WEBVTT - From the Vault: Ancient Oars on the Wine-Dark Sea, Part 2 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.320 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:09.640 is Robert Lamb and I'm. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:11.920 Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, so we're going into the 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.600 vault for an older episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.319 This is part two of our series about the oor 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.480 powered galleys and warships of the ancient Mediterranean. This one 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.599 originally published on August twenty second, twenty twenty four. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:38.600 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:40.400 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.239 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.559 and we're back with part two in our series on 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.159 the or powered galleys of the ancient world. Now, if 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.159 you haven't heard part one yet, you might want to 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.360 go listen to that first. But in the previous episode 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.800 we talked about Ptolemy, the fourth of Egypt's great or, 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.480 which allegedly was built in the third century BCE. We 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.600 have no physical remains, only historical descriptions, but Rob, what 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.240 were some good details on that It allegedly had like 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.080 thousands of people manning it. 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:18.279 Yeah, it's just an unreasonable amount of ores and oars men, 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.920 but would have been essentially an ancient world aircraft carrier, 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.120 though of course not for aircraft, but for at least troops, 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.040 if not maybe siege equipment. The general consensus has often 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.399 been that this was not a practical war vessel, but 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.640 just a way of showing off. So we talked a 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.200 little bit about that, and my intention is to eventually 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:39.520 come back to it and look at some more scholarship 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.760 about it once we finished talking about all of the 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.480 operational war vessels of the ancient world in the. 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.480 Mediterranean, yes, we will have to return to the big one. 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.160 But also last time we talked about the difference between 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.320 paddling and rowing, and thus the difference between paddles and ores. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.680 You paddle with paddle and you row with an ore, 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.520 the main difference being that an ore is locked or 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.520 pinned to the boat's hull itself some way, and you 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.280 typically row facing backwards while you paddle facing forwards. We 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.600 also talked about some prehistoric evidence of the use of 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:21.120 wooden paddles for water transport in Stone Age northern Europe, 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.880 including one eight to nine thousand year old paddle, and 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.440 we also talked about some of the pressures leading to 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.840 the development of different mechanisms for powering watercraft in the 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:36.600 ancient Mediterranean, like wind versus human powered propulsion. And we're 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.360 back with part two to continue the discussion today. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.120 Yeah, as we started getting into in the last episode, 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.519 the ancient Mediterranean was this vast inland sea ringed by 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:53.079 coastal lands that boasted various powerful and established civilizations as 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:58.240 well as emergent powers coastal cultures largely contained to this 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.920 inland sea. Means to travel and exploit these waters, but 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.560 the development of wind power was a huge game changer, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.960 allowing for greater use of the sea for transportation despite 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.239 the unpredictable nature of Mediterranean wins. So with all of 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.760 this we get the establishment of greater trade routes between 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.520 these various powers, and islands like Crete also become more 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.000 and more important given all this traffic. But this also 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:25.239 means that you know, especially out of ancient Egypt and 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.440 out of ancient Mesopotamia. You know again you have the 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.359 emergence of all these marine trade routes, and this ends 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.080 up spilling over into conflict as well. Conflict over these 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.280 trade routes and around these trade routes, and we get 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.600 like a couple of key developments in maritime conflict technology. 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.480 The first one is pretty obvious and simple, and that is, okay, 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.800 if you have a ship that can carry cargo, it 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.640 can also carry troops. And so the first warships were 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.520 basically just cargo ships carrying armed forces. And we have 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.920 various accounts of this. Ancient Egyptian record speak of this 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.600 is far back is twenty four to fifty BCE. That's 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.960 when the pharaoh Sahure that means he who is close 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.640 to Ray the god used a cargo fleet to carry 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.800 an army to the Levantine coast. This would be the 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.080 earliest of multiple examples of the ancient Egyptians using seapower 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.559 to transport troops. These would have been big, lumbering troop 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.719 movements by sea. So the flip side of the coin 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.760 here is you would also see the use of sail 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.279 and or driven rovers, so small faster vessels. They could 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.560 be used to do things like deliver a message, gather intel, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.760 also attack coastal targets or even unprotected vessels. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.200 A theme I've noticed before, which is that sometimes the 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.479 line between naval warfare and piracy is quite thin. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.960 Yes, yeah, absolutely depends on his who's doing the analysis 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.520 and we'll have more examples of that as we go here. 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.640 One of my sources in this that I cided in 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.840 the last episode is the book The a Mariners by 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.440 Lionel Cassen, who is one of the one of the 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:10.200 key authorities of the twentieth century on ancient Mediterranean sea 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.680 powers and so forth. And he wrote that these vessels 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.240 were likely that these rovers, these smaller faster vessels were 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.760 likely as old as the big cargo ships, but our 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.640 written records of their usage and conflict only goes back 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.040 to like the fourteenth century BCE, but they're quite telling. