Roman Troopships

[Macedon]

I wonder if anyone has read anything with the Romans using biremes or other craft for ranged weapon support during a conflict. I currently have a Scorpio along with Syrian archers on the bireme providing indirect fire support. Am I somewhat in the ballpark on the historical record here or am I giving Hollywood a good run for their money??

Yes, we do have relevant evidence. Some examples :

At the battle between the troops of Septimius Severus under Tiberius Claudius Candidus and those of Pescennius Niger, there was a lake nearby where men from ships discharged missiles (Dio, 74.6.5.)

Pompeius Magnus once supported Julius Caesar in this manner (Polyaenus, 8.23.13).

At the battle of Thermopylae against the Gauls of Brennus, Athenian triremes sailed close to the coast and supported the infantry (Pausanias, 10.21.4)

[Nathan Ross]

Thanks, everyone, for your replies - very helpful.

There are two very interesting points about these various figures from the sources. The first is the huge number of vessels needed to transport an army by sea. The second is the -apparently - low number of men per ship. Obviously there's no way of knowing how many vessels in these armadas were carrying men and how many supplies, but with the numbers of ships involved, each would have needed to carry only a double-figure number of men.

In which case, Caesar's 'nearly two hundred veterans' aboard a ship is rather high, and Michael's suggestion of either 80 or 125 seems perhaps about right. A century or two, perhaps, might have been usual.

By comparison, the 'first rate ship' of the medieval era apparently had a much greater carrying capacity - around 600 men! Which is strange, as we know that the Roman could build some pretty big vessels. I wondered if this might suggest something about the decking arrangements - the medieval ship maybe had multiple internal decks, suitable for carrying passengers, whereas the ancient cargo carrier was effectively just a big deep hull space.

So any troops carried would need to berth on the open deck, or in the confined space aft perhaps, which would severely reduce the carrying capacity.

[Titvs Statilivs Castvs]

Not that I can back this up with sources or anything, but I presume it's easier to build a lot of small ships compared to building a smaller number of big ships, certainly if it has to be done "on the spot". Wouldn't that also account for small capacity?

[Eleatic Guest]

double post, see below

[Eleatic Guest]

By comparison, the 'first rate ship' of the medieval era apparently had a much greater carrying capacity - around 600 men! Which is strange, as we know that the Roman could build some pretty big vessels. I wondered if this might suggest something about the decking arrangements - the medieval ship maybe had multiple internal decks, suitable for carrying passengers, whereas the ancient cargo carrier was effectively just a big deep hull space.

I think the normal maximum freight capacity was roughly similar in antiquity and the high Middle Ages, around 1.000 tons. The maximum number of masts (three) was also the same, although medieval ships which used lateen sails aft had arguably a more balanced sail plan.

As for the number of decks, Lionel Casson (Ships and Seamanship pp. 178f.) has this to say: "The main deck on freighters of any size ran from stem to stern. Bigger ships had a lower deck, and the biggest two. Whether the lower decks were complete or partial is not known."

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The attempted invasion of Africa in 440 supossedly consisted of 1100 Vesseles sent from the Eastern Empire under 5 Military commanders in charge of the Four Field Armies in Europe.

Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History

[Theoderic]

Hi Nathan

Transportation of troops as you say seems to be somewhat confusing however based on Caesar's 55 BC invasion of 2 Legions in 80 transport ships which would appear to be about 100 - 125 men per ship with the officers in other ships - possibly warships - which acted as an escort and in this case as artillery to help the landing.

The troopships seem to have been only powered by sail in this instance.

In 54 BC Caesar designed the troop transports himself (wide and shallow drafted) and had hundreds of them built. These were powered by the troops rowing. It would appear from the figures that the troop transports in this instance held about 36 legionaries, similar to landing craft on D Day.

The Mainz boats give an idea of ships of this size and even smaller (14 men) but I expect that it would depend on the type of engagement.

Of course this is only regarding men -I would be interested in transports for horses. In 54 BC Caesar apparently took over 1,700 horses - let alone pack animals! I have not been able tofind any references to these.

