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Are there examples of rowers who also fought?
Massive Murderous Destruction (also Manportable)Are there any real world examples of where a desert and a swamp meet each other?How I explain New France not having their Middle East?How practical would a zombie horde actually be in medieval settingexpert (early) musketmen vs expert archers, who wins?Infantry weapons, or why are there people running around down there anyway?Reality check: Buddhist AztecsWhat other technology exists that are safer and simpler then cellular wavelength communication?Finding real world historic examples of cultures/organizations/tribes to represent ElvesWhat are some real world examples of mental impairment i can use for my magic system?
$begingroup$
In my world I plan to have a naval army with boats that are driven by manpower. The rowers are not slaves but are also soldiers. However, I am struggling to find examples of times in history where someone whose job it was to row a boat would also wear armor, march on land, and fight in battles.
Can you provide examples of armies or campaigns that had boats rowed by men who also marched on land and fought in battles?
reality-check military history
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
In my world I plan to have a naval army with boats that are driven by manpower. The rowers are not slaves but are also soldiers. However, I am struggling to find examples of times in history where someone whose job it was to row a boat would also wear armor, march on land, and fight in battles.
Can you provide examples of armies or campaigns that had boats rowed by men who also marched on land and fought in battles?
reality-check military history
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
The Great Heathen Army comes to mind.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
In my world I plan to have a naval army with boats that are driven by manpower. The rowers are not slaves but are also soldiers. However, I am struggling to find examples of times in history where someone whose job it was to row a boat would also wear armor, march on land, and fight in battles.
Can you provide examples of armies or campaigns that had boats rowed by men who also marched on land and fought in battles?
reality-check military history
$endgroup$
In my world I plan to have a naval army with boats that are driven by manpower. The rowers are not slaves but are also soldiers. However, I am struggling to find examples of times in history where someone whose job it was to row a boat would also wear armor, march on land, and fight in battles.
Can you provide examples of armies or campaigns that had boats rowed by men who also marched on land and fought in battles?
reality-check military history
reality-check military history
edited 23 mins ago
Gimelist
2,957614
2,957614
asked 10 hours ago
MuuskiMuuski
85359
85359
$begingroup$
The Great Heathen Army comes to mind.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
The Great Heathen Army comes to mind.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
$begingroup$
The Great Heathen Army comes to mind.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
$begingroup$
The Great Heathen Army comes to mind.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
Vikings!
If the Vikings had to row, everyone on the longship took their turn at an oar (though they sailed any time they could, because who wouldn't?) -- and when they went ashore to fight, everyone in the crew had a shield and weapon and armor comparable to what everyone else was wearing at the time -- helmet and hauberk, at a minimum.
Seems to have worked pretty well -- they raided and colonized successfully over a range from modern Belarus to Greenland and even Newfoundland, all of Europe accessible from the Atlantic, Baltic, and North Sea, and even (I've read) into the Mediterranean. It was a model that worked for them for almost four hundred years.
$endgroup$
1
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I found this all very surprising, the majority of the ancient world relied on free men as rowers of their ships. They'd also fight on rare occasions, but were considered very valuable since rowing the big ships with lots and lots of oars was a skill.
And, since ramming was a significant part of their tactics, the oarsmen fought from below decks propelling the boat.
The idea seemed to be given the number of men employed as rowers on a boat, that if slaves were used then you were handing them the means of escape.
Most ships were merchants moving cargo from port to port. Their owners wouldn't want the ship to just sail away when slaves revolted and killed the crew. Similar circumstances for warships, you don't want divided loyalty on your oars.
It was apparently later in history that slaves and convicts were used to man galleys.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
War canoes!
source
Depicted: a central African war canoe. War canoes were also used in North America and the Polynesias - in addition to paddles the Maoris also used sails on their giant canoes and used them to ram other canoes. I am 99% sure that anyone along on such an expedition would be expected to be able to perform all jobs.
I think these cultures all used paddles. Oars were definitely used in Europe and asia but I think they used paddles, not oars in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Polynesia. It is a good question.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a number of examples in Thucydides' "History of the Peleponnesian War" of sailors being armed and fighting alongside the regular soldiery. Since the ships of the time relied on multiple banks of oars to power them in combat this probably extended to the rowers as well (though to my recollection he does not explicitly mention them). It seemed to me pretty clear that it was an exception rather than the rule though.
New contributor
$endgroup$
add a comment |
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4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
active
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votes
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
Vikings!