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.680 We get this idea of fleets of sea rovers utilized 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.800 to disrupt cross sea communication and maritime trade, as well 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:40.159 as to eventually enforced blockades. Syrian naval units were thus 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.880 able to disrupt the link between Egypt and Biblos, and 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:48.600 he also had full fledged sea powers like the Minoans 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.000 and then the Mycenians, who were able to hold their 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.119 own and then some against powers like Egypt. It also 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.600 meant that an age of rich oversea trade largely entered 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.279 into an age of like rampant sea rovers. So you know, 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.440 we see some of the first recorded sea battles during 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.200 this rough time period we're looking at here, such as 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.279 Rameses the Third's defeat of an invading fleet of the 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.840 Sea Peoples the Battle of the Delta in eleven seventy 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:18.640 five BCEE. 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.200 Now, an interesting thing about this particular battle is that 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.680 I've read it described in some sources as being not 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.320 that different from a land battle, just taking place on 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:30.320 top of the water. 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.640 Yeah, and you get that from the Egyptian illustrations of 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.880 the battle, the way that it ends up rolling out. 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.000 So a couple of basics on the way this went down. Now, 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.440 on the subject of the Sea Peoples, much has been 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.520 hypothesized about who they were and where they came from. 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:56.400 But they definitely invaded Eastern and Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.760 and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age, and 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:03.280 we're particularly active ing the thirteenth century BC. There are 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.919 different ways to look at them, from a confederacy of 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.080 different seafaring raiders, two varying groups of people's displaced by 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.560 late Bronze Age disturbances. So it's an entire topic undo itself. 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.360 But this would have been the second war between the 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.280 Egyptians and the Sea people's case in his book, wrote 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.440 that it was very much it seems like a mass migration, 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.679 and not at all like the smaller raids that Egypt 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.080 had pretty much always had to contend with on their 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.640 coastal border. It consisted of two main forces working their 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.240 way down the coast toward Egypt at this point, the 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.480 main body that moved by land and the accompanying fleet 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.920 that largely kept pace along the coast. Now, as far 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.760 as the actual engagement, the way it is said to 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.600 have gone down is as follows. So the forces of 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.760 Egypt had just defeated the forces of the Sea peoples 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.200 on land in Syria and then rushed back across the 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.840 sea to Egypt with the Sea People's in pursuit, and 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.320 in doing so drew their fleet into an ambush at 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.080 the mouth of the Nile. And this would have been 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.000 via an ambush fleet, but also supporting fire from the 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.800 shore as well. But in both cases, to your point, 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:21.520 this all very much mirrored a land battle. So you know, 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.160 people on ships shooting arrows at each other, people on 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:29.200 land shooting arrows at the ships, flaming or otherwise boarding 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.800 actions and so forth. Again, a lot of this just 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.360 this is what we gather from ancient Egyptian illustrations of 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:37.040 the conflict. 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.760 Yes, there's one quite famous illustration of this battle that 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.120 is busy to look at. 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.200 Yeah, the only thing that's instantly clear is which one 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.280 is the pharaoh. You can figure that out pretty easily. 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:50.320 He's the big one. 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.640 The end result here is that it's a total Egyptian 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.400 victory over the sea. People's you know, not wiping them out, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.720 but defeating them enough to where they have to retreat 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.720 and are apparently unable to reach so far south again 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.079 as to attempt at the conquest of Egypt now elsewhere 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.720 in the Mediterranean more or less around the same time, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.640 and as related in the Iliad, you have, of course 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.240 the whole business with Troy of course, as as we've 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.600 discussed in the show before, also their caveats about our 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:27.880 understanding of the historical aspects of Troy as opposed to 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.600 the literary context here. But for the most part, you know, 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.920 we have this story of a like a Greek alliance 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:41.880 taking on the city of Troy, the forces of Greece 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.320 consisting of you know, experienced marauders and traders, everyone joining 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:52.040 up under the command of Agamemnon in his book, Cason writes, 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:54.319 it's a very it's a very well written book and 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.560 has some nice descriptions. He writes, for once, the major 0:09:57.600 --> 0:09:59.920 cities of Greece for went their traditional past time of 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.040 preying on one another and joined hands for a combined 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.160 operation against Troy. And while it's described as of course 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.560 a land based siege of a city with no navy, 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.000 they traveled to their destination via ship. 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.280 And of course the ships play a major role in 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.880 the narrative of the Iliad. You know, there's like the 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.520 famous passage where there's like the listing of all the 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.360 ships and the warriors brought with them. 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.640 Yeah, yeah, there's a The works of Homer, you know, 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.840 are actually a key point in trying to understand like 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:32.000 what these ships were and how they functioned. Okays In 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.920 points out that ancient freighters, as the Mycenians would have used, 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.760 typically traversed by sail alone. They were roomy and slow 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.520 ships built exclusively for war. However, it had to be galleys. 