Medieval Sea-Fight In the days of the Old Navy of England, before Henry VIII had introduced the great battering guns into his ships, a battle at sea was not really a sea-battle at all, as we understand it. In theory it was a land-battle on water. The ships had steep, high sides with the curving decks of the ships taking the place of strongholds on land. And most of the weapons used were personal ones that were used in land-fighting; swords, spears, maces and battle-axes, representing the men’s arms, darts, arrows from long-bows or cross-bows representing the missile weapons. All of these were designed to kill men; they could not possibly wound or sink the ships in a sea-fight. There was nothing which could do that, to the heavy Round Ships of the north. Even the classic “ship-killer” of the Galley, the Ram, was absent here, which usually proved to be a useless weapon. read more
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Medieval Sea-Fight

In the days of the Old Navy of England, before Henry VIII had introduced the great battering guns into his ships, a battle at sea was not really a sea-battle at all, as we understand it. In theory it was a land-battle on water.

The ships had steep, high sides with the curving decks of the ships taking the place of strongholds on land. And most of the weapons used were personal ones that were used in land-fighting; swords, spears, maces and battle-axes, representing the men’s arms, darts, arrows from long-bows or cross-bows representing the missile weapons.

All of these were designed to kill men; they could not possibly wound or sink the ships in a sea-fight. There was nothing which could do that, to the heavy Round Ships of the north. Even the classic “ship-killer” of the Galley, the Ram, was absent here, which usually proved to be a useless weapon.

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Source: modern-day-commando.com

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