A naval ship (or naval vessel ) is a military ship (or sometimes boat , depending on classification) that is used by a navy . Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose. Generally, naval ships are damage resilient and armed with weapon systems, though armament on troop transports is light or non-existent.
97-495: Naval ships designed primarily for naval warfare are termed warships , as opposed to support ( auxiliary ships ) or shipyard operations. Naval ship classification is a field that has changed over time, and is not an area of wide international agreement, so this article uses the United States Navy general classifications. In rough order of tonnage (largest to smallest), modern surface naval ships are commonly divided into
194-674: A rocket system filled with explosive gunpowder materials and had three firing points. It was an effective weapon against ships . In the 8th century the Vikings appeared, although their usual style was to appear quickly, plunder, and disappear, preferably attacking undefended locations. The Vikings raided places along the coastline of England and France, with the greatest threats being in England. They would raid monasteries for their wealth and lack of formidable defenders. They also utilized rivers and other auxiliary waterways to work their way inland in
291-513: 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 using sailing 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. However the battle of Sluys , fought two years later, saw
388-639: A crew aboard after the U-boat commander, Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp , gave the order to abandon ship. The British would be rewarded with a fully operational Enigma cipher machine, left behind by the German sailors. On June 4, 1944 a United States Navy task force led by Captain Daniel V. Gallery boarded and captured U-505 . True boarding assaults in the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries became extremely rare, generally by small boats or by divers, who entered
485-432: A decisive Venetian victory, giving it almost a century to enjoy Mediterranean trade domination before other European countries began expanding into the south and west. In the north of Europe, the near-continuous conflict between England and France was characterised by raids on coastal towns and ports along the coastlines and the securing of sea lanes to protect troop–carrying transports. The Battle of Dover in 1217, between
582-461: A decisive victory for Korea over the Japanese navy. In this battle, 47 Japanese warships were sunk and 12 other ships were captured whilst no Korean warship was lost. The defeats in the sea prevented the Japanese navy from providing their army with appropriate supply. Yi Sun-sin was later replaced with Admiral Won Gyun , whose fleets faced a defeat. The Japanese army, based near Busan , overwhelmed
679-587: A defeat of an Ostrogothic fleet at Sena Gallica in the Adriatic Sea . During the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, Muslim fleets first appeared, raiding Sicily in 652 (see History of Islam in southern Italy and 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
776-624: A further Mongol invasion . Although with only scarce information, travellers passing the region, such as Ibn Battuta and Odoric of Pordenone noted that Java had been attacked by the Mongols several times, always ending in failure. After those failed invasions, Majapahit empire quickly grew and became the dominant naval power in the 14–15th century. The usage of cannons in the Mongol invasion of Java , led to deployment of cetbang cannons by Majapahit fleet in 1300s. The main warship of Majapahit navy
873-467: A great naval expedition that occupied parts of Myanmar , Malaya , and Sumatra . In the Nusantara archipelago, large ocean going ships of more than 50 m in length and 5.2–7.8 meters freeboard are already used at least since the 2nd century AD, contacting India to China. Srivijaya empire since the 7th century AD controlled the sea of the western part of the archipelago. The Kedukan Bukit inscription
970-635: A major role in the complicated wars of the successors of Alexander the Great . The Roman Republic had never been much of a seafaring nation, but it had to learn. In the Punic Wars with Carthage , Romans developed the technique of grappling and boarding enemy ships with soldiers. The Roman Navy grew gradually as Rome became more involved in Mediterranean politics; by the time of the Roman Civil War and
1067-464: A major sea invasion near the shores of the eastern Nile Delta using a naval ambush and archers firing from both ships and shore. Assyrian reliefs from the 8th century BC show Phoenician fighting ships, with two levels of oars, fighting men on a sort of bridge or deck above the oarsmen, and some sort of ram protruding from the bow. No written mention of strategy or tactics seems to have survived. Josephus Flavius (Antiquities IX 283–287) reports
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#17330928366571164-648: A military campaign of Persian emperor Darius I over the Bosporus ). During the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), the Chinese began using the stern -mounted steering rudder , and they also designed a new ship type, the junk . From the late Han dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD), large naval battles such as the Battle of Red Cliffs marked the advancement of naval warfare in