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.000 We've kind of gotten to this already, I think. So 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.400 they had to be fast when it mattered, so they 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.120 could depend on sales when speed wasn't a necessity, or 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.520 when the wind was good, which, of course, you know, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.360 it's worth noting that if the wind is really good, 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.560 that will propel you rather swiftly, but can have to 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.560 be right, and you could not necessarily count on the 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.240 Mediterranean wins, especially if conflict was involved, So the sales 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.680 could easily be stored away in favor of that ore 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.640 power that was dependent entirely upon the muscles of your crew. 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.640 And he points out that the ore power here again 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.080 in Homeric times, if you will, was provided by the 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.240 crew of the vessel, which also included the ship's fighting men. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.559 So it's interesting. So on one hand, we shouldn't make 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.520 the mistake of thinking that they were not good oarsmen. 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.400 They were apparently very good oarsmen, highly trained, very skilled. 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.840 There's actually a part in the Odyssey where Alcinous brags 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.680 that brags about what great oarsmen his men are. But 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.720 they were not just dedicated to oarsmen. They also would 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.240 have been called on to do all these other things 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.280 as well. Okay, so there was a careful balance apparently 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.160 in play to how hard you would push your rowers, 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.800 because if you were planning on, you know, making an 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.559 amphibious landing, an amphibious invasion on the other end of 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.600 your journey. They need to be able to get up 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.080 and go and do that. So I was trying to imagine, 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.480 like what would be comparison with It would be kind 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.240 of like if an NFL team had to potentially row 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.160 to I don't know, the Super Bowl and then play 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:20.160 the game when they got there. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.280 Yeah, they've got to run to the game or something. 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.640 Yeah, So the author here he contends that, yeah, basically 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.520 these folks would rather sail than row, and they would 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.320 depend on sailing as often as possible. But again, there 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.400 are going to be certain conditions where it's just going 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.040 to make sense and make all the difference to get 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.360 everybody pushing those oars or pulling those oars. Now, what 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.480 were these ships like? We have few illustrations. We have 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.120 the descriptions by Homer, including a part in the Odyssey 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.160 where Odysseus builds a new ship. But even a lot 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.040 of this didn't come together till the twentieth century when 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.960 we had maritime archaeology to give us have some actual 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.240 evidence to base some of this on other archaeological data 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.280 that we could take some of those passages and make 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.760 better sense of what they were saying. So Cason contends 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.240 that the vessels, which he jokingly describes as sea going 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.640 greyhounds during this period between thirteen hundred and twelve hundred BC, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.240 would have looked essentially like this, long low holes on 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.559 abruptly rising prowl. That's the front of the ship, and 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.960 they had a curved stern, as opposed to the reported 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.600 build of the sea people's vessels, which were described as 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.960 having a straight stern. The stern, of course, is the 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:34.920 back of the ship. 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:36.160 All right. 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.280 So at this point we're talking more or less about 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.480 single level galleys becoming the norm. These would have been 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.920 single level or vessels powered by around thirty men, and 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.119 we based a lot of this on like vase paintings, 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:56.840 Homeric writings, chronicles from a century BC, and so forth. 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.320 That let us know that. Okay, Eventually, though, the ships 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.280 begin to vary in size, the number of the oars 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:05.680 ends up ranging from twenty to forty or even fifty. 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.280 We'll get into that more later. Early on, though, we 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.920 would have been dealing with a case where most of 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.000 these vessels would have been privately owned, and they would 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.600 have engaged in both merchant trade and raiding. So as 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.000 well as you know, carrying armed men to a destination, 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.080 and there would have been more of this than dedicated 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.640 fighting at sea. Again, we get into that idea that 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:32.560 there's a thin line between between what is piracy and 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.880 what is some other pursuit, including actual trade. But as 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.520 all this heats up, it gets to the point where Okay, 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.920 a single row of ores is not going to cut it. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.960 You're going to need an additional row of ores. And 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.320 it's interesting getting into this because yeah, we see the 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:58.560 birth of the fifty ORed vessels, the penticonters, which might 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.520 have apparently reflected a development in the eighth century BCE 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.440 according to Fagan and Rancoff, who I sided in the 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.920 last episode. That's Brian Fagan and Boris Rancoff. So the 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.640 vessels we're talking about here would have featured two levels 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.200 of rowers, one rowing at the same level is those 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.680 single row galleys that came before, but then a lower 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.600 level in the hold working ores through apertures in the hull. 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.520 So it's interesting. You might imagine that we just built 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.040 one on top of the other, like an ice cream cone, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.560 but it's not quite the same. It's a little more 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.080 complicated than that. Ends up involving like a reworking of 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:37.240 the hull itself. 