06-07-2014, 09:53 PM
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
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
Deryk
