Rams continued to be used across Europe and Asia during the Middle Ages, though classic fleet actions like those of antiquity were relatively rare. On the ram were a number of ceremonial decorations – in the form of an eagle’s head, a helmet, and an eight-pointed star. The skills necessary to construct such a weapon were considerable, as the ram consisted of three distinct parts: the driving centre, the bottom plate, and the cowl – the driving centre being the part designed to penetrate an enemy vessel’s hull. The Athlit ram weighed 465 kilograms and was 226 centimetres in length. Around this, a bronze ram had been fashioned and fastened to the wooden structure. On closer inspection, the ram was found to comprise heavy wooden timbers that had been shaped and attached to the hull. One of the most significant archaeological finds of 1980 was the Athlit ram, discovered off the coast of Israel and dated from between 530 and 270 BC. ![]() Just how rams came into existence is still conjecture, but many experts believe they evolved from cut-waters – structures, designed to support the keel stem joint, that give vessels greater speed through the water. The military use of naval rams goes back much further than Salamis, with the first recorded use of such weapons being during the Battle of Alalia in 535 BC. The Battle of Lissa, 20 July 1866, turned out to be an Austrian victory against the odds when Austrian Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff (pictured top centre) ordered his ships to ‘charge’ the Italian line and seek to ram the enemy vessels. Indeed, some historians suggest that Salamis was one of the most important battles in history, as it allowed the Greek civilisation to survive and flourish and, by extension, saw the creation of a distinct Western civilisation. This battle, and another on land at Plataea the following year, marked a turning point in the Greco-Persian wars. Ramming attacks smashed into the dense, sluggish, chaotic mass of the Persian fleet. Then, with disorder at a peak, as they emerged into the more open water beyond the narrows, the Persian vessels were suddenly assailed by a concentric ring of Greek triremes. Themistocles seems to have encouraged this, ordering his own forces to back water, drawing the Persian fleet into a constricted space, where it became bunched and unable to manoeuvre. Xerxes, seeking a war-winning victory, commanded his huge fleet to enter the narrow Straits of Salamis. The Persians had then taken possession of Boeotia and Attica, while the Athenians abandoned their city and took refuge on the island of Salamis. The Greeks, facing a vastly superior invasion force, had failed to block the Persian advance at Thermopylae (on land) and Artemisium (at sea). The Battle of Salamis in 480 BC saw the combined fleet of the Greek states, commanded by Themistocles, and that of the Persian Empire, under the banner of King Xerxes, clash in the straits between the Greek mainland and the island of Salamis in the Saronic Gulf near Athens. The Greek trireme and the Roman quinquereme were essentially muscle-powered rams. The German warship Grosser Kurfürst sinks just off the English coast in May 1878 as the result of an accidental collision with the ram of another vessel.Īncient military mariners harnessed the raw physical strength of oarsmen to propel their vessels at great speed against enemy hulls. The ram is usually associated with Greek and Roman warfare, where they were skilfully used in so many naval battles, perhaps most famously at Salamis and Actium. It has splintered and cracked the hulls of some of the mightiest warships, often enough turning the tide of battle. ![]() The ram, in one form or another, has been an integral part of military tactics for millennia, above all at sea. A news report of the time stated that ‘rescuers, blinded by the wind and rain, saw nothing but a confused, struggling mass of human beings entangled with wreckage’. The Utopia sank in 20 minutes, taking with her 562 souls. But as the passenger liner SS Utopia passed by – too close – it received the full power of the battleship’s protruding ram. The Royal Navy battleship HMS Anson was blameless in the chaos on 17 March 1891, having been at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. Hundreds of frightened passengers and crew had heard the gut-wrenching screech of twisted metal as the two massive ships collided.
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