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.760 Now, on one hand, I would imagine, okay, you're adding 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.520 more ores, more rowers. That gives your boat more power, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.720 you can achieve greater speeds. But from what I understand, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.400 splitting the operators of the vessel the power in the 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:58.200 rowers into multiple levels also has other implications for the 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.480 design and construction of the vessel. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.280 Yeah. Yeah, And I found this really interesting as well, 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.880 because it wasn't simply that you could have more ores 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.480 per vessel and therefore more power. In fact, in many 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.160 cases you'd have vessels with the same number of ores 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.320 that a single level craft would have boasted. But since 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.360 you can spread them out across two levels, that means 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.360 you can make the craft itself shorter. So you had 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.080 the ability to make not only a faster vessel, but 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.000 this is key, a more maneuverable one. Ah. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.960 Right, So a shorter vessel will have less drag in 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.520 the water and will be able to turn more easily, 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.760 and I guess probably also have less weight per unit 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:37.680 of rowing space. 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:43.040 Yeah. I don't know if there's an actual decent comparison 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.600 to be made to buses, but I couldn't help. But 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.080 think about like the difference between like a double decker 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.040 bus and one of those giant buses where they're like 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.400 joined together with this bendi part in the middle, because 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.920 I guess both of them can be difficult to maneuver 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.360 in their own way. But I don't know, maybe it's 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.440 the halfway useful analogy. But these general changes that are 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.240 going on here, according to Fake and Runkoff, they seem 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:12.439 to suggest though that fighting capacity was becoming more and 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.360 more important and carrying capacity was less of a concern. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.200 So yeah, you're you're having to upgrade the design of 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.800 your vessels in order to emphasize speed and mobility as 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:25.960 opposed to just how much stuff you could carry, be 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.919 that stuff cargo or troops or something else. However, the 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.719 length of these vessels does gradually increase, incorporating more and 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:39.040 more ores, upward of one hundred. So again everything continues 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:43.440 to evolve new forms, and then like stretch the ability 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.720 of that form. What happens if we added more ores 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:58.000 to it and so forth put more ores in. Yeah, 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.200 now it's also crucial to mention that apparently, as action 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:06.200 in the Mediterranean heats up again over this over years 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:13.600 and years, decades and decades ultimately centuries sea based trade, piracy, colonization, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.840 and more. This kind of eventually ends the days of 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.880 independently held galleys being like the main brunt of any 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.000 force out there. So Cason wrote writes about this, saying quote, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.400 in these days, there was no one state that had 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.959 the naval strengths to police the seas. Every city involved 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.440 in trade had to maintain its own fleet, not only 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.080 to protect its merchantmen against the ubiquitous pirates whose calling 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.120 now as before, had the status of a recognized profession, 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.520 but also to repel attacks delivered by commercial rivals, since 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.680 such attempts were an acknowledged means of discouraging competition. 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:54.560 Literal corporate raiders. 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.560 Exactly. Yeah, so it's dangerous out there. And yeah, any 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.679 stresses that the building up of nay these and the 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.640 perfecting of these different maritime war technologies in the ancient world, 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.119 all this one hand in hand with the planning, the 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.920 planting of colonies, the opening up of new trade routes 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:13.680 between these various city states, and so forth. So yeah, 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.320 it's just it gets more and more dangerous. And uh, 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:21.120 the the maritime technology evolves to keep up with that. Now, 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.600 the Pentagonter seemed again that the two leveled org vessels 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.120 seems to have remained the main warship from the eighth 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:32.280 through six centuries BCE. But clearly this climate demanded greater innovation, 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.199 you know, to continue to to to you know, to 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:41.240 push the boundaries of what's possible. Every conceivable edge is 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.439 going to count in one of these altercations. And uh 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:47.840 so we see a couple of things, and they're very 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:52.200 interconnected here. One was the increasing importance of the nautical ram, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.360 which which we'll get to in a bit. But then 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.040 the other goes in hand in hand with that as well, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.040 and that is I think everyone can guess at a 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:05.600 third level of rowers to your vessel optimize. Yeah, you 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:10.240 add more ores, more humans pulling those oars so that 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:11.359 we can have more power. 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.160 So the name of the try Rem comes from three 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:15.680 levels of rowers. 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.400 That's right, the try Rem. It's basically like we've been describing. 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.800 It's the Pentaconter with a third level added. But make 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.760 no mistake, this edition really did apparently push the engineering 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.359 limits of the ancient world, and according to what I've 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.520 been reading, could easily be considered the most advanced vehicle 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.000 of the age. So it wasn't just let's strap another 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.280 row of oars up there. It wasn't. It involved redesigning 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:48.359 the whole ship. And these were advanced vehicles that in 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.919 the last episode we compared to jet fighters of today, 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.119 ultimately in the long run too expensive for city states 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.520 to keep up with. And of course these became just 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.120 a staple of sea conflict and seem power see Power. 