 12th-13th centuries during the JinSong wars. There

were naval engagements at the Battle of Caishi and Battle of Tangdao.[5][6]

With a powerful navy, China dominated maritime trade throughout SouthEast Asia as well. Until 1279, the Chinese were able to use their naval power to defend against the Jin to the north,until the Mongols finally conquered all of China. After the Song Dynasty, the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty of Chinawas a powerful maritime force in the Indian Ocean.

The Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan attempted to invade Japan twice with enormous fleets (of both Mongols andChinese), in 1274 and again in 1281, both attempts being unsuccessful (see Mongol invasions of Japan). Buildingupon the technological achievements of the earlier Chinese Song Dynasty, the Mongols also employed earlycannons upon the decks of their ships.

While the Chinese Song Dynasty built its naval strength, the Japanese also had considerable naval prowess. Thestrength of Japanese naval forces could be seen in the Genpei War, in the large-scale Battle of Dan-no-ura on April25, 1185. The forces of Minamoto no Yoshitsune were 850 ships strong, while Taira no Munemori had 500 shipsunder his command.

In the mid-14th century, the rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang (13281398) seized power in the south amongst manyother rebel groups. His early success was owed to the aid of capable officials such as Liu Ji and Jiao Yu, and theirgunpowder weapons (see Huolongjing). Yet the decisive battle that cemented his success and his founding of theMing Dynasty (13681644) was the Battle of Lake Poyang, considered one of the largest naval battles in history.

In the 15th century, the Chinese Ming Dynasty Admiral Zheng He was assigned to assemble a massive fleet forseveral diplomatic missions abroad, sailing throughout the waters of the South East Pacific and the Indian Ocean.During his maritime missions, on several occasions Zheng's fleet came into conflict with pirates. Zheng's fleet alsobecame involved in a conflict in Sri Lanka, where the King of Ceylon traveled back to Ming China afterwards tomake a formal apology to the Emperor.

The Ming Dynasty Imperial Navy defeated a Portuguese navy led by Martim Affonso in 1522. The Chinese

destroyed one vessel by targeting its gunpowder magazine, and captured another Portuguese ship.[7][8] A Mingarmy and Navy led by Koxinga defeated a western power, the Dutch East India Company at the Siege of Fort

Zeelandia, the first time China had engaged a western power and won.[9] The Chinese used cannons and ships to

bombard the Dutch into surrendering.[10][11]



Japanese samurai attacking a Mongol ship,

13th century.

In the Sengoku Period of Japan, Oda Nobunaga implemented a unification of the whole country by military power.However Nobunaga was defeated by the Mri clan's navy. Nobunaga invented the Tekkosen (huge Atakebuneequipped with iron plates) and defeated 600 ships of the Mri navy with six armored warships (Battle ofKizugawaguchi). The navy of Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi employed clever close-rangetactics on land with arquebus rifles, but also relied upon close-range firing of muskets in grapple-and-board style

naval engagements. When Nobunaga died in the Honnoji Incident,Hideyoshi succeeded to and accomplished the unification of thewhole country. In 1592, Hideyoshi ordered the daimyo to dispatchtroops to Joseon Dynasty Korea in order to conquer Ming China.The Japanese army which landed at Pusan on April 12, 1502occupied the soil month later. The Korean king escaped to MingDynasty China and Japan completed occupation of Pyongyang inJune. The Japanese army, which was based near Busan, demolishedthe Korean navy in the Battle of Chilcheollyang on August 28 and,as for the land war, started its advance toward China. The Chineseemperor Wanli Emperor sent military forces to the Korean

peninsula. Chen Lin continued damaging the Japanese Navy with 500 Chinese warships and remnants of the Korea

Navy.[12][13] In 1598, the planned conquest in China was canceled by the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and theJapanese military retreated from the Korean Peninsula. On their way back to Japan, Chen Lin attacked theJapanese navy at the Battle of Noryang. but top officials Deng Zilong and Yi Sunsin were killed by counterattack ofthe Japanese army, and all returned to Japan by the end of December. In 1609, Tokugawa Shogunate ordered theabandonment of warships to the feudal lord (Law of vessel construction prohibition by the Tokugawa Shogunate).The Japanese Navy remained stagnant until the Meiji period.