1261-473: A nation's territorial waters. Air ambulances often deploy paramedics to ships by using typical helicopter boarding procedures. Boarding is the oldest method of securing an opposing ship, as the first cases were depicted when the Sea Peoples and Egyptians fought. For cultures that lack effective shipboard artillery , boarding is the main technique of ship-to-ship combat. However, in the modern era, boarding
1358-587: A naval battle between Tyre and the king of Assyria who was aided by the other cities in Phoenicia. The battle took place off the shores of Tyre. Although the Tyrian fleet was much smaller, 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 battle at sea between Corinth and its colony city Corcyra . Ancient descriptions of
1455-565: A number of sea battles between galleys ; at Rhium , Naupactus , Pylos , Syracuse , Cynossema , Cyzicus , Notium . But the end came for Athens in 405 BC at Aegospotami in the Hellespont , where the Athenians had drawn up their fleet on the beach, and were surprised by the Spartan fleet, who landed and burned all the ships. Athens surrendered to Sparta in the following year. Navies next played
1552-606: A platform on their ships called balai and performed boarding actions. Scattershots fired from cetbang are used to counter this type of fighting, fired at personnel. In the 12th century, China's first permanent standing navy was established by the Southern Song dynasty , the headquarters of the Admiralty stationed at Dinghai . This came about after the conquest of northern China by the Jurchen people (see Jin dynasty ) in 1127, while
1649-480: A preliminary artillery duel. Privateers and pirates found boarding even more necessary, as both depended entirely on capturing merchant vessels for their livelihood, under the wageless system of "no purchase, no pay." There were two chief techniques of boarding in the Age of Sail . One was to bring the two ships close enough to actually jump from friendly gunwale to enemy deck, with grappling hooks and lines helping to keep
1746-591: A reliable source of shipwrecks for underwater archaeology . A major example is the exploration of the wrecks of various warships in the Pacific Ocean . The first recorded sea battle was the Battle of the Delta , the Ancient Egyptians defeated the Sea Peoples in a sea battle c. 1175 BC . As recorded on the temple walls of the mortuary temple of pharaoh Ramesses III at Medinet Habu , this repulsed
1843-497: A ship could barricade themselves. The heavy blade could also cut grappling lines. The continued success throughout the 18th century of boarding tactics in a secondary role is best exemplified by John Paul Jones' assault against HMS Serapis from the sinking USS Bonhomme Richard in 1779, the only known case in the Age of Sail where a ship's captain captured an enemy ship while losing his own. HMS Shannon in turn broke
1940-432: A ship. Spanish and Portuguese sailors, especially officers, were known to use the rapier throughout the 17th and even into the 18th century, but the close-quarter nature of boarding combat rendered these lengthy swords very ineffective. An important multipurpose weapon was the boarding axe, useful for attacking the enemy, but also essential for chopping down doors and bulkheads to break into closed quarters where defenders of
2037-463: A soldier within range of a large group of hostile combatants extremely quickly. In addition, it would be hard for large numbers sufficient to overwhelm the other ship's defenses to be brought onto the deck in this fashion. Boarding in the Age of Sail was more difficult and dangerous than in previous eras of open-decked sailing vessels. Defenders could seek cover in "closed quarters" in the ship's roundhouse or foredeck, shooting through small loopholes at
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#17330928366572134-580: Is combat in and on the sea , the ocean , or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river . The armed forces branch designated for naval warfare is a navy . Naval operations can be broadly divided into riverine/littoral applications ( brown-water navy ), open-ocean applications ( blue-water navy ), between riverine/littoral and open-ocean applications ( green-water navy ), although these distinctions are more about strategic scope than tactical or operational division. The strategic offensive purpose of naval warfare
2231-415: Is projection of force by water, and its strategic defensive purpose is to challenge the similar projection of force by enemies. Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Even in the interior of large landmasses, transportation before the advent of extensive railways was largely dependent upon rivers , lakes , canals , and other navigable waterways . The latter were crucial in
2328-673: Is an attack by small boats, preferably at night and against an unsuspecting and anchored, target. It became popular in the later 18th century, and was extensively used during the Napoleonic Wars . This heralded the emphasis on stealth, and surprise, that would come to dominate future boarding tactics. An example is the successful cutting out of the Hermione which took place at Puerto Cabello , Venezuela , on 25 October 1799. In modern warfare, boarding by military forces almost always involves stealth, and usually takes place at night. It may involve