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:01.360 Of the day. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.080 The Greeks use these, and then the defeat of the 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:08.600 Persians at Salamis in four AD BCE, and they would 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.159 be a major part of their maritime might. This battle, 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.080 by the way, I am reminded, is depicted in the 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:20.520 twenty fourteen three hundred sequel. As usually a sequel, there 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:22.280 was a sequel. I saw part of it on an 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:27.080 airplane as usual. I am dubious about looking to a 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:31.639 three hundred picture for any kind of historical accuracy. But 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:33.720 I don't know. People who have seen the movie write 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.080 in maybe it has some really good trirem scenes. I mean, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:38.520 I would at least ask that there would be cool 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.520 trirem action sequences in that picture. So, as far as 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.680 we know, with the trirem, the third level, the top 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:50.639 level would have had the oarsmen rowing through outriggers so 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.359 as to keep the hole as narrow as possible, while 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.040 the two lower levels would have rowed through whole apertures. 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.800 As such, you could power up a vessel with a 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.639 good one hundred and seventy oars and it would have 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.960 been as maneuverable as the two level pentdiconter, but ultimately 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.320 faster and deadly. Now where did this innovation come from? Well, 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.760 according to the author as I was reading here, Athenian 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:20.879 general and historian Thucydides credited to the Corinthian shipwright Menocles 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:23.840 in the eighth century, but Fagan and Rankov state that 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.800 more recent scholarship suggests that the invention hailed from perhaps 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.480 the Egyptians or the Phoenicians under Persian rule near the 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.280 end of the sixth century. Now, as of their writing, 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.919 there had been zero wrecks of these vessels discovered, due 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:41.639 in part to the fact that they would have apparently 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:45.520 it's thought, have had positive buoyancy of hold. But in 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.760 any case this was the case, then it's still the case. 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.520 Now thousands of these ships were built and lost, and 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.280 apparently truly lost, because we've never found a wreck. 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.040 Now by never found a wreck, Rob, you mean never 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:04.160 found a substantially intact direct But we do have pieces, right. 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:08.639 We have pieces, we have we have various other bits 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:11.400 and pieces, you know, we have literary and historic writings. 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:14.919 And there were also some remains of the sea harbor 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.919 sheds at Piraeus near Athens that were also helpful in 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:21.800 trying to piece together exactly what a trirem was. 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:25.639 But if somebody's trying to build a replica replica of 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:28.960 an ancient Greek trirem in the modern world, it is 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:33.720 an exercise involving some amount of speculation and interpretation. You 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:36.040 don't just have like one you can copy. 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.880 Right right, And this was the endeavor in the creation 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:44.560 of the Olympias in the mid nineteen eighties, where you 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:48.400 had a bunch of experts come together and build what 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:52.120 I've seen referred to as a floating hypothesis. Let's take 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:57.199 everything we know about what a trirem probably was, you 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.359 know what we know about ancient construction techniques and so forth, 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.159 and let's build one with the under understanding that we're 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:06.640 we're not going to get it one hundred percent correct. 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:11.320 You know, nobody, nobody has u I have seen Anybody 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.840 arguing that the resulting ship is just dead on, it's 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:19.000 inevitably incorrect. It cannot possibly be a one for one 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:22.919 match for what any given trireham actually was in the 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:25.520 ancient world. But the idea is that it would give 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:29.760 us like a solid model which we could then run 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:35.119 through trials, experiment with, and then have nuanced conversations about 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:39.439 where this prototype gets it wrong, you know, where this 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.440 recreation gets it wrong, Like Okay, maybe it's it's too 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:45.399 heavy and therefore too slow, or maybe, uh, you know, 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:49.200 it's not tough enough to withstand being rammed and so forth, 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:53.000 and so they they built this thing, and there's there 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:56.920 are plenty of images of this vessel. There are there, 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.359 there's there's footage, there's there have been documentaries, U there was. 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:03.680 The resulting craft was thirty six point nine meters or 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:05.919 one hundred and twenty one feet one inch in length, 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:09.280 powered by two sails, and of course one hundred and 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:12.679 seventy oarsmen. And I believe oarsmen is technically considered a 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:17.600 gender neutral term, because i've and I have seen plenty 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:21.480 of photos of the folks that they recruited to power 0:25:21.560 --> 0:25:24.119 this vessel. In these trials, and you see plenty of 0:25:24.119 --> 0:25:26.880 female oarsmen on the crew as well, and they did 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:30.080 five seasons of trials between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:32.080 ninety four, so. 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:33.879 I guess some people got really good at rowing. 