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Going to propose the extremely scientific definition that a naval power is one that considers a small island far from its core an exciting prize to win in a war
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Sep 24, 2023 18:13
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Rome was happy to get England so it fits that definition
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Sep 24, 2023 18:18
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If we are looking for an empire that was most certainly not a maritime empire, the Assyrians meet that standard:
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Sep 24, 2023 23:40
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CrypticFox posted:If we are looking for an empire that was most certainly not a maritime empire, the Assyrians meet that standard: We're not owned, we're not owned! we muttered to ourselves as we slowly turned into corncobs.
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Sep 24, 2023 23:47
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I also propose that even if they had been experts at sailing on the Euphrates, that "Maritime" refers specifically to sea navigation and not to river, as they're actually pretty different things.
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Sep 24, 2023 23:55
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CommonShore posted:I also propose that even if they had been experts at sailing on the Euphrates, that "Maritime" refers specifically to sea navigation and not to river, as they're actually pretty different things. "Maritime" would also imply that your navy was itself a military threat and primary means of power projection, rather than a trucking company to haul land troops around.
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Sep 25, 2023 00:02
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CrypticFox posted:If we are looking for an empire that was most certainly not a maritime empire, the Assyrians meet that standard: quote:I loaded onto boats my fierce Astartes, who do not know fear Isn't this also the dweeb who boasted about being carried in a sedan chair over a mountain?
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Sep 25, 2023 00:05
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Kylaer posted:Isn't this also the dweeb who boasted about being carried in a sedan chair over a mountain? If the all-conquering army is carrying you around because you said so I feel like that’s a gigachad power move
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Sep 25, 2023 00:19
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Kylaer posted:Isn't this also the dweeb who boasted about being carried in a sedan chair over a mountain? everest thread is that way <----
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Sep 25, 2023 00:20
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Kylaer posted:Isn't this also the dweeb who boasted about being carried in a sedan chair over a mountain? Same dude:  It's no wonder he ended up being assassinated
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Sep 25, 2023 00:24
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gently caress I love the Assyrian style of writing applied to "I walked on my own two feet like a big boy"
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Sep 25, 2023 00:30
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SlothfulCobra posted:Kinda the exact inverse of Grand Fromage's argument. You uh do not understand what the Jones Act actually is. Foreign flagged container vessels go us port to us port all the time. What the Jones act requires is that cargo going from a US port to a US port be on a US flagged ship.
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Sep 25, 2023 00:37
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never mind. tiredposting.
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Sep 25, 2023 01:23
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cheetah7071 posted:Going to propose the extremely scientific definition that a naval power is one that considers a small island far from its core an exciting prize to win in a war Bird poo probably ruins this one.
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Sep 25, 2023 08:01
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Bar Ran Dun posted:They grow corn in Iowa my man. What has to happen to sell commodity corn? You wildly overestimate how well farmers tend to understand goddamn anything besides maybe their day to day job. Also I feel like naval technology, doctrine and designs at the time need to be taken into account, it's entirely possible Rome and Carthage didn't have major naval battles because their ships were not set up for it and it was enough trouble just to get them sailing in the right direction, let alone ramming into each other. ed: On another note, I present to you one piece of evidence America is a maritime culture: In The Navy. Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Sep 25, 2023 |
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Sep 25, 2023 08:46
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Yes it’s possible rome and Carthage didn’t have naval battles Lol
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Sep 25, 2023 12:36
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Ghost Leviathan posted:You wildly overestimate how well farmers tend to understand goddamn anything besides maybe their day to day job. My friend that is an all time understatement lol
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Sep 25, 2023 13:03
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I'm not sure which side Ghost Leviathan is insulting more here, the Romans or the Carthaginians
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Sep 25, 2023 13:14
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Also I feel like naval technology, doctrine and designs at the time need to be taken into account, it's entirely possible Rome and Carthage didn't have major naval battles because their ships were not set up for it and it was enough trouble just to get them sailing in the right direction, let alone ramming into each other. Wait, what? Rome and Carthage absolutely had major naval battles. Is that  ?