2425-622: Is still used, particularly when stealth is desired. In all eras, boarding requires that the ship boarded be stable enough to withstand the impact of enemy personnel leaping or climbing onto the deck and a subsequent sustained fight. The target ship must also have enough deck space for boarders to be able to stand and fight effectively. Thus, Native American war canoes or New Zealand waka were not suitable boarding targets, and wars between sides equipped with such vessels have generally not seen boarding actions, or any other decisive form of ship-to-ship combat. Instead, such vessels were often used for
2522-455: Is the oldest record of Indonesian military history, and noted a 7th-century Srivijayan sacred siddhayatra journey led by Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa . He was said to have brought 20,000 troops, including 312 people in boats and 1,312 foot soldiers. The 10th century Arab text Ajayeb al-Hind (Marvels of India) gives an account of an invasion in Africa by people called Wakwak or Waqwaq , probably
2619-589: The daimyōs to dispatch troops to Joseon Korea to conquer Ming China. The Japanese army which landed at Pusan on 12 April 1502 occupied Seoul within a month. The Korean king escaped to the northern region of the Korean peninsula and Japan completed 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. The Battle of Hansando on 14 August 1592 resulted in
2716-856: The Axumite Kingdom in modern-day Ethiopia , the Arab traveller 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 Quran , establishing the first Islamic mosque in China, the Mosque of Remembrance in Guangzhou . A rising rivalry followed between the Arabs and Chinese for control of trade in the Indian Ocean. In his book Cultural Flow Between China and
2813-614: The Battle of Actium (31 BC), hundreds of ships were involved, many of them quinqueremes mounting catapults and fighting towers. Following the Emperor Augustus transforming the Republic into the Roman Empire , Rome gained control of most of the Mediterranean. Without any significant maritime enemies, the Roman navy was reduced mostly to patrolling for pirates and transportation duties. It
2910-529: The Paraguayan War demonstrated the futility of direct assault by boarding in the face of 19th-century technology. During World War I the Royal Navy created their own type of warship specifically designed for boarding. Several armed boarding steamers were converted from merchant ships and fought in engagements such as the action of 16 March 1917 . For the most part, boarding became a police action in which
3007-561: The Peloponnesian War (431 BC) between Athens' Delian League 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 army besieged it. This strategy worked, although the close quarters likely contributed to the plague that killed many Athenians in 429 BC. There were
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3104-475: The Persian Wars were the first to feature large-scale naval operations, not just sophisticated fleet engagements with dozens of triremes on each side, but combined land-sea operations. It seems unlikely that all this was the product of a single mind or even of a generation; most likely the period of evolution and experimentation was simply not recorded by history. After some initial battles while subjugating
3201-646: The Siege of Fort Zeelandia , the first time China had defeated a western power. The Chinese used cannons and ships to bombard the Dutch into surrendering. In the Sengoku period of Japan, Oda Nobunaga unified the country by military power. However, he was defeated by the Mōri clan 's navy. Nobunaga invented the Tekkosen (large Atakebune equipped with iron plates) and defeated 600 ships of
3298-532: The largest naval battles in history . In the 15th century, the Chinese admiral Zheng He was assigned to assemble a massive fleet for several diplomatic missions abroad , sailing throughout the waters of the South East Pacific and the Indian Ocean. During his missions, on several occasions Zheng's fleet came into conflict with pirates . Zheng's fleet also became involved in a conflict in Sri Lanka , where
3395-594: The ongoing aftermath of the Libyan Civil War , and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation . In November 2023, Ansar Allah militants boarded the roll-on/roll-off ship Galaxy Leader in an Mil Mi-17 helicopter and sailed it to Al Hudaydah during their their involvement in the Israel–Hamas war . Ansar Allah on 30 December 2023 attempted to board the container ship Maersk Hangzhou but
3492-409: The 12th century, Srivijaya is primarily land-based polity rather than maritime power, fleets are available but acted as logistical support to facilitate the projection of land power. Later, the naval strategy degenerated to raiding fleet. Their naval strategy was to coerce merchant ships to dock in their ports, which if ignored, they will send ships to destroy the ship and kill the occupants. In 1293,