In Korea the farther firing range of Korean cannons, along with the brilliant naval strategies of the Korean AdmiralYi Sun-sin, became the main detrimental factors in ultimate Japanese defeat. Admiral Yi is credited Turtle ship(Geobukseon). Turtle Ships were used mostly to spearhead attacks. They were best used in tight areas and aroundislands rather than the open sea. Admiral Yi effectively cut off the possible Japanese supply line that would have runthrough the Yellow Sea to China, as well as severely weakened the Japanese strength and fighting morale in severalheated engagements (where many regard the most critical Japanese defeat to be the Battle of Hansan Island).Japanese faced diminishing hopes of further supplies due to repeated losses in naval battles in the hands of KoreanAdmiral Yi Sunsin. As the Japanese army was about to way back to Japan, Yi Sunsin decisively defeated a Japannavy at the Battle of Noryang

Sails and empires

Main article: Age of sail

The late Middle Ages was important as the time of the development of the cogs, caravels and carracks shipscapable of surviving the tough conditions of the open ocean, with enough backup systems and crew expertise tomake long voyages routine. In addition, they grew from 100 tons to 300 tons displacement, enough to carrycannons as armament and still have space left over for profitable cargo. One of the largest ships of the time, theGreat Harry displaced over 1,500 tons.

The voyages of discovery were fundamentally commercial rather than military in nature, although the line wassometimes blurry in that a country's ruler was not above funding exploration for personal profit, nor was it aproblem to use military power to enhance that profit. Later the lines gradually separated, in that the ruler'smotivation in using the navy was to protect private enterprise so that they could pay more taxes.



The early 17th century galleon

Vasa. on display at the Vasa

Museum in Stockholm. Vasa,

with its high stern castle and

double battery decks, was a

transitional design between the

preferences for boarding tactics

and the line of battle.

The Battle of the Saintes fought on 12

April 1782 near Guadeloupe.

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

Although they were sorely defeated in the Battle of Lepanto (1571) by the Holy League, the Ottomans quicklyrebuilt their naval strength, and afterwards successfully defended the island of Cyprus so that it would stay inOttoman 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 towardsthe Americas.

The first naval action in defense of the new colonies was just ten years afterVasco da Gama's epochal landing in India. In March 1508, a combinedGujarati/Egyptian force surprised a Portuguese squadron at Chaul, and onlytwo Portuguese ships escaped. The following February, the Portugueseviceroy destroyed the allied fleet at Battle of Diu, thus confirming Portuguesedomination of the Indian Ocean.

In 1582, the Battle of Ponta Delgada in the Azores, in which a Spanish fleetdefeated a combined Portuguese, French, and English force, thus ending thePortuguese succession crisis, was the first battle fought in mid-Atlantic.

In 1588, Philip II of Spain sent his Spanish Armada to subdue Elizabeth I ofEngland, but Admiral Sir Charles Howard forced its retreat, beginning therise to prominence of the Royal Navy. However it was unable to follow upwith a decisive blow against the Spanish navy, which remained the mostimportant for another half century. After the war's end in 1604 the Englishfleet went through a time of relative neglect and decline.

In the 16th century, the Barbarystates of North Africa rose topower and they collectivelybecame a dominant naval powerin the Mediterranean Sea due tothe Barbary pirates. The coastalvillages and towns of Italy, Spainand Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by them and longstretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completelyabandoned by their inhabitants; after 1600 Barbary pirates occasionallyentered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland.

According to Robert Davis[14][15] between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary piratesand sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. These slaveswere 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 tosuccessfully defeat and capture many European ships, which was largely due to advances in sailing technology bythe Barbary states. The earliest naval trawler, xebec and windward ships were employed by the Barbary pirates

from the 16th century.[16]



The 1805 Battle of Trafalgar.

The first battle between ironclads:

CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs.

USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of

Hampton Roads

From the middle of the 17th century competition between the expandingEnglish and Dutch commercial fleets came to a head in the Anglo-DutchWars, the first wars to be conducted entirely at sea. Most memorable ofthese battles was the raid on the Medway, in which the Dutch admiralMichiel de Ruyter sailed up the river Thames, and destroyed most of theBritish fleet. This remains to date the greatest naval defeat of England andher consecutive countries, and established Dutch supremacy at sea forover half a century. The English and Dutch wars were also known forvery few ships being sunk, as it was very difficult to hit ships below thewater level; the water surface deflected cannonballs, and the few holesproduced could be patched quickly. Naval forces were severelyweakened by casualties to the men and damage to the sails more than byloss of ships.