If the Vikings had to row, everyone on the longship took their turn at an oar (though they sailed any time they could, because who wouldn't?) -- and when they went ashore to fight, everyone in the crew had a shield and weapon and armor comparable to what everyone else was wearing at the time -- helmet and hauberk, at a minimum.
Seems to have worked pretty well -- they raided and colonized successfully over a range from modern Belarus to Greenland and even Newfoundland, all of Europe accessible from the Atlantic, Baltic, and North Sea, and even (I've read) into the Mediterranean. It was a model that worked for them for almost four hundred years.
$endgroup$
1
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Vikings!
If the Vikings had to row, everyone on the longship took their turn at an oar (though they sailed any time they could, because who wouldn't?) -- and when they went ashore to fight, everyone in the crew had a shield and weapon and armor comparable to what everyone else was wearing at the time -- helmet and hauberk, at a minimum.
Seems to have worked pretty well -- they raided and colonized successfully over a range from modern Belarus to Greenland and even Newfoundland, all of Europe accessible from the Atlantic, Baltic, and North Sea, and even (I've read) into the Mediterranean. It was a model that worked for them for almost four hundred years.
$endgroup$
1
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Vikings!
If the Vikings had to row, everyone on the longship took their turn at an oar (though they sailed any time they could, because who wouldn't?) -- and when they went ashore to fight, everyone in the crew had a shield and weapon and armor comparable to what everyone else was wearing at the time -- helmet and hauberk, at a minimum.
Seems to have worked pretty well -- they raided and colonized successfully over a range from modern Belarus to Greenland and even Newfoundland, all of Europe accessible from the Atlantic, Baltic, and North Sea, and even (I've read) into the Mediterranean. It was a model that worked for them for almost four hundred years.
$endgroup$
Vikings!
If the Vikings had to row, everyone on the longship took their turn at an oar (though they sailed any time they could, because who wouldn't?) -- and when they went ashore to fight, everyone in the crew had a shield and weapon and armor comparable to what everyone else was wearing at the time -- helmet and hauberk, at a minimum.
Seems to have worked pretty well -- they raided and colonized successfully over a range from modern Belarus to Greenland and even Newfoundland, all of Europe accessible from the Atlantic, Baltic, and North Sea, and even (I've read) into the Mediterranean. It was a model that worked for them for almost four hundred years.
answered 10 hours ago
Zeiss IkonZeiss Ikon
5,771930
5,771930
1
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
add a comment |
1
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
1
1
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
$begingroup$
I'm not sure everyone had a hauberk, though. A helmet and a shield - most certainly. As for rowing, the way the drakkars were built was a huge factor too. As far as I remember, a clinker-built ship (Baltic sea style) is lighter then a carvel-built ship (Mediterranean sea style) of similar size. Clinker-built ships in general, as well as the ways that were used, are pretty cool.
$endgroup$
– Cumehtar
9 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I found this all very surprising, the majority of the ancient world relied on free men as rowers of their ships. They'd also fight on rare occasions, but were considered very valuable since rowing the big ships with lots and lots of oars was a skill.
And, since ramming was a significant part of their tactics, the oarsmen fought from below decks propelling the boat.
The idea seemed to be given the number of men employed as rowers on a boat, that if slaves were used then you were handing them the means of escape.
Most ships were merchants moving cargo from port to port. Their owners wouldn't want the ship to just sail away when slaves revolted and killed the crew. Similar circumstances for warships, you don't want divided loyalty on your oars.
It was apparently later in history that slaves and convicts were used to man galleys.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I found this all very surprising, the majority of the ancient world relied on free men as rowers of their ships. They'd also fight on rare occasions, but were considered very valuable since rowing the big ships with lots and lots of oars was a skill.
And, since ramming was a significant part of their tactics, the oarsmen fought from below decks propelling the boat.
The idea seemed to be given the number of men employed as rowers on a boat, that if slaves were used then you were handing them the means of escape.
Most ships were merchants moving cargo from port to port. Their owners wouldn't want the ship to just sail away when slaves revolted and killed the crew. Similar circumstances for warships, you don't want divided loyalty on your oars.
It was apparently later in history that slaves and convicts were used to man galleys.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I found this all very surprising, the majority of the ancient world relied on free men as rowers of their ships. They'd also fight on rare occasions, but were considered very valuable since rowing the big ships with lots and lots of oars was a skill.
And, since ramming was a significant part of their tactics, the oarsmen fought from below decks propelling the boat.
The idea seemed to be given the number of men employed as rowers on a boat, that if slaves were used then you were handing them the means of escape.
Most ships were merchants moving cargo from port to port. Their owners wouldn't want the ship to just sail away when slaves revolted and killed the crew. Similar circumstances for warships, you don't want divided loyalty on your oars.