3589-669: The Black Sea, raiding the coasts of Anatolia and Thrace, and crossing into the Aegean Sea, plundering mainland Greece (including Athens and Sparta) and going as far as Crete and Rhodes. In the twilight of the Roman 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 from their recently conquered African territories, and
3686-589: The East. In the latter engagement, the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei destroyed a large fleet commanded 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 Lanka and India by sea was the Buddhist monk Faxian in the early 5th century, although diplomatic ties and land trade to Persia and India were established during
3783-549: The Greeks of the Ionian coast, the Persians determined to invade Greece proper. Themistocles of Athens estimated that the Greeks would be outnumbered by the Persians on land, but that Athens could protect itself by building a fleet (the famous "wooden walls"), using the profits of the silver mines at Laurium to finance them. The first Persian campaign, in 492 BC, was aborted because
3880-475: The Greeks, but withdrew anyway, and after losing at Plataea in the following year, returned to Asia Minor , leaving the Greeks their freedom. Nevertheless, the Athenians and Spartans attacked and burned the laid-up Persian fleet at Mycale , and freed many of the Ionian towns. These battles involved triremes or biremes as the standard fighting platform, and the focus of the battle was to ram the opponent's vessel using
3977-670: The Japanese army returned to Japan by the end of December. In 1609, the Tokugawa shogunate ordered the abandonment of warships to the feudal lord . The Japanese navy stagnated until the Meiji period . In ancient China , the first known naval battles took place during the Warring States period (481–221 BC) when vassal lords battled one another. Chinese naval warfare in this period featured grapple-and-hook, as well as ramming tactics with ships called "stomach strikers" and "colliding swoopers". It
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4074-610: The Jin to the north, until the Mongols finally conquered all of China. After the Song dynasty, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China was a powerful maritime force in the Indian Ocean. The Yuan emperor Kublai Khan attempted to invade Japan twice with large fleets (of both Mongols and Chinese), in 1274 and again in 1281, both attempts being unsuccessful (see Mongol invasions of Japan ). Building upon
4171-578: The King of Ceylon traveled back to Ming China afterwards to make a formal apology to the Yongle Emperor . The Ming imperial navy defeated a Portuguese navy led by Martim Afonso de Sousa in 1522. The Chinese destroyed one vessel 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
4268-574: The Korean kingdom of Silla (see also Unified Silla ) and expelled the Korean kingdom of Baekje which were supported by Japanese naval forces from the Korean peninsula (see Battle of Baekgang ) and helped Silla overcome its rival Korean kingdoms, Baekje and Goguryeo , by 668. In addition, the Tang had maritime trading, tributary, and diplomatic ties as far as modern Sri Lanka , India, Islamic Iran and Arabia , as well as Somalia in East Africa . From
4365-423: The Korean navy in the Battle of Chilcheollyang on 28 August 1597 and began advancing toward China. This attempt was stopped when the reappointed Admiral Yi, won the battle of Myeongnyang . The Wanli Emperor of Ming China sent military forces to the Korean peninsula. Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin continued to successfully engage the Japanese navy with 500 Chinese warships and the strengthened Korean fleet. In 1598,
4462-616: The Malay people of Srivijaya or Javanese people of Mataram kingdom , in 945–946 CE. They arrived at the coast of Tanganyika and Mozambique with 1000 boats and attempted to take the citadel of Qanbaloh, though eventually failed. The reason of the attack is because that 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 (called Zeng or Zenj by Arabs, Jenggi by Javanese) who were strong and make good slaves. Before
4559-559: The Mediterranean began to wane, the Italian trading towns of Genoa , Pisa , and Venice stepped in to seize the opportunity, setting up commercial networks and building navies to protect them. At first the navies fought with the Arabs (off Bari in 1004, at Messina in 1005), but then they found themselves contending with Normans moving into Sicily, and finally with each other. The Genoese and Venetians fought four naval wars, in 1253–1284, 1293–1299, 1350–1355, and 1378–1381. The last ended with
4656-554: The Mediterranean's lighter winds encouraged the Spaniards , Italians and Ottomans to retain the rowed galley , which was difficult to equip with heavy broadsides because the weight and size of the artillery interfered with the oar banks. As late as 1571, the Mediterranean Battle of Lepanto , while influenced by artillery, was still principally a battle determined by boarding. The defeat of Spain's Great Armada in 1588 struck
4753-703: The Mongol Yuan dynasty launched an invasion to Java . The Yuan sent 500–1000 ships and 20,000–30,000 soldiers, but was ultimately defeated on land by surprise attack , forcing the army to fall back to the beach. In the coastal waters, Javanese junks had already attacked the Mongol ships. After all of the troops had boarded the ships on the coast, the Yuan army battled the Javanese fleet. After repelling it, they sailed back to Quanzhou . Javanese naval commander Aria Adikara intercepted