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:36.240 Yeah. I mean, you can imagine where there would have 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:38.919 been a huge sense of camaraderie in this. If you 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:43.840 were a rowing enthusiast or and or you know, an 0:25:43.880 --> 0:25:48.200 ancient maritime warfare enthusiast, you know you'd want to get 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:51.879 in there, cram into this vessel with all these people 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:53.040 and start pulling these oars. 0:25:53.280 --> 0:25:54.639 Oh does it look fairly cozy? 0:25:55.520 --> 0:25:58.760 It looks like there is a sense of camaraderie. And 0:25:59.640 --> 0:26:01.680 the photos that I was looking at, you know, it's 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:03.960 a very nice day in the Mediterranean, so there is 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:07.000 a certain vacation he feel to these photos. But also 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:10.000 it is a lot of people crammed into and above 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:12.879 the whole of a vessel, pulling oars and having to 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:16.760 do so in a skilled and determined fashion. I've read 0:26:16.760 --> 0:26:20.639 that the Olympias boasted an armament of the vessel is 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:25.159 still round it, but it has a bronze ram on 0:26:25.200 --> 0:26:29.160 the bow, ten spears and four archers. But I don't 0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:31.560 think it actually engaged in any military activity in the 0:26:31.600 --> 0:26:35.280 late eighties and early nineties, just to be clear on that. 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:37.280 But I can't help but think that it would have 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:38.800 made for a nice time travel movie. 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:42.480 Right. Wait, you mean the replica and its krew gets 0:26:42.480 --> 0:26:44.200 sent to the past and they have to fight their 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:46.720 way through through I don't know, battles in the fifth 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:50.320 century BCE or a bunch of try Reams from the 0:26:50.320 --> 0:26:53.040 fifth century BCE come to now and threaten all of 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:56.160 our modern navies and only a Tryream can fight them back. 0:26:56.400 --> 0:26:59.119 I think both concepts could work, and I think a 0:26:59.200 --> 0:27:02.560 comedy would perhaps work well, you know, you could have 0:27:02.640 --> 0:27:07.280 this almost almost kind of like the Odyssey or something, right, 0:27:07.359 --> 0:27:12.560 except it's having to return home from the future or something. Anyway, 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:14.959 the key findings from the Olympus trials, and there are 0:27:14.960 --> 0:27:16.520 a lot of findings. There are a lot of these trials, 0:27:16.560 --> 0:27:19.320 and again a lot of this was about, you know, 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.680 creating space to then have these more nuanced discussions about 0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:24.960 what they got right and what they perhaps got wrong. 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.520 But apparently they found that chiefly a three level war 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:32.399 system is viable. Prior to this, some scholars had doubted 0:27:32.440 --> 0:27:35.680 that it was actually possible to have three levels of oarsmen. 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:39.080 They also found that it was both fast and highly maneuverable. 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:42.320 I think with this model they were able to reach 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:45.280 maximum more speeds of just under nine knots. But I 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:47.920 think there are some discussions about how maybe that was 0:27:47.960 --> 0:27:51.000 too slow, maybe the vessel was too heavy. Again, there's 0:27:51.040 --> 0:27:53.240 a lot of back and forth as part of the 0:27:54.200 --> 0:27:58.520 research surrounding it. But Fagan and Rencoff, and by the way, 0:27:58.800 --> 0:28:03.639 Rencoff was a rowing master, professor of ancient history and 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:06.800 served as chair of the Trirene Trust that carried out 0:28:06.960 --> 0:28:11.680 the Olympus, the Olympia's construction and those trials. They state 0:28:11.760 --> 0:28:14.600 that it's now widely accepted that this ship is likely 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:19.040 a generally accurate representation of what these ships were like. Again, 0:28:19.119 --> 0:28:23.480 it seems unlikely that we'd ever know for sure on 0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:28.280 this without time travel, but it seems generally on the money, 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:31.040 or close enough to the money for us to to 0:28:31.520 --> 0:28:34.800 use it as a means of understanding what these vessels were. 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:37.520 I included a couple of photos here in our outline, 0:28:37.640 --> 0:28:40.440 and everyone out there can look these up as well. 0:28:40.480 --> 0:28:45.400 But yeah, the ship at sea with oars out sales 0:28:45.520 --> 0:28:49.520 raised looks absolutely amazing, and there's a peek inside at 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:52.520 the folks pulling the oars. Again. It seems like they're 0:28:52.520 --> 0:28:55.400 having a great time, but it is not spacious. 0:28:57.000 --> 0:29:00.000 Also, I see there's a multi level seating with people 0:29:00.200 --> 0:29:01.800 next to each other. I guess that's to get the 0:29:01.800 --> 0:29:05.640 different angles of the ores in play, so a lot 0:29:05.680 --> 0:29:08.840 of people are sort of head level with their neighbors' butts. 0:29:09.160 --> 0:29:12.480 Yeah. Yeah, when we're talking about three levels, don't think 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:16.000 of it like an apartment building. There's a there's like 0:29:16.040 --> 0:29:20.880 a clear dividing point between first floor, second floor, third floor. No, 0:29:21.000 --> 0:29:24.360 it's all it's all crammed in there, and it's all part. 0:29:24.880 --> 0:29:27.880 It's not like an ice cream cone scoop scenario. It's 0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:33.880 all incorporated into the design, and that design is ultimately 0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:38.240 a large part of it is about powering that ram 0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:39.080 That's right. 0:29:39.160 --> 0:29:42.960 So, Rob, you asked me to take a look at 0:29:43.200 --> 0:29:48.320 ramming and ramming maneuvers for this episode, and this was 0:29:48.360 --> 0:29:51.160 a lot more interesting and complex than I expected. I 0:29:51.200 --> 0:29:53.560 was just thinking, yeah, you know what, how complex can 0:29:53.600 --> 0:29:55.160 it be? You're just trying to run into each other. 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:57.120 But no, it's a delicate dance. 0:29:57.600 --> 0:30:00.240 Yeah, I have to admit that it was more complex 0:30:00.240 --> 0:30:02.400 than I was expecting as well, And I think part 0:30:02.440 --> 0:30:05.000 of it is that I watched twenty Thousand Leagues under 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:07.120 the Sea, the nineteen fifty four adaptation a lot as 0:30:07.120 --> 0:30:10.160 a kid, in which, of course the fictional submarine the 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:16.080 Nautilus rams enemy ships or enemies perceived enemies of Captain Nemo. 0:30:16.600 --> 0:30:19.840 And again, this may be more nuanced in the film 0:30:19.840 --> 0:30:22.200 than I remember, and maybe more so in the text, 0:30:22.480 --> 0:30:24.720 but I seem to think of it as just the 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:27.800 Nautilus just goes as fast as it can and just 0:30:27.880 --> 0:30:31.400 crashes through whatever it's trying to destroy, And so it's 0:30:31.400 --> 0:30:33.720 easy for me to fall back on that and think, oh, yeah, 0:30:33.720 --> 0:30:36.360 well ramming speed with a triream, it's just row as 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:38.680 fast as possible and hit them with as much velocity 0:30:38.680 --> 0:30:39.320 as you can muster. 0:30:39.600 --> 0:30:42.920 It's been a while since I've read twenty Thousand Leagues 0:30:43.000 --> 0:30:45.840 under the Sea, but I recall a plotline early in 0:30:45.840 --> 0:30:48.520 the book where somebody, maybe it's a Professor Aronnax or 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:52.240 one of his rifles, proposes that all of the ships 0:30:52.280 --> 0:30:55.040 that are mysteriously sinking around the world. This is like 0:30:55.120 --> 0:30:59.640 the inciting incident or phenomena phenomenon that begins the story 0:31:00.040 --> 0:31:03.920 that they are being attacked by a gigantic narwhale. It's like, 0:31:03.960 --> 0:31:05.960 you know, the unicorn of the sea. It has this 0:31:06.040 --> 0:31:08.840 big spike, and you know, we all know that it 0:31:08.880 --> 0:31:11.320 grows to a length of forty feet, but imagine it 0:31:11.360 --> 0:31:13.720 could grow even bigger. It does not grow to a 0:31:13.800 --> 0:31:17.640 length of forty feet, but imagine it could grow even bigger. 