The 18th century developed into a period of seemingly continuous world wars, each larger than the last. At sea, theBritish and French were bitter rivals; the French aided the fledgling United States in the American RevolutionaryWar, but their strategic purpose was to capture territory in India and the West Indieswhich 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 grandefinale at the Second Battle of Svensksund. The battle was unrivalled in size until the 20th century, was a decisiveSwedish tactical victory but its strategical result was poor (due to poor army performance and previous lack ofinitiative from the Swedes) and the war ended without any 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 sodoing.

From wood and wind to steel and steam

Trafalgar ushered in the Pax Britannica of the 19th century, marked bygeneral peace in the world's oceans, under the ensigns of the RoyalNavy. But the period was one of intensive experimentation with newtechnology; steam power for ships appeared in the 1810s, improvedmetallurgy and machining technique produced larger and deadlier guns,and the development of explosive shells, capable of demolishing awooden ship at a single blow, in turn required the addition of ironarmour.

Although naval power during the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynastiesestablished China as a major world seapower in the East, the QingDynasty lacked an official standing navy. They were more interested inpouring funds into military ventures closer to home (China proper), suchas Mongolia, Tibet, and Central Asia (modern Xinjiang). However, therewere some considerable naval conflicts during the Qing Dynasty beforethe First Opium War (such as the Battle of Penghu, or the conflict against Koxinga).



HMS Dreadnought, the first

Dreadnought.

The insignificant naval effort that the Manchus/Chinese pitted against the more advanced British steam-poweredships during the first of the Opium Wars in the 1840s was sorely defeated. This left China open to virtual foreigndomination (from European powers and then Japan) via spheres of influence over regions of China for economicgain. Although the Qing Dynasty attempted to modernize the Chinese navy, China's Beiyang Fleet was dealt asevere blow by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the First Sino-Japanese War (18941895).

The famous battle of the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor in the American Civil War was the duel of ironclads thatsymbolized the changing times. The first fleet action between ironclad ships was fought in 1866 at the Battle of Lissabetween the navies of Austria and Italy. Because the decisive moment of the battle occurred when the Austrianflagship the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max successfully sank the Italian flagship Re d'Italia by ramming, in subsequentdecade every navy in the world largely focused on ramming as the main tactic. The last known use of ram in navalbattle was in 1879 when the Peruvian ship Huscar rammed the Chilean ship Esmeralda. The last known gunboatthat was equipped with a ram was launched in 1908 - the German ship SMS Emden.

As the century came to a close, the familiar modern battleship began to emerge; a steel-armored ship, entirelydependent on steam, and sporting a number of large shell guns mounted in turrets arranged along the centerline ofthe main deck. The ultimate design was reached in 1906 with the HMS Dreadnought which entirely dispensedwith smaller guns, her main guns being sufficient to sink any existing ship of the time.

The Russo-Japanese War and particularly the Battle of Tsushima in 1905was the first test of the new concepts, resulting a stunning Japanesevictory and the destruction of most Russian ships.

With the advent of the steamship, it became possible to create massivegun platforms and to provide them with heavy armor protection. TheDreadnought battleships and their successors were the first capital shipsthat combined technology and firepower with a mobile platform.However, in the first half of the 20th century, the utility of air power insupport of the fleet began to emerge;

World War I pitted the old Royal Navy against the new navy of ImperialGermany, culminating in the 1916 Battle of Jutland. The future washeralded when the seaplane carrier HMS Engadine and her Short 184 seaplanes joined the battle. Meanwhile, inthe Black Sea, Russian seaplanes flying from a fleet of converted carriers interdicted Turkish maritime supplyroutes, Allied air patrols began to counter German U-Boat activity in Britain's coastal waters, and a British Short184 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 afterthe war the first purpose-built carrier, HMS Hermes was launched. Many nations agreed to the Washington NavalTreaty and scrapped many of their battleships and cruisers while still in the shipyards, but the growing tensions ofthe 1930s restarted the building programs, with even larger ships than before; IJN Yamato, the largest battleshipever, displaced 72,000 tons and mounted 18.1-inch (460 mm) guns.

Above and below the surface

The victory of the Royal Navy at the Battle of Taranto was a pivotal point as this was the first true demonstration ofnaval air power. Following 7 December 1941 when the United States came into World War II, the sinking of HMSPrince of Wales and HMS Repulse marked the end of the era of the battleship, and the new importance of aircraftand their transportation, the aircraft carrier, came to the fore.



USS Yorktown prepares to get

underway in June, 1940.