4850-443: The Mōri navy with six armored warships ( Battle of Kizugawaguchi ). The navy of Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi employed clever close-range tactics 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 Honnō-ji incident , Hideyoshi succeeded him and completed the unification of the whole country. In 1592, Hideyoshi ordered
4947-415: The Outside World , Shen Fuwei notes that maritime Chinese merchants in the 9th century were landing regularly at Sufala in East Africa to cut out Arab middle-men traders. The Chola dynasty of medieval India was a dominant seapower in the Indian Ocean , an avid maritime trader and diplomatic entity with Song China. Rajaraja Chola I (reigned 985 to 1014) and his son Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–42), sent
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#17330928366575044-409: The Persians in a channel too narrow for them to bring their greater numbers to bear, and attacked them vigorously, in the end causing the loss of 200 Persian ships vs 40 Greek. Aeschylus wrote a play about the defeat, The Persians , which was performed in a Greek theatre competition a few years after the battle. It is the oldest known surviving play. At the end, Xerxes still had a fleet stronger than
5141-399: The Romans were primarily a land-based army, they could not effectively combat the Carthaginian navy, and subsequently lost several sea battles . The corvus , a boarding ramp with a steel spike, was the Roman answer to this problem. Roman sailors piloted their ship alongside a Carthaginian ship, dropped the corvus from one deck to the other, and sent their soldiers across the board, assaulting
5238-460: The Song imperial court fled south from Kaifeng to Hangzhou . Equipped with the magnetic compass and knowledge of Shen Kuo 's famous treatise (on the concept of true north ), the Chinese became proficient experts of navigation in their day. They raised their naval strength from a mere 11 squadrons of 3,000 marines to 20 squadrons of 52,000 marines in a century's time. Employing paddle wheel crafts and trebuchets throwing gunpowder bombs from
5335-416: The Spanish from long range, tearing up their rigging and their crews with the superior firepower of their broadsides. This enabled the outnumbered English fleet to avoid being boarded and allowed them to prevent a Spanish landing. While boarding would never again be the dominant tactic in Western naval warfare, it was not abandoned. Boarding was still used as the coup de grace against a crippled ship, enabling
5432-500: The United States' run of successful frigate battles during the War of 1812 by boarding and capturing USS Chesapeake in 1813. The adoption of ironclads and increasingly powerful naval artillery vastly increased the risk to boarding parties. Meanwhile, the suppression of piracy and the abandonment of privateering and prize money made boarding actions even against merchant vessels less rewarding. The massacre of Paraguayan canoe-borne boarding parties by Brazilian ironclads during
5529-450: The Vikings, only two of which were not beaten back or captured. The Vikings also fought several sea battles among themselves. This was normally done by binding the ships on each side together, thus essentially fighting a land battle on the sea. However the fact that the losing side could 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 Muslim power in
5626-426: The ages. Pre-recorded history (Homeric Legends, e.g. Troy ), and classical works such as The Odyssey emphasize the sea. The Persian Empire – united and strong – could not prevail against the might of the Athenian fleet combined with that of lesser city states in several attempts to conquer the Greek city states. Phoenicia 's and Egypt 's power, Carthage 's and even Rome 's largely depended upon control of
5723-443: The attackers came on board only when no resistance could be expected, in order to search vessels and remove contraband. The target would be a ship that had hove to or surrendered. During wartime, the surrendering or sinking ship would be searched for any valuable information such as plans and ciphers . One prominent example would be during World War II , when British vessels crippled the German submarine U-110 in 1941, and sent
5820-443: The boat's reinforced prow. The opponent would try to maneuver and avoid contact, or alternately rush all the marines to the side about to be hit, thus tilting the boat. When the ram had withdrawn and the marines dispersed, the hole would then 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 wars, tensions exploded into
5917-485: The collection of naval intelligence , as soldiers boarding a sinking, crippled, or surrendered vessel could possibly recover enemy plans, cipher codebooks or machines. For a boarding to be successful, it must occur without the knowledge of the crew of the defending ship, or the ship's defenses must be suppressed. In modern warfare, boarding by military forces may involve the use of small submarines or submersibles , inflatable boats or helicopters to carry troops to