0:31:17.720 --> 0:31:20.600 And that's what is going on. And now, of course 0:31:20.680 --> 0:31:23.040 what is revealed later on is that they're being rammed, 0:31:23.040 --> 0:31:26.480 as you said, by Captain Nemo's submarine. And of course 0:31:26.640 --> 0:31:29.560 ramming as a weapon does indeed play a major role 0:31:29.680 --> 0:31:33.960 in naval warfare. Going back into antiquity, now, you can 0:31:34.400 --> 0:31:37.720 think of lots of reasons that ships would have always 0:31:37.720 --> 0:31:40.760 been important in war. As we've talked about. You know, 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:43.720 they can move troops, they can move cargo and provisions, 0:31:43.800 --> 0:31:46.800 they can engage in scouting, they can deliver messages and 0:31:46.840 --> 0:31:51.160 so forth. But this age of war, galleys, the naval 0:31:51.200 --> 0:31:54.240 ships powered by rows of oars, really showed the importance 0:31:54.240 --> 0:31:58.680 of direct ship to ship combat, and thus the speed, 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:03.120 design and maneuver ability of the galleys themselves became paramount 0:32:03.360 --> 0:32:07.880 and that's what ultimately leads to this extremely optimized design 0:32:08.200 --> 0:32:13.040 of the trirem. So in ancient naval conflict, as we've 0:32:13.040 --> 0:32:15.960 already alluded to, there are several different methods you could 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:19.240 have of attacking other boats on the water. You could 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:22.080 have archers on your boat. You could come up alongside 0:32:22.080 --> 0:32:25.160 that boat and shoot at enemy troops or the crew 0:32:25.200 --> 0:32:29.000 on board. You could have marines armed soldiers like maybe 0:32:29.600 --> 0:32:33.080 the Greek boats might have some hoplite soldiers that would 0:32:33.120 --> 0:32:36.680 board enemy boats and try to attack and overwhelm the crew. 0:32:36.960 --> 0:32:41.320 Or you could attack the physical boat itself. So a 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:46.479 major goal of the trirem in ancient warfare was to 0:32:46.640 --> 0:32:52.960 destroy or more accurately, immobilize enemy ships, and the primary 0:32:53.000 --> 0:32:56.000 method of doing this was ramming. So before you had 0:32:56.040 --> 0:32:58.920 the cannon and the torpedo, you had the ram. 0:33:00.120 --> 0:33:03.440 The ancient mariners' rights no longer was a sea battle, 0:33:03.480 --> 0:33:06.120 simply a match in which ships closed and the marines 0:33:06.160 --> 0:33:08.719 on each side fought it out, a sort of land 0:33:08.840 --> 0:33:13.320 fight transferred to shipboard, as in Ramsey's successful attack on 0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:16.680 the Sea Raiders. The ram changed all that. It shifted 0:33:16.680 --> 0:33:19.240 the emphasis to the men that manned the oars. 0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:23.280 That's right, the boat is the weapon, and the target 0:33:23.400 --> 0:33:26.520 of the attack is the other boat. And so the 0:33:26.520 --> 0:33:30.040 way you wheeld the weapon is to guide and power 0:33:30.240 --> 0:33:31.520 the boat. That's right. 0:33:31.600 --> 0:33:34.040 And in this you end up depending on a highly 0:33:34.040 --> 0:33:38.640 skilled rowing crew that could, in Case's words, respond instantly 0:33:38.720 --> 0:33:40.160 and accurately to command. 0:33:40.520 --> 0:33:42.800 They had to be on the same page, They had 0:33:42.800 --> 0:33:45.840 to act fast, with great strength and power, and they 0:33:45.840 --> 0:33:48.560 had to all know what they were doing at the 0:33:48.600 --> 0:33:53.640 same time synchronization. So, picking up again on your analogy earlier, 0:33:54.080 --> 0:33:56.360 rob of the Trireme as kind of like a jet 0:33:56.480 --> 0:34:00.520 fighter of its time. It was a highly optimized vessel. 0:34:00.720 --> 0:34:06.640 It was stripped down to maximize rowing power. Generally, on 0:34:06.760 --> 0:34:09.560 a Trirem there were no living quarters on these boats. 0:34:09.680 --> 0:34:14.240 They were essentially all engine. But that engine was human bodies. 0:34:15.360 --> 0:34:18.200 And so as such, a weakness of the Trirem in 0:34:18.280 --> 0:34:21.120 a way was that it would generally have to go 0:34:21.320 --> 0:34:24.040 ashore each day to meet the needs of its crew 0:34:24.239 --> 0:34:27.480 for food, supplies and rest. This is not a boat 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:30.480 for people to live on at sea for long periods 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:33.880 of time. Again, it's all engine and the people are 0:34:33.960 --> 0:34:34.480 the engine. 0:34:34.920 --> 0:34:36.600 Yeah, And you can see this when you look at 0:34:36.680 --> 0:34:40.800 the modern photos of that reconstruction, Like there's just not 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:44.800 a lot of a parent room in there, so you 0:34:45.040 --> 0:34:48.040 can't imagine how a meal would potentially work on there, 0:34:48.200 --> 0:34:51.120 or how you would handle anything like a shift change 0:34:51.360 --> 0:34:52.879 or sleeping and so forth. 0:34:53.160 --> 0:34:56.399 There are accounts of people doing it, like there's one 0:34:56.480 --> 0:34:59.040 famous account in the ancient world of a trirem that 0:34:59.239 --> 0:35:03.840 was sent out after another one to try to overtake 0:35:03.920 --> 0:35:06.600 it to countermand the orders it had been given, and 0:35:07.440 --> 0:35:11.080 so allegedly like the rowers like worked in shifts so 0:35:11.120 --> 0:35:13.279 they could row all night and one slept while the 0:35:13.320 --> 0:35:15.719 other road, And so there are stories that this kind 0:35:15.760 --> 0:35:17.960 of thing could be done in the extreme, but generally 0:35:18.239 --> 0:35:20.880 this is not a vessel to live on for extended 0:35:20.920 --> 0:35:26.160 periods of time. It is made for battle, and so 0:35:26.320 --> 0:35:29.640 a major factor deciding the success of an ancient war 0:35:29.760 --> 0:35:33.680 galley was the ability of its crew to perform. The 0:35:33.800 --> 0:35:37.120 corollary of that is that human exhaustion could mean death, 0:35:37.760 --> 0:35:41.320 So ancient trirems often would be fitted with sales of 0:35:41.400 --> 0:35:44.719 some kind. They might have a main mast sail that 0:35:44.840 --> 0:35:47.439 could be used to save the crew's strength while they're 0:35:47.640 --> 0:35:52.080 just sort of cruising somewhere, and then would generally not 0:35:52.360 --> 0:35:55.440 be used for battle. The boat might like leave ashore 0:35:55.719 --> 0:35:58.840 its main mast sail if contact with the enemy was imminent. 0:35:59.480 --> 0:36:02.880 The goal of naval combat, this ship to ship combat 0:36:02.920 --> 0:36:06.959 at the time was to crush or puncture the hull 0:36:07.320 --> 0:36:12.480 of the enemy vessel to or sometimes alternately, to shear 0:36:12.600 --> 0:36:15.600 off its ores on one side, either of which would 0:36:15.760 --> 0:36:19.279 disable it in battle. Now in the modern era, if 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:22.000 we think of puncturing the hull of a ship, we 0:36:22.120 --> 0:36:25.080 think this means the goal is to sink the enemy ship, 0:36:25.160 --> 0:36:27.520 to send it to the bottom of the ocean. But 0:36:27.680 --> 0:36:30.880 that's not necessarily the case. In fact, that's usually not 0:36:31.040 --> 0:36:35.439 the case. In ancient Mediterranean naval combat. The ship, being 0:36:35.520 --> 0:36:38.480 made of wood and lightly constructed and not full of 0:36:39.040 --> 0:36:42.719 much else, would usually not sink entirely, but would become 0:36:42.800 --> 0:36:46.080 a floating wreck which the winner of the battle could 0:36:46.160 --> 0:36:49.360 later toe away for salvage or for you know, just 0:36:49.440 --> 0:36:50.399 to show off what you did. 0:36:50.960 --> 0:36:53.879 Yeah in case In points out that there would often 0:36:54.000 --> 0:36:58.080 be a capture of the enemy's ship's ram as a trophy. 0:36:58.200 --> 0:37:01.200 This is apparently common practice, though again you can recognize 0:37:01.239 --> 0:37:03.680 the challenges involved. You know it would have to be 0:37:04.560 --> 0:37:06.520 It would have to be a matter of capturing the 0:37:06.520 --> 0:37:08.560 whole vessel and not just all right, we punctured them. 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:10.440 Now everyone go get that ram. 0:37:10.400 --> 0:37:13.960 Hit right, Oh right, I mean it would still be 0:37:14.080 --> 0:37:16.360 full of hostile enemy troops and all that. So like, 0:37:16.480 --> 0:37:19.719 there's some more there's some more work to be done here. 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:23.440 Yeah. And one thing that case mentioned is that the 0:37:23.520 --> 0:37:27.400 whole like grappling and boarding actions that never completely goes away. 0:37:27.880 --> 0:37:32.200 But this ramming, this becomes like the key attack method. 0:37:32.560 --> 0:37:35.000 This becomes like the main focus of the ship design. 0:37:35.480 --> 0:37:39.560 Yeah. So some ancient sources that refer to rammed ships 0:37:40.320 --> 0:37:43.279 describe what happens to them not as sinking, but as 0:37:43.920 --> 0:37:47.600 a word that translates to dipping. They would dip, so 0:37:47.800 --> 0:37:50.360 I think the idea is they would become flooded and useless. 0:37:50.640 --> 0:37:53.239 But because again they're wooden and lightly built, they don't 0:37:53.280 --> 0:37:55.399 sink to the bottom, so they're just like sitting there. 0:37:56.000 --> 0:37:59.040 You can imagine the physical aftermath in the area of 0:37:59.160 --> 0:38:02.759 an ancient naval would be a like a fascinating and 0:38:02.880 --> 0:38:03.720 terrifying place. 