It was apparently later in history that slaves and convicts were used to man galleys.
$endgroup$
I found this all very surprising, the majority of the ancient world relied on free men as rowers of their ships. They'd also fight on rare occasions, but were considered very valuable since rowing the big ships with lots and lots of oars was a skill.
And, since ramming was a significant part of their tactics, the oarsmen fought from below decks propelling the boat.
The idea seemed to be given the number of men employed as rowers on a boat, that if slaves were used then you were handing them the means of escape.
Most ships were merchants moving cargo from port to port. Their owners wouldn't want the ship to just sail away when slaves revolted and killed the crew. Similar circumstances for warships, you don't want divided loyalty on your oars.
It was apparently later in history that slaves and convicts were used to man galleys.
answered 9 hours ago
EDLEDL
1,65128
1,65128
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
$begingroup$
Sea-going cargo ships rarely used oars. To put it otherwise, oar-propelled ships were generally men'o'war, and even those travelled under sail when not actually in battle. Humans make very inefficient engines. But +1 for the elementary observation that for the entire duration of the classical world since the Greco-Persian wars to Arab sieges of Constantinople naval galleys were rowed by high-paid free men.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
War canoes!
source
Depicted: a central African war canoe. War canoes were also used in North America and the Polynesias - in addition to paddles the Maoris also used sails on their giant canoes and used them to ram other canoes. I am 99% sure that anyone along on such an expedition would be expected to be able to perform all jobs.
I think these cultures all used paddles. Oars were definitely used in Europe and asia but I think they used paddles, not oars in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Polynesia. It is a good question.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
War canoes!
source
Depicted: a central African war canoe. War canoes were also used in North America and the Polynesias - in addition to paddles the Maoris also used sails on their giant canoes and used them to ram other canoes. I am 99% sure that anyone along on such an expedition would be expected to be able to perform all jobs.
I think these cultures all used paddles. Oars were definitely used in Europe and asia but I think they used paddles, not oars in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Polynesia. It is a good question.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
War canoes!
source
Depicted: a central African war canoe. War canoes were also used in North America and the Polynesias - in addition to paddles the Maoris also used sails on their giant canoes and used them to ram other canoes. I am 99% sure that anyone along on such an expedition would be expected to be able to perform all jobs.
I think these cultures all used paddles. Oars were definitely used in Europe and asia but I think they used paddles, not oars in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Polynesia. It is a good question.
$endgroup$
War canoes!
source
Depicted: a central African war canoe. War canoes were also used in North America and the Polynesias - in addition to paddles the Maoris also used sails on their giant canoes and used them to ram other canoes. I am 99% sure that anyone along on such an expedition would be expected to be able to perform all jobs.
I think these cultures all used paddles. Oars were definitely used in Europe and asia but I think they used paddles, not oars in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Polynesia. It is a good question.
answered 6 hours ago
WillkWillk
126k30232525
126k30232525
add a comment |
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a number of examples in Thucydides' "History of the Peleponnesian War" of sailors being armed and fighting alongside the regular soldiery. Since the ships of the time relied on multiple banks of oars to power them in combat this probably extended to the rowers as well (though to my recollection he does not explicitly mention them). It seemed to me pretty clear that it was an exception rather than the rule though.
New contributor
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a number of examples in Thucydides' "History of the Peleponnesian War" of sailors being armed and fighting alongside the regular soldiery. Since the ships of the time relied on multiple banks of oars to power them in combat this probably extended to the rowers as well (though to my recollection he does not explicitly mention them). It seemed to me pretty clear that it was an exception rather than the rule though.
New contributor
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are a number of examples in Thucydides' "History of the Peleponnesian War" of sailors being armed and fighting alongside the regular soldiery. Since the ships of the time relied on multiple banks of oars to power them in combat this probably extended to the rowers as well (though to my recollection he does not explicitly mention them). It seemed to me pretty clear that it was an exception rather than the rule though.
New contributor
$endgroup$
There are a number of examples in Thucydides' "History of the Peleponnesian War" of sailors being armed and fighting alongside the regular soldiery. Since the ships of the time relied on multiple banks of oars to power them in combat this probably extended to the rowers as well (though to my recollection he does not explicitly mention them). It seemed to me pretty clear that it was an exception rather than the rule though.
New contributor
New contributor
answered 1 hour ago
YuriYuri
1
1
New contributor
New contributor
add a comment |
add a comment |
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$begingroup$
The Great Heathen Army comes to mind.
$endgroup$
– AlexP
8 hours ago