During the Pacific War, battleships and cruisers spent most of their time bombarding shore positions, while thecarriers were the stars of the key Battle of the Coral Sea, Battle of Midway, Battle of the Philippine Sea, and theclimactic Battle of Leyte Gulf. Air power remained key to navies throughout the 20th century, moving to jetslaunched from ever-larger carriers, and augmented by cruisers armedwith guided missiles and cruise missiles.

Roughly parallel to the development of naval aviation was thedevelopment of submarines to travel underneath the sea, at first for shortdives, then later to be able to spend weeks or months underwaterpowered by a nuclear reactor. In both World Wars, submarines (U-boats in Germany) primarily exerted their power by using torpedoes tosink merchant ships, as well as other warships. In the 1950s the ColdWar inspired the development of ballistic missile submarines, each oneloaded with dozens of nuclear-armed missiles and with orders to launchthem from sea should the other nation attack.

Against the backdrop of these developments, World War II had seen theUnited States become by far the largest Naval power in the world. Throughout the rest of the 20th century, the

United States Navy would maintain a tonnage greater than that of the next 17 largest navies combined.[17]

The only major naval conflict that has taken place since World War II is the 1982 Falklands War, betweenArgentina and the United Kingdom. A Royal Navy task force of approximately 100 ships was dispatched over7000 miles from the British mainland to the South Atlantic. The British were heavily outnumbered in airpower withonly 36 Harriers from their two aircraft carriers, compared with at least 200 aircraft of the Fuerza Area Argentina.Most of the land-based aircraft of the Royal Air Force were not available due to the distance from air bases. Thisreliance on aircraft at sea showed the importance of the unique ability of the aircraft carrier. The Falklands showedthe vulnerability of modern ships to sea-skimming missiles like the Exocet. One hit from an Exocet sank HMSSheffield, a modern anti-air warfare destroyer. Important lessons about ship design, damage control and shipconstruction materials were learnt from the conflict.

The Falklands War was a unique conflict, and at the present time, large naval wars are seldom-seen affairs asmodern-day warfare evolves further from warships, which have existed for centuries, to reliance on newtechnologies such as military aircraft and land warfare. The main function of the modern navy is to exploit its controlof the seaways to project power ashore. Power projection has been the primary naval feature of conflicts like theKorean War, Suez Crisis, Vietnam War, Konfrontasi, Gulf War, Kosovo War, the War on Terrorism inAfghanistan and the Iraq War.



USS TheodoreRoosevelt launching an

F-14 Tomcat, while F/A-18 Hornets wait to takeoff during Kosovo War.

HMAS Sydney in thePersian Gulf in 1991.

Naval history of nations and empires

Main articles: Naval history and Maritime history

Hellenic Navy (Greece)Roman Navy

Byzantine NavyOttoman NavyHistory of the Royal Navy, English and British

History of the French NavyNaval history of China

Naval history of JapanNaval history of Korea

Naval history of the NetherlandsSpanish Navy

Portuguese NavyRussian NavyHistory of the United States Navy

History of the Indian NavyIndonesian Navy

The German navy has operated under different names. SeePrussian Navy, 1701-1867

Reichsflotte (Imperial Fleet), 184852Norddeutsche Bundesmarine (North German Federal Navy), 186771Imperial German Navy ("Kaiserliche Marine"), 1871-1919

Reichsmarine, 191935Kriegsmarine, 193545

German Mine Sweeping Administration, 1945 to 1956German Navy, since 1956

Volksmarine, the navy of East Germany, 195691



Major theorists: Sir Julian Corbett and Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (The Influence of Sea Power

Upon History)

See also

Naval strategy

Naval tacticsPiracy

Submarine warfareSurface warfareWarship

Lists:

List of naval battlesList of navies

Notes

1. ^ Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 678.

2. ^ Ancient Discoveries, Episode 12: Machines of the East (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3ZbzhRp_k).History Channel. Retrieved 2008-09-08.

3. ^ Jean-Claude Castex, Dictionnaire des batailles navales franco-anglaises (http://books.google.fr/books?id=U9tChhhw62AC&pg=PA18&dq=%2223+septembre+1338%22+%22bataille+navale%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%2223%20septembre%201338%22%20%22bataille%20navale%22&f=false), Presses de l'Universit Laval, 2004,p.21

4. ^ Shen, 155.

5. ^ Needham, Joseph (1971). Science and Civilisation in China: Civil Engineering and Nautics, Volume 4 Part 3.Cambridge University Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-521-07060-7.