Kind Regards - Deryk

[Alanus]

According to Robin Hood, the Gridley Snot version, the Fwenchies arrived in WWII landing craft. This was, of course, entirely historically accurate.

OOps! I mean it was mostly historically accurate.
Hold it! I mean it was partially historically accurate.
Wait a minute! I mean it was almost historically accurate.
Well, OK! It wasn't historically accurate at all.
But it looked really Hollywood. You know what I mean?

[Theoderic]

Hi Alanus

Of course the script that I was referring to was Caesar's Commentaries but perhaps you have another?

[Alanus]

I think the big difference between Caesar's version and Gridly Snot's landing craft was the front door that dropped down aka D-day or Iwo Jima, so the Frenchies could run ashore and get slaughtered by Maid Marian. ;-)

Maybe they were designed by the same guy, like Dumbnorix. :-P

[Theoderic]

For those who are interested in a civil debate:

The idea of a type of "landing craft" coming into the beach was needed for the landings - shallow draft that could be easily run up the beach which applies as much today as it did in 54 BC.

The numbers relate to the 600 - 800 fleet size and also that 36 men or so seems to have been an effective unit although there are examples of 14 rower transports used on the Rhine - see as follows

The references to the Mainz ships you can see for yourself on this link:

http://www.livius.org/mo-mt/mogontiacum/...ships.html

I think that there was a mixed flotilla.....

Kind Regards - Deryk

[Eleatic Guest]

The idea of a type of "landing craft" coming into the beach was needed for the landings - shallow draft that could be easily run up the beach which applies as much today as it did in 54 BC.

This idea, though, never needed to be developed in antiquity, it was present in navigation right from the start: triremes used to be pulled onto the beach evening after evening, so that the crews could spend the night on land, due to a lack of space for sleeping and lack of storage space for fresh water.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Also, the Mainz ships were not ocean-going vessels.

[Theoderic]

Eleatic Guest wrote:

This idea, though, never needed to be developed in antiquity, it was present in navigation right from the start: triremes used to be pulled onto the beach evening after evening, so that the crews could spend the night on land, due to a lack of space for sleeping and lack of storage space for fresh water.

Very true but this probably does not apply when trying to land when under attack from an enemy. The shallow draught in this instance I think might have been necessary to get close to shore to allow the troops to embark rather than having to stand off shore in deep water puttting the troops in danger of drowning as they went for shore as Caesar describes.

Magister Militum Flavius Aetius wrote:

Also, the Mainz ships were not ocean-going vessels.

Perhaps but these were part of the Rhine Fleet and in 12 BC Drusus did take this fleet including troopships into the North Sea and along the coast during his expeditions so Caesar's ships may have looked similar from the limited descriptions we have.

Caesar states that:

"He plans the size and shape of them. For dispatch of lading, and for drawing them on shore, he makes them a little lower than those which we have been accustomed to use in our sea; and that so much the more, because he knew that, on account of the frequent changes of the tide, less swells occurred there; for the purpose of transporting burdens and a great number of horses, [he makes them] a little broader than those which we use in other seas."


So this is a different design from normal.....

..about six hundred ships of that kind which we have described above and twenty-eight ships of war, had been built......

that this is a huge number of ships for 1700 horse and about 20,000 men (if there were 100 men to a ship we could expect at the very least some 50,000 men and the 1700 horse

Then, again, following the change of tide, he urged on with the oars that he might make that part of the island in which he had discovered the preceding summer, that there was the best landing-place, and in this affair the spirit of our soldiers was very much to be extolled; for they with the transports and heavy ships, the labor of rowing not being [for a moment] discontinued, equaled the speed of the ships of war.

and finally these were oared ships propelled by the soldiers themselves.

Kind Regards - Deryk

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Perhaps but these were part of the Rhine Fleet and in 12 BC Drusus did take this fleet including troopships into the North Sea and along the coast during his expeditions so Caesar's ships may have looked similar from the limited descriptions we have.

The Mainz ships date to 350 AD. Quite a far cry from Caesar's day.