Draft:Tactics of the Roman Navy

Battle Tactics

During the early history of naval warfare there was no such thing as naval tactics. Naval battles consisted of trying to have the sailors on your ships, to board the ships of the enemy and win the ensuing melee. After the invention of the battering ram, naval tactics changed because the ship itself could become a weapon. New strategies emerged to use the ram to destroy the ship of the enemy, and other strategies were developed to counter it. During a naval battle the safest position would be to have your ram presented to the enemy and have the ability to maneuver around the enemy. Because of this ships would deploy with just enough space between them to move. Sometimes the ship would sweep close inboard alongside the side of the ship in order to break off the oars of the ship. The soldiers on the ships would shoot arrows at each other. If this maneuver was pulled off correctly than the enemy ship would be effectively disabled. One strategy, called periplous, was when the navy would stretch in a thin line, meaning that when the enemy attacked the line, the defending flank could use the ships at the ends of the line, to flank the enemy. Another tactic was called Dikeplous. The Dikeplous strategy consisted of containing the ships in a small area. Then attacking the enemy, the concentration of ships would break the enemy line. Often times these strategies would not work as planned, leading to a brutal melee. By the 5th century BCE bigger slower ships replaced the earlier triremes. The Romans used large ships to attack the enemy ships and then board them. Ramming was still relevant, during the Battle of Cape Ecnomus the Romans sunk 30 Carthaginian ships. At the Battle of Actium Augustus' ships could only damage Antony's ships through ramming.