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Denying Thermopylae - taken from the Newsfeed section
#61
Arthes i missunderstood and im sorry but i hope you understand i only used your post as example. Maybe some people even here believe the ''late fashion'' about Macedonia and you know what? If they choose to believe it its their right, we cant force anyone to believe anything, but what we can is to call them out and discuss it and maybe they will change their mind.

It may seem absurb now that somebody claims thermopylae or Salamis never happened and even builds a case on it. Now we laugh, but in 50 years with the right moves from his behalf im sure there will be a vast number of people believing the same :wink: . Its called manipulation of the masses :lol: . I was watching the movie ''Thank you for smoking'' and i only smiled when he explained to his son that in a debate target i not the opponent but the audience. These guys can talk for hours publish books, build sites, hire proffesors and even filmakers, i wont change my mind, i ll just laugh, but somewhere someone bites the cheese and the trap closes :wink: .
aka Yannis
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Molon lave
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#62
Quote:Philip Haithornwight wrote in the "Napoleonic Sourcebook" that unless their armory was blown up wooden vessels did not sink.
Just for the record - they did! In extremely large numbers all over the world.

The Uluburun wreck, Vasa, Mary Rose and Batavia spring immedately to mind and there are countless other examples. However, whether we would expect to find wrecks of Greek triremes conveniently littered on the sea bed off Thermoplylae or Salamis is another matter entirely.
[size=150:16cns1xq]Quadratus[/size]

Alan Walker

Pudor est nescire sagittas
Statius, Thebaid
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#63
Quote:
hoplite14gr:2c6pocsj Wrote:Philip Haithornwight wrote in the "Napoleonic Sourcebook" that unless their armory was blown up wooden vessels did not sink.
Just for the record - they did! In extremely large numbers all over the world.

The Uluburun wreck, Vasa, Mary Rose and Batavia spring immedately to mind and there are countless other examples. However, whether we would expect to find wrecks of Greek triremes conveniently littered on the sea bed off Thermoplylae or Salamis is another matter entirely.

A thing will sink if its mass is greater than the water displaced by its volume. A wooden ship loaded with iron or bronze cannon would have a much better chance to sink than a tririme I would think.

However, the reason ships in Napoleon's time tended not to sink is because the weaponry of the time generally did not do damage below the water line. If there was irrepairable damage beneath the water line, or if the lower gunports were left open in heavy seas, the ship would sink quite readily. These ships were loaded down with metal of course.

Since we have no idea what the exact nature of the trireme's cargo might have been, obviously we cannot use the absence of a ship graveyard as evidence of absence of a great sea battle. Also, without alot of ship damaging weaponry besides the ram, I would imagine that the key to victory would be killing the men on board, in most cases leaving the ship mostly intact. There could well be a couple of sunken ship parts down there somewhere, but even with several hundred triremes fighting it out I can't imagine more than one or two sinking if any. I think even at Trafalgar only one ship actually sunk during the battle.
Rich Marinaccio
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#64
Agreed. Sinking wooden ships is possible, but not all that easy. The Wikipedia article on Trafalgar summarizes the losses thusly:

"The British took 22 vessels of the Franco-Spanish fleet and lost none. Among the taken French ships were the Aigle, Algésiras, Berwick, Bucentaure, Fougueux, Intrépide, Redoutable, and Swiftsure. The Spanish ships taken were Argonauta, Bahama, Monarca, Neptuno, San Agustín, San Ildefonso, San Juan Nepomuceno, Santísima Trinidad, and Santa Ana. Of these, Redoutable sank, Santísima Trinidad and Argonauta were scuttled by the British and later sank, Achille exploded, Intrépide and San Augustín burned, and Aigle, Berwick, Fougueux, and Monarca were wrecked in a gale following the battle."

Only one ship actually sank during the decisive naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars.
Felix Wang
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