Medieval Warfare - Naval Warfare

Naval Warfare

The waters surrounding Europe can be grouped into two types which affected the design of craft that travelled and therefore the warfare. The Mediterranean and Black Seas were free of tides, generally calm, and the weather predictable. The seas around the north and west of Europe experienced stronger and less predictable weather. The weather gage, the advantage of having a following wind, was an important factor in naval battles, particularly to the attackers. Typically westerlies (winds blowing from west to east) dominated Europe, giving naval powers to the west an advantage. Medieval sources on the conduct of medieval naval warfare are less common than those about land-based war. Most medieval chroniclers had no experience of life on the sea, and generally were not well-informed. Marine archaeology has helped provide information.

Early in the medieval period, ships in the context of warfare were used primarily for transporting troops. In the Mediterranean, naval warfare in the medieval period resembled that of the ancient period: fleets of galleys would exchange missile fire and then come alongside for marines to fight on deck. This mode of naval warfare continued even into the early modern period, as, for example, at the Battle of Lepanto. Famous admirals included Andrea Doria, Hayreddin Barbarossa, and Don John of Austria. However, galleys were fragile and difficult to use in the cold and turbulent North Sea and northern Atlantic, although they saw occasional use. Bulkier ships were developed which were primarily sail-driven, although the long lowboard Viking-style rowed longship saw use well into the 15th century. Ramming was impractical with these sailing ships, but their main purpose remained the transportation of soldiers to fight on the decks of the opposing ship (as, for example, at the Battle of Svolder or the Battle of Sluys).

Warships resembled floating fortresses, with towers in the bows and at the stern (respectively, the forecastle and aftcastle). The large superstructure made these warships quite unstable, but the decisive defeats the more mobile but considerably lower boarded longships suffered at the hands of high-boarded cogs in the 15th century ended the issue of which ship type would dominate northern European warfare.

In the medieval period, it had proved difficult to mount cannons on board a warship, although some were placed in the fore- and aftcastles. Small hand-held anti-personnel cannons were used, but large cannons mounted on deck further compromised the stability of warships, and cannons at that time had a slow rate of fire and were inaccurate. All this was about to change at the end of the medieval period. The insertion of an opening in the side of a ship, with a hinged cover, allowed the creation of a gundeck below the main deck. The weight of cannon distributed to lower decks of the ship increased its stability immensely, effectively providing ballast, and a row of cannon on a lower deck produced the broadside, where the weight of shot overcame the inherent inaccuracy of firing cannons from a ship at sea. An example is the Mary Rose, the flagship of King Henry VIII's fleet, which had around eleven heavy guns per side, all of which were capable of firing shot nine pounds or more.