0:38:04.440 --> 0:38:04.640 Yeah. 0:38:14.520 --> 0:38:17.160 So what was going on with the ramming itself? Well, 0:38:17.640 --> 0:38:19.600 from what I've been reading, it seems to me that 0:38:19.920 --> 0:38:25.680 ramming is primarily a maneuvering game. So trirems were built 0:38:25.840 --> 0:38:29.640 with of course, dedicated ramming mechanisms. So sticking out of 0:38:29.760 --> 0:38:32.319 the front of the boat there would be a thick 0:38:32.640 --> 0:38:36.800 reinforced wooden spike that extends from the keel, and that 0:38:36.840 --> 0:38:40.080 would be capped with a metal covering. So like an 0:38:40.080 --> 0:38:44.719 Athenian trirem would would have a wooden extension from the 0:38:44.800 --> 0:38:48.560 keel and just around the water line, maybe right ad 0:38:48.680 --> 0:38:50.719 or right below the water line, and this would be 0:38:50.800 --> 0:38:55.560 covered in a bronze sheath. A later and popular Athenian 0:38:56.480 --> 0:39:01.799 ram design would have like three horizontally aligned fins, these 0:39:01.840 --> 0:39:05.680 sort of thin fins lined up in rows, and I'll 0:39:05.680 --> 0:39:07.720 get to the reason for that in a minute. Speed 0:39:07.920 --> 0:39:12.360 and maneuverability were a crucial part of the battle. In 0:39:12.560 --> 0:39:15.880 order to perform a successful ram, the galley would need 0:39:16.000 --> 0:39:19.200 to set up its maneuver correctly. It would need to 0:39:19.760 --> 0:39:23.360 build up speed so that it could get in position 0:39:23.600 --> 0:39:27.200 to gain an advantageous angle, and it would be trying 0:39:27.280 --> 0:39:32.279 to come into the other boat's broadside, so before the 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:36.080 actual ramming itself. A major part of ancient Mediterranean naval 0:39:36.160 --> 0:39:39.920 tactics seemed to be focused on getting behind the enemy, 0:39:40.440 --> 0:39:43.560 getting through the enemy lines, and positioning your coming around 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:47.480 and positioning yourself behind the enemy ship, because attacking from 0:39:47.520 --> 0:39:49.800 the rear made it easier to get the angle you 0:39:50.040 --> 0:39:52.279 wanted and to make it harder for the enemy ship 0:39:52.360 --> 0:39:53.160 to attack you. 0:39:54.160 --> 0:39:56.200 That's right, it's got to in order for a ship 0:39:56.280 --> 0:39:59.960 that you're facing from behind to turn around and potential 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:01.640 we come back and face you, it would have to 0:40:01.719 --> 0:40:04.960 expose its entire side to your ramming force. 0:40:05.320 --> 0:40:11.560 Exactly. Yes. Another very important consideration is not getting stuck 0:40:12.000 --> 0:40:15.680 after the ramming attack. So imagine you use your ram 0:40:15.960 --> 0:40:17.799 at the prow of your boat to punch a hole 0:40:17.920 --> 0:40:21.640 in the enemy's hull, and then your ram gets stuck. 0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:25.120 It gets stuck in the hole that it punched. You 0:40:25.280 --> 0:40:28.600 are now just as disabled as the other ship, and 0:40:28.920 --> 0:40:31.080 if it's dipping down in the water, you're going to 0:40:31.120 --> 0:40:34.399 be dipping with it. You're also vulnerable to getting your 0:40:34.560 --> 0:40:37.640 own hull rammed from the side because you're just sitting 0:40:37.719 --> 0:40:40.480 there with your broadside exposed to enemy ships, and you 0:40:40.560 --> 0:40:41.320 can't move. 0:40:41.880 --> 0:40:43.840 Right because another one could be right behind you. Now 0:40:43.880 --> 0:40:46.839 we got three ships all crashed together. 0:40:47.400 --> 0:40:50.640 So as important as the ramming maneuver was, an equally 0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:54.239 important thing was designing the ram and the ship so 0:40:54.360 --> 0:40:56.920 as not to get not to punch through and get 0:40:56.960 --> 0:40:59.480 stuck in the first place, and then also to have 0:40:59.600 --> 0:41:02.600 the crew master the ability of going in reverse to 0:41:02.760 --> 0:41:06.480 disengage after a successful attack. Now I was reading a 0:41:06.520 --> 0:41:10.440 bit more about some boat design considerations in a book 0:41:10.719 --> 0:41:15.160 called Archaeology and the Social History of Ships by Richard A. 0:41:15.360 --> 0:41:19.960 Gould from Cambridge University Press, twenty eleven. Ramming as an 0:41:20.040 --> 0:41:25.520 attack maneuver introduces stresses on the ship's hull integrity. Of course, 0:41:25.680 --> 0:41:29.640 right your goule calls ramming quote controlled collision, and that's 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:33.160 that is what it is. You're just crashing into another ship, 0:41:33.680 --> 0:41:35.320 but you're hoping to do it in a way that 0:41:35.640 --> 0:41:38.760 hurts the other ship more than it hurts you. Apparently, 0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:42.520 some scholars have suggested that trirems may have had short 0:41:42.800 --> 0:41:46.759 use lives, given the risks to their structure, both from 0:41:46.880 --> 0:41:50.800 being rammed but also from absorbing the shock of delivering 0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:52.320 a ramming attack. 0:41:52.640 --> 0:41:54.960 Wow, and you can only imagine that would that would 0:41:55.000 --> 0:41:59.840 add to this idea that they were costly vehicles to you, 0:42:00.320 --> 0:42:02.839 because yeah, if you could only get like maybe one 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:05.680 hit out of this vehicle, like now it's ruined now 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:07.640 it's it's totaled and you've got to build another one 0:42:07.680 --> 0:42:08.200 from scrap. 0:42:08.719 --> 0:42:11.279 I mean, hopefully it's not totaled after one hit, but 0:42:11.480 --> 0:42:13.920 you know there, the more hits you do with it, 0:42:14.120 --> 0:42:16.759 the more risk you have that you are going to 0:42:16.880 --> 0:42:20.880 incur damage to the ship itself. Gould writes, quote early 0:42:21.040 --> 0:42:24.920 rams were pointed and risk to becoming stuck in the 0:42:25.000 --> 0:42:28.040 opposing ship's hull. So if you look up pictures of these, 0:42:28.160 --> 0:42:30.480 these earlier rams were often more they look just kind 0:42:30.480 --> 0:42:34.200 of like a horn or a tusk or something. But 0:42:34.880 --> 0:42:38.560 but Gould says, quote trirem rams were blunt with a 0:42:38.719 --> 0:42:42.440 squared off face and were intended to pound and shatter 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:47.000 the planks in the opposing ship's hull rather than punch 0:42:47.040 --> 0:42:50.200 a hole through it. So you were trying to to 0:42:50.480 --> 0:42:53.640 damage the target ship's hull in way that maybe cracks 0:42:53.719 --> 0:42:57.320 the wood or takes it or causes damage to a 0:42:57.440 --> 0:43:02.759 joint or something that that ruins its watertight integrity. It 0:43:02.840 --> 0:43:05.520 will start to take on water. That's the goal. But 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:08.080 you do not want to just punch a hole all 0:43:08.160 --> 0:43:10.600 the way through and get stuck inside it again. For 0:43:10.719 --> 0:43:13.120 all the reasons we've talked about that that is a 0:43:13.239 --> 0:43:17.680 risk to you. So this delicate balance of considerations not 0:43:17.760 --> 0:43:20.560 only had implications for the design of the ram and 0:43:20.719 --> 0:43:23.840 the ship, but also for the crew, because a ramming 0:43:23.920 --> 0:43:26.959 attack had to be fast enough that the target ship 0:43:27.080 --> 0:43:31.080 could not escape and fast enough that the impact force 0:43:31.200 --> 0:43:33.680 would break through the planks of the enemy's hull and 0:43:33.800 --> 0:43:36.120 make it take on water. But at the same time, 0:43:36.400 --> 0:43:40.480 it could not be so fast that the impact caused 0:43:40.640 --> 0:43:44.040 damage to the attacking ship or punched through and got 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:47.680 the ram stuck. So this made me sort of rethink 0:43:48.320 --> 0:43:51.800 the idea of speed and the triream. Based on what 0:43:51.880 --> 0:43:55.120 I'm reading in this book by Gould here, it seems 0:43:55.160 --> 0:43:59.200 that top speed was especially important for maneuvering in trying 0:43:59.280 --> 0:44:03.800 to get behigh to the enemy and into the advantageous position. 0:44:03.960 --> 0:44:05.960 For a ramming charge, you want to be in the 0:44:06.040 --> 0:44:08.560 right position and have your enemy in the wrong position. 0:44:09.280 --> 0:44:12.839 But top speed was not necessarily for ramming itself, because 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:16.320 ramming at top speed could have been dangerous to the 0:44:16.440 --> 0:44:17.400 attacking galley. 0:44:17.960 --> 0:44:22.680 Wow, so ramming speed could also conceivably mean or like 0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:25.600 ramming deceleration once you're in a position. 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:27.880 Based on what I've read, yes, it seems like you 0:44:28.200 --> 0:44:30.840 don't want to hit the hit the opposing boat at 0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:34.399 top speed again because of risks to your own hull 0:44:34.480 --> 0:44:37.160 integrity absorbing the shock of that hit, And you don't 0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:39.719 want to get stuck, so you just want to you 0:44:39.800 --> 0:44:42.960 want to hit it just hard enough to damage it now. 0:44:43.320 --> 0:44:46.440 Gould also points out that there could have been additional 0:44:46.920 --> 0:44:51.719 things that that ancient shipbuilders did to reinforce the hull 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:55.040 for battles and make it make it better able to 0:44:55.120 --> 0:44:58.560 absorb the shock of a ramming hit, Like there was 0:44:58.600 --> 0:45:01.640 a practice of apparently using rope cables wrapped around the 0:45:01.680 --> 0:45:05.719 ship's hull to help provide strength during a battle. So 0:45:06.080 --> 0:45:08.560 there could be other things that would reinforce it that 0:45:08.640 --> 0:45:11.000 we don't fully know about, if that makes sense. But 0:45:11.160 --> 0:45:13.160 like you were saying, it does go against the idea 0:45:13.160 --> 0:45:15.600 of the Nautilus trying to just ram into something at 0:45:15.640 --> 0:45:18.880 top speed, because yeah, if the Nautilus did that, wouldn't 0:45:18.920 --> 