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#17330928366576014-442: The death knell for major fleets geared toward boarding. The Spanish galleons were intended primarily for boarding combat, their contingents of boarding soldiers far outnumbering the English and their decks provided with high castles for suppressive fire. But the Armada proved unable to close with the English vessels, partly because the Spanish castles rendered their ships more sluggish, while Drake and Hawkins stood off and bombarded
6111-553: The deck of the ship, or may simply be carried out by scuba divers scaling the sides of the ship. In peacetime, boarding allows authorized inspectors of one nation or group, such as a coast guard or an international policing fleet (e.g. United Nations fleet), to examine a ship's cargo in a search for drugs, weapons, passengers which are unrecorded on the ship's manifest, or any other type of contraband that could possibly have been carried aboard. A nation's coast guard could also board any suspicious ships that have been overfishing in such
6208-400: The decks of their ships, the Southern Song dynasty became a formidable foe to the Jin dynasty during the 12th–13th centuries during the Jin–Song Wars . There were naval engagements at the Battle of Caishi and Battle of Tangdao . With a powerful navy, China dominated maritime trade throughout South East Asia as well. Until 1279, the Song were able to use their naval power to defend against
6305-480: The destruction of the French fleet in a decisive action which allowed the English effective control of the sea lanes and the strategic initiative for much of the war. The Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties of China were involved in several naval affairs over the triple set of polities ruling medieval Korea ( Three Kingdoms of Korea ), along with engaging naval bombardments on the peninsula from Asuka period Yamato Kingdom (Japan). The Tang dynasty aided
6402-418: The development of the modern world in the United Kingdom, America, the Low Countries and northern Germany , because they enabled the bulk movement of goods and raw material , which supported the nascent Industrial Revolution . Prior to 1750, materials largely moved by river barge or sea vessels. Thus armies, with their exorbitant needs for food, ammunition and fodder, were tied to the river valleys throughout
6499-496: The earlier Han dynasty. However, Chinese naval maritime influence would penetrate into the Indian Ocean until the medieval period. The late Middle Ages saw the development of the cogs , caravels and carracks ships capable of surviving the tough conditions of the open ocean, with enough backup systems and crew expertise to make long voyages routine. In addition, they grew from 100 tons to 300 tons displacement, enough to carry cannon as armament and still have space for cargo. One of
6596-462: The enemy decks. Naval tactics in medieval China, Korea , and Japan also depended on boarding, with the flat expanse of a ship used as a battleground for the marine contingents. The Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185 was one of the classic naval battles in medieval Asia to be decided by boarding. Boarding attacks also occurred beyond the medieval era in Asia. During the Imjin Wars in naval operations, both Korean and Japanese marines would attempt to board
6693-495: The enemy vessel. While boarding attacks were originally carried out by ordinary sailors who are proficient in hand-to-hand combat , larger warships often deploy specially trained and equipped regular troops such as marines and special forces as boarders. Boarding and close-quarters combat had been a primary means to conclude a naval battle since antiquity , until the early modern period when heavy naval artillery gained tactical primacy at sea. A cutting out boarding
6790-472: The eventual invasion of Britain. They wreaked havoc in Northumbria and Mercia and the rest of Anglia before being halted by Wessex. King Alfred the Great of England was able to stay the Viking invasions with a pivotal victory at the Battle of Edington. Alfred defeated Guthrum, establishing the boundaries of Danelaw in an 884 treaty. The effectiveness of Alfred's 'fleet' has been debated; Kenneth Harl has pointed out that as few as eleven ships were sent to combat
6887-402: The exposed boarders. The defenders could also place grenades on their gunwales or dangle them from their yards, detonating them by fuses of quick match that led back through the loopholes into the closed quarters. If not in closed quarters, defenders sometimes resorted to the naval boarding pike , trying to kill or wound boarders while keeping them at a distance, and of course might use any of
6984-525: The fleet was lost in a storm, but the second, in 490 BC, captured islands in the Aegean Sea before landing on the mainland near Marathon . Attacks by the Greek armies repulsed these. The third Persian campaign in 480 BC, under Xerxes I of Persia , followed the pattern of the second in marching the army via the Hellespont while the fleet paralleled them offshore. Near Artemisium , in the narrow channel between
7081-554: The following different classes. The larger ships in the list can also be classed as capital ships . Some classes above may now be considered obsolete as no ships matching the class are in current service. There is also much blurring and gray areas between the classes, depending on their intended use, history, and interpretation of the class by different navies. Navies also use auxiliary ships for transport and other non-combat purposes. They are classified by different names according to their roles: Naval warfare Naval warfare