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Sep 25, 2023 15:06
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In retrospect I'm not surprised if I'm wrong but I am not up on the Punic Wars at all besides the whole Hannibal thing. More that I'm wondering whether it was a priority on at least the Roman side to have lots of ships specifically for fighting other ships on the sea or more just as a means of getting legions from one shore to the other.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:23
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Ghost Leviathan posted:In retrospect I'm not surprised if I'm wrong but I am not up on the Punic Wars at all besides the whole Hannibal thing. You are insanely wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpGMSzgd8eg Incidentally in this battle the "maritime" Carthaginians get absolutely rinsed by the "non-maritime" Romans.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:26
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Yeah depending on how "size of battle" gets measured it's still the largest naval battle in history. Leyte Gulf beats it on a couple of criteria.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:36
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Ghost Leviathan posted:In retrospect I'm not surprised if I'm wrong but I am not up on the Punic Wars at all besides the whole Hannibal thing. More that I'm wondering whether it was a priority on at least the Roman side to have lots of ships specifically for fighting other ships on the sea or more just as a means of getting legions from one shore to the other. With no snark, the largest battle Rome and Carthage ever fought was a naval battle, Ecnomus. There were many other naval battles besides this one. In very, very, very tl;dr terms, at the start of the 1st Punic Wars Rome was a land power with little or no navy, while Carthage was all about trade and sea power - so Rome built a navy. Their "one simple trick (Carthagenians hate this)" was a movable boarding plank with a spike that could "pin" ships next to each other so the Romans could send soldiers/marines over as a boarding party. Rome won a series of naval battles and eventually defeated Carthage. This is why in the 2nd Punic War Hannibal had to move over land/across the Alps; he couldn't move his army by sea.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:40
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I can't believe the corvus worked that well, it's something I would've come up with in the 3rd grade
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Sep 25, 2023 15:41
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It is the quintessential Roman solution, find a way to build a road and march a legion across it.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:42
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Tunicate posted:It is the quintessential Roman solution, find a way to build a road and march a legion across it. This is an excellent post.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:48
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The corvus probably made the ships less stable though, there is a theory that the corvus may have contributed to the bafflingly high number of ships and fleets the Romans lost to shipwrecks in the First Punic war. Since they stopped using it after the First Punic war ended, there probably were significant drawbacks to it.
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Sep 25, 2023 15:49
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Think of all the disappointed Roman engineers after the Senate decided to go with stupid ship bridge instead of draining the entire Med
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Sep 25, 2023 15:49
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Yeah I think the first Punic war ties very well to this discussion of was Rome a maritime empire or not because wasn't it a big thing that Romans really didn't have the knowhow or expertise to challenge Carthagians at sea? Romans being more comfortable with land power while Carthagians were the naval might that in turn relied on mercenaries while on land. So Romans kinda jump started their whole military naval tradition by researching some Carthagian ship that had beached during a storm IIRC. And then there was that whole thing with Romans using boarding brigdes to attack enemy ships because they are a land power and well by Mars, Carthagians might be better sailors but we'll just bring the legions and land power to sea..... Dunno how much of this is just pop history image but that's how my history teacher taught it. Edit: beaten like carthagian sailors by sea sick legionaries
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Sep 25, 2023 15:50
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CrypticFox posted:The corvus probably made the ships less stable though, there is a theory that the corvus may have contributed to the bafflingly high number of ships and fleets the Romans lost to shipwrecks in the First Punic war. Since they stopped using it after the First Punic war ended, there probably were significant drawbacks to it. Yeah, it was a short time deal really, once the Carthaginians knew about it, it lost a lot of its power. The whole thing was it was a giant surprise that the Romans seemingly were positioning their fleet badly, when they actual intent was not to ram and sink other boats, but only hit them hard enough to hook the corvus on. Once you know that is their plan, you just need guys on the ships ready for it and the spontaneous boarding parties become a lot less feasible, along with intentionally avoiding scenarios where that can occur.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:19
