Early Navies Going To War Essay

Once humans began using waterways for trade and travel, waterways also became places where pirates would plunder goods or people. This in turn caused early nations to develop navies to protect their interests on the waterways. This reading reflects the beginning of naval technology, military leaders and their strategies, methods of war, and reasons for early navies going to war. In times of old generally the nation with the largest and most powerful navy also had the most influence at that time, similar to the US. In the Greco-Persian war, ships were used to transport soldiers onto land, not have fights at sea. This would allow armies to do fighting hand to hand and not ship to ship. This was a relationship between navies and armies, the navies had to transport the army to land and then …show more content…
Which provided a place for soldiers to retreat to on ships like an actual castle to attack people sieging it. This was because the primary way of fighting was to board another’s vessel and fight hand to hand. This is because Galleys would capsize too easily on the waters outside of the Mediterranean, so they were ultimately ineffective. Ships then began to take on the use of new technology, cannons. Ships from the unlike the romans this was the beginning of modern ships that could hit enemy ships from more than a mile away. Ship tactics taken on during this time, were that of the weather gage and the lee gage. The people who controlled the weather gage were upwind of the enemy and controlled when the fight would begin, the lee gage was downwind and they could easily escape, while the weather gage could not retreat into the wind. This form of battle meant that usually fighting would end and each side would fall back with what they had left. Navies did not give chase and follow the opposing navy to destroy them entirely. Leadership at this time was ultimately controlled by a political figure like the Duke of Medina for