7178-583: The hull of the ship in order to rip into the hull of another ship while ramming, to stab enemies in the water that had fallen overboard and were swimming, or simply to clear any possible dangerous marine animals in the path of the ship (since the ancient Chinese did believe in sea monsters; see Xu Fu for more info). Qin Shi Huang , the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC), owed much of his success in unifying southern China to naval power, although an official navy
7275-462: The largest ships of the time, the Great Harry , displaced over 1,500 tons. Naval boarding Naval boarding action is an offensive tactic used in naval warfare to come up against (or alongside) an enemy watercraft and attack by inserting combatants aboard that vessel. The goal of boarding is to invade and overrun the enemy personnel on board in order to capture, sabotage, or destroy
7372-419: The mainland and Euboea , the Greek fleet held off multiple assaults by the Persians, the Persians breaking through a first line, but then being flanked by the second line of ships. But the defeat on land at Thermopylae 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
7469-412: The major role in boarding combat. Boarding was of particular importance in the 17th and 18th centuries' guerre de course , or commerce raiding , as well as to privateers and pirates . Because naval crews were paid prize money for bringing back enemy merchant shipping and cargoes intact, it was preferable to capture such ships rather than sink them, which ultimately required boarding, with or without
7566-456: The mid-14th century, the rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) seized power in the south amongst many other rebel groups. His early success was due to capable officials such as Liu Bowen and Jiao Yu , and their gunpowder weapons (see Huolongjing ). Yet the decisive battle that cemented his success and his founding of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) was the Battle of Lake Poyang , considered one of
7663-558: The other's ships for engagement in hand-to-hand combat. The Japanese used boarding attacks more often because of the imbalance of firepower between the two navies; at the time, the Koreans controlled a much more powerful navy, technically and tactically, than the Japanese. Though the Japanese were armed with the latest in European small firearms, Korean cannons were advanced and among the best in Asia at
7760-473: The planned conquest in China was canceled by the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi , and the Japanese military retreated 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 damages, but the Chinese top official Deng Zilong and the Korean commander Yi Sun-sin were killed in a Japanese army counterattack. The rest of
7857-479: The rapid transportation of troops and supplies, and decisive engagements were normally fought by landing forces. Throughout the ancient and post-classical periods, all naval ship-to-ship combat focused primarily on boarding, although ramming and incendiaries were secondary tactics. Greek and Persian naval tactics emphasized ramming and boarding, notably at the Battle of Salamis . The earliest Roman naval battles against Carthage also emphasized boarding. Since
7954-408: The sea has largely depended on a fleet's ability to wage sea battles. Throughout most of naval history, naval warfare revolved around two overarching concerns, namely boarding and anti-boarding. It was only in the late 16th century, when gunpowder technology had developed to a considerable extent, that the tactical focus at sea shifted to heavy ordnance. Many sea battles through history also provide
8051-753: The seas. So too did the Venetian Republic dominate Italy's city states, thwart the Ottoman Empire , and dominate commerce on the Silk Road and the Mediterranean in general for centuries. For three centuries, Vikings raided and pillaged far into central Russia and Ukraine , and even to distant Constantinople (both via the Black Sea tributaries, Sicily , and through the Strait of Gibraltar ). Gaining control of
8148-471: The ship. The Carthaginian navy, unprepared for this "land combat" on the oceans, lost several ships to this tactic. This invention secured Roman naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea for several centuries. During the medieval period, boarding continued to be the dominant form of ship-to-ship combat. The most prominent naval power of the period, the Vikings , rarely fought other seaborne peoples on
8245-439: The target vessel surreptitiously and exploited total surprise to seize control before resistance could be effectively organized. Modern-day pirates in motorboats similarly depend on speed, stealth and surprise to take their targets, usually unarmed and poorly defended, without serious resistance. However, the use of boarding tactics has begun to revive in recent years, both as part of anti-piracy operations and in conflicts such as