6. ^ Franke, Herbert (1994). Denis C. Twitchett; Herbert Franke; John King Fairbank, eds. The Cambridge History ofChina: Volume 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 7101368. Cambridge University Press. pp. 241242.ISBN 978-0-521-24331-5.

7. ^ Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. China Branch (1895). Journal of the China Branch of theRoyal Asiatic Society for the year ..., Volumes 27-28 (http://books.google.com/?id=faNDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA44&dq=the+chinese+emboldened+by+this+military+success+strangers+attack+portuguese&q=the%20chinese%20emboldened%20by%20this%20military%20success%20strangers%20attack%20portuguese). SHANGHAI: The Branch. p. 44. Retrieved 2010-06-28.(Original from Princeton University)

8. ^ Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. North-China Branch (1894). Journal of the North-ChinaBranch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volumes 26-27 (http://books.google.com/?id=zKRBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA44&dq=the+chinese+emboldened+by+this+military+success+strangers+attack+portuguese&q=the%20chinese%20emboldened%20by%20this%20military%20success%20strangers%20attack%20portuguese). SHANGHAI:The Branch. p. 44. Retrieved 2010-06-28.(Original from Harvard University)

9. ^ Donald F. Lach, Edwin J. Van Kley (1998). Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century of Advance : East Asia(http://books.google.com/?id=W0fBhqb1kdkC&pg=PA1821&dq=koxinga+cannon+dutch&q=koxinga%20cannon%20dutch). University ofChicago Press. p. 752. ISBN 0-226-46769-4. Retrieved 2010-06-28.

10. ^ Andrade, Tonio. "How Taiwan Became Chinese Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the SeventeenthCentury Chapter 11 The Fall of Dutch Taiwan" (http://www.gutenberg-e.org/andrade/andrade11.html#txt98).Columbia University Press. Retrieved 2010-06-28.



11. ^ Lynn A. Struve (1998). Voices from the Ming-Qing cataclysm: China in tigers' jaws (http://books.google.com/?id=cRXAcZGcpa8C&pg=PA232&dq=koxinga+bombard+dutch&q=koxinga%20bombard%20dutch). YaleUniversity Press. p. 312. ISBN 0-300-07553-7. Retrieved 2010-06-28.

12. ^ History of Ming Vol247 [1] (http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E5%8F%B2/%E5%8D%B7247)

13. ^ Japan encyclopedia By Louis Frdric (Page 92) (http://books.google.com/books?id=p2QnPijAEmEC&printsec)

14. ^ "When Europeans were slaves: Research suggests white slavery was much more common than previouslybelieved" (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/whtslav.htm).

15. ^ Davis, Robert. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast andItaly, 1500-1800.[2] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1403945519)

16. ^ Simon de Bruxelles (28 February 2007). "Pirates who got away with it by sailing closer to the wind"(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article1449736.ece). The Times. Retrieved 2008-09-10.

17. ^ Work, Robert O. "Winning the Race:A Naval Fleet Platform Architecture for Enduring Maritime Supremacy"(http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/B.20050301.AlterFleetStdy/B.20050301.AlterFleetStdy.pdf).Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Online. Retrieved April 8, 2006.

References

Shen, Fuwei (1996). Cultural Flow Between China and the Outside World. China Books & Periodicals.ISBN 978-7-119-00431-0Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 3. Taipei: Caves Books,

Ltd.Giuseppe Gagliano-Giorgio Giorgerini-Michele Cosentino,Sicurezza internazionale e potere

marittimo, New Press 2002

Further reading

Howarth, David Armine. British Sea Power: How Britain Became Sovereign of the Seas (2003), 320pp;

from 1066 to present excerpt and text search (http://www.amazon.com/British-Sea-Power-Sovereign-ebook/dp/B002C74N3O/)

Potter, E.B. Sea Power: A Naval History (1982), world historyStarr, Chester. The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History (1989)

Willmott, H. P. The Last Century of Sea Power, Volume 1: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 18941922(2009), 568p online in ebraryWillmott, H. P. The Last Century of Sea Power, vol. 2: From Washington to Tokyo, 19221945.

(Indiana University Press, 2010). xxii, 679 pp. ISBN 978-0-253-35359-7 online in ebrary

External links

Naval battles (http://www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/nav-batt.htm)

Spanish Naval History (http://www.todoababor.es)Naval-History.Net (http://www.naval-history.net/), Naval History of the 20th Century, World Wars 1, 2,

post-war and Falklands War - navies, ships, ship losses, casualties.

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