> - ISBN:: 0304352632 / 9780304352630 > [!summary] > For most of the Mediterranean history of ship combat, ship-to-ship combat was generally handled via boarding actions. The exceptions were basically the Greek trireme rams, and then cannons. ### p33 European navies were more militant than contemporaries - Indo-Arab sphere (Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf & Red Sea), dominated by emporia between Chinese, Malay, Persian, Arab and African markets. Spices flowed from East to West along with porcelain and silk in exchange for precious metals. Lots of internal trade in bulk goods like rice, salt, base metals, horses, cotton. Mostly dhows and junks. Individual merchants (ship owners / captains) and lots of piracy. No large-scale-state sponsored warfare. - Malay sphere is the Indonesian archipelago; they traded with Indo-Arab and Chinese in the Straits of Malacca. Pretty similar to trade in the Indian Ocean except they totally controlled almost all of the spice trade. See also: [[Harvesting ‘True Cinnamon’ The Story of the Ceylon Spice by Zinara Rathnayake]] (the only spice not controlled by this sphere). Small jukung were the main ships, except long distance they copied Chinese junks. Merchants and sailors were appreciated for their tax revenues but not really sponsored or protected except when literally in port. Sometimes the princes launched invasions against each other. - Chinese sphere stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Straits of Malacca. Lots of changes in how they handled sea trade depending on who was in charge. Treasure fleets and spice trade existed. - European sphere was divided into Baltic, Atlantic, and Mediterranean. It's the only sphere with lots of military seagoing interactions. ### p39 the Mediterranean Sea was well-suited for trade The Mediterranean doesn't experience much in the way of tides, aand from late March thru early October the skies are usually clear, with few storms. Wind and current patterns were consistent and there are lots of harbors and beaches along the coast. The water is clear and the bottom drops off sharply so mariners can get very close to shore, and there are lots of mountains to use as landmarks. ### p39 European ships historically came in two flavors > round ships for trade and long ships for war. ### p48 Venice had a law to punish failed commanders > Pisani fought his way clear with six galleys. Ordered home by the Senae, he was tried and convicted under a law that specified death for commanders who fled a lost battle. It was apparently, however, that once faced with defeat, Pisani had made the best of a bad situation and the vote was close. No doubt partly because of his popularity, Pisani was imprisoned rather than executed. #pkm/synthesize with the [[Phoenician|Carthage]] habit: [[Punishing Competent Commanders for Failure Is Risky]] from [[The Tyrants of Syracuse by Jeff Champion]] need to find that file ### p59 military bows were premiere weapons during the Age of Sail the fully developed military bow could be drawn to the ear with a force of 100-175 pounds and was capable of penetrating plate armor. Only three survived into medieval times: the Turco-Mongol composite recurved bow, the English longbow, and the Japanese samurai's bow. They took a lot of skill and practice to use, but had higher rates of fire, longer effective ranges, and higher accuracy than the crossbow, arquebus, or musket. ### p65 stone cannonballs were superior to iron stone cannonballs were less dense to achieve the same velocity so in a lot of ways were better than iron cannonballs, but they required skilled craftsmen to make. ### p77 Portugal deliberately sponsored imperialist objectives > the Avis research and development programme — for that's what it was — was systematic and effective. By the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the Protugeuse had developd a coherent system of deep-sea navigation aimed at commercial profit and underwritten by armed violence. It was based on experimentally derived knowledge of solar and stellar navigation; superior nautical charts; ships that could reliably traverse the broad reachs of the Atlantic sand serve as effective gun platforms; and steadily expanding geographical knowledge not least the wind patterns and currents of the southern Atlantic. At the core of the system, from about 1440, was the caravel.