8342-522: The technological achievements of the earlier Song dynasty, the Mongols also employed early cannons upon the decks of their ships. While Song China built its naval strength, the Japanese also had considerable naval prowess. The strength of Japanese naval forces could be seen in the Genpei War , in the large-scale Battle of Dan-no-ura on 25 April 1185. The forces of Minamoto no Yoshitsune were 850 ships strong, while Taira no Munemori had 500 ships. In
8439-474: The time; they were easily able to destroy Japanese ships. The development in the early 16th century of shipboard gunports and gun carriages, and the consequent adoption of broadside tactics, gradually ended the primacy of boarding in naval warfare. The decline in boarding occurred faster in Northern and Western Europe than in the Mediterranean. While England and France quickly designed ships with heavy broadsides,
8536-401: The use of small submarines or submersibles , inflatable boats , or frogmen . All involve scaling the sides of the ship. When stealth is not as important, helicopters may be used to carry troops to the deck of the ship. Boarding is used in wartime as a way to seize a vessel without destroying it, or to remove its cargo (people or goods) before it is destroyed. It can also be used to aid in
8633-458: The vessels side by side. The second technique was to place a boarding party onto a dory , gig , or another type of small boat, row it alongside the target, and then climb aboard by using grappling hooks or the steps built into some ship's sides. The cinematic method of throwing a grappling line into the enemy's rigging or yards and then swinging aboard does not appear to have any historical support; it could hardly have been practical, as it would put
8730-450: The victimized vessel to be recovered and used by the boarders' side rather than being sunk. Important information such as enemy plans, ciphers or rutters might also be recovered. Large quantities of soldiers were consigned to transports rather than "pestering" the decks of warships, but smaller units of specialized marines were kept aboard to aid in boarding (as well as to enforce naval discipline). Sailors themselves were now expected to play
8827-519: The water, but they still depended on boarding on those rare occasions, often lashing their longships together to make a more stable platform for the upcoming battle. The maritime use of Greek fire made Byzantium less dependent on boarding than other medieval powers, but it was still used. To better resist boarding, medieval European ships began to be built with high wooden "castles" fore and aft, which boarders could scale only with great difficulty, while archers, crossbowmen or arquebusiers could sweep
8924-438: The weapons that the boarders themselves used. Boarding weapons in the Age of Sail consisted of grenades , pistols , blunderbusses , muskets , bayonets , cutlasses , naval boarding axes , and naval boarding pikes , etc. Until the introduction of the percussion cap in the early 19th century, sailors preferred to use flintlocks whenever possible, as the lighted match of a matchlock was extremely dangerous to use on board
9021-635: Was devastating to the ships in the besieging fleet. These were the first of many encounters during the Byzantine-Arab Wars . The Caliphate became the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean Sea from the 7th to 13th centuries, during what is known as the Islamic Golden Age . One of the most significant inventions in medieval naval warfare was the torpedo , invented in Syria by the Arab inventor Hasan al-Rammah in 1275. His torpedo ran on water with
9118-608: Was not yet established (see Medieval Asia section below). The people of the Zhou dynasty were known to use temporary pontoon bridges for general means of transportation, but it was during the Qin and Han dynasties that large permanent pontoon bridges were assembled and used in warfare (first written account of a pontoon bridge in the West being the oversight of the Greek Mandrocles of Samos in aiding
9215-491: Was only on the fringes of the Empire, in newly gained provinces or defensive missions against barbarian invasion, that the navy still engaged in actual warfare. While the barbarian invasions of the 4th century and later mostly occurred by land, some notable examples of naval conflicts are known. In the late 3rd century, in the reign of Emperor Gallienus , a large raiding party composed by Goths, Gepids and Heruli, launched itself in
9312-452: Was the jong . The jongs were large transport ships which could carry 100–2000 tons of cargo and 50–1000 people, 28.99–88.56 meter in length. The exact number of jong fielded by Majapahit is unknown, but the largest number of jong deployed in an expedition is about 400 jongs, when Majapahit attacked Pasai, in 1350. In this era, even to the 17th century, the Nusantaran naval soldiers fought on
9409-486: Was written in the Han dynasty that the people of the Warring States era had employed chuan ge ships (dagger-axe ships, or halberd ships), thought to be a simple description of ships manned by marines carrying dagger-axe halberds as personal weapons. The 3rd-century writer Zhang Yan asserted that the people of the Warring States period named the boats this way because halberd blades were actually fixed and attached to
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