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CrypticFox posted:The corvus probably made the ships less stable though, there is a theory that the corvus may have contributed to the bafflingly high number of ships and fleets the Romans lost to shipwrecks in the First Punic war. Since they stopped using it after the First Punic war ended, there probably were significant drawbacks to it. I seriously doubt this. An oared warship is big - look at the reconstruction of the Greek trireme Olympias:  A corvus as described isn't going to weigh enough to make that ship noticeably more unseaworthy, especially when it's laid flat while not in use. If anything the Romans probably lost more ships at sea because they were new to the boat business and not as good at dealing with weather. Another possibility is that due to the fact that they were at war they were acting more aggressively, sending out ships into more dangerous conditions due to military necessity. I understand that the "corvus make ships sink" theory has been floated by academics, but I can't help but wonder how much practical sailing experience they have. Also, it was not used in the 2nd Punic War because they didn't need it. The big naval battle of that war (Lilybaeum) involved about 20 vs 35 ships. The days of massive fleet battles were over. Glah posted:Yeah I think the first Punic war ties very well to this discussion of was Rome a maritime empire or not because wasn't it a big thing that Romans really didn't have the knowhow or expertise to challenge Carthagians at sea? Romans being more comfortable with land power while Carthagians were the naval might that in turn relied on mercenaries while on land. So Romans kinda jump started their whole military naval tradition by researching some Carthagian ship that had beached during a storm IIRC. None of this makes them "not a sea power." As it is, they made themselves a sea power, took on the other sea power (Carthage), and defeated them at sea.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:28
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If the Roman empire had survived to the present we would have atlantropa wouldn't we
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Sep 25, 2023 16:29
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CrypticFox posted:The corvus probably made the ships less stable though, there is a theory that the corvus may have contributed to the bafflingly high number of ships and fleets the Romans lost to shipwrecks in the First Punic war. Since they stopped using it after the First Punic war ended, there probably were significant drawbacks to it. Theory doesn’t seem especially necessary to me tbh. Polybius discusses the Punic war fleet disasters and gives fairly reasonable explanations for them without mentioning the corvus (which he originally brings up precisely in the context that the Roman ships were not good enough to win battles on their own). What he says is that on top of the ships not being very sturdy to begin with, Roman commanders were landsmen who felt they were smarter than their experts and, coming from a mindset of land warfare where the answer is always more dudes working harder, didn’t understand that you can’t work harder than time and tide. So they got caught off dangerous coasts in dangerous weather and ate poo poo en masse. Histories 1.37 and 1.54.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:32
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Cessna posted:None of this makes them "not a sea power." As it is, they made themselves a sea power, took on the other sea power (Carthage), and defeated them at sea. I'm not sure I follow. I tried to say that they weren't a sea power before first Punic war where they became one. Lots of things change about the character of Roman society throughout times. That kinda comes with the territory when talking about a time spans of millennia.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:38
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Glah posted:I'm not sure I follow. I tried to say that they weren't a sea power before first Punic war where they became one. I was responding to the "And then there was that whole thing with Romans using boarding brigdes to attack enemy ships because they are a land power and well by Mars, Carthagians might be better sailors but we'll just bring the legions and land power to sea..... " part. Specific methods of fighting (using boarding parties) isn't going to determine if you're a sea power or not.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:41
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Cessna posted:I was responding to the "And then there was that whole thing with Romans using boarding brigdes to attack enemy ships because they are a land power and well by Mars, Carthagians might be better sailors but we'll just bring the legions and land power to sea..... " part. Specific methods of fighting (using boarding parties) isn't going to determine if you're a sea power or not. Well obviously not. What determines if you are a sea power is if you win battles at sea and control it. And Romans obviously won, so... Unless you think that I meant that using boarding parties means that seas somehow become land then lol no.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:46
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Yeah, oceans didn't become battlefields until April, 1805
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Sep 25, 2023 16:47
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Cessna posted:None of this makes them "not a sea power." As it is, they made themselves a sea power, took on the other sea power (Carthage), and defeated them at sea.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:50
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What was the Roman conception of the oceans outside of the Med? I presume they had some shipping that ran in the Bay of Biscay and up to England, but did they ever turn left at Gibraltar and sail/row down the African coastline? What did they think lay over those horizons?
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Sep 25, 2023 16:53
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zoux posted:What was the Roman conception of the oceans outside of the Med? I presume they had some shipping that ran in the Bay of Biscay and up to England, but did they ever turn left at Gibraltar and sail/row down the African coastline? What did they think lay over those horizons? The Greeks before them definitely sailed a fair way down the coast of Africa, and basically decided it wasn't worth it. Rome also had communications as far east as India and possibly China so they'd have had an idea of 'over to the east there's lots more water' too I would expect. Oh, and the Middle East, which was a border zone between Rome and e.g. Parthia/Sasania right up until this inconvenient Mohammed guy turned up so they'd have known about the Red Sea.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:58
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