Archmagnance1 t1_jcltzby wrote on March 17, 2023 at 7:36 PM

Reply to comment by War_Hymn in Grad Student Explores Ancient Warfare With Naval Ram Project by kratos2025

And it still took a lot of holes and time to actually sink a ship because, shockingly, they are designed to not sink. I don't imagine ships, when rammers were common, were completely helpless and would go completely underwater if they got rammed once.

They were beached at night because they would get waterlogged if left for too long, so a ram might have been to take a ship out of a fight or to take people away from counterboarding to deal with it. Again, not sinking. Its possible given enough time but I personally don't think it was the intention. However, we don't know for sure.

A ship becoming unstable doesn't mean it sinks, or that it will sink fast enough for it to matter for the outcome of a skirmish or engagement.

War_Hymn t1_jcm07wy wrote on March 17, 2023 at 8:17 PM

>I don't imagine ships, when rammers were common, were completely helpless and would go completely underwater if they got rammed once.

Yeah, but kind of hard to fight and maneuver if your rowing section is submerged in water. And I imagine a 1-2 foot wide hole in a 40-50 tonnes vessel won't take too long to reach that point.

Archmagnance1 t1_jcpo1s6 wrote on March 18, 2023 at 4:24 PM

I said it somewhere else but I imagine it was more to throw a fair portion of the crew into panic while it's being boarded. After a (hopefully) successful boarding the new owners beach it and after the battle they can patch it up.

Sinking ships as the primary goal is relatively new for the past 130 years or so with the advent of widely available explosive munitions and engagement ranges measured in the kilometers. Even with the powerful guns of the age of sail they still fought at ranges of 400m or less because they didn't have what came to he called fire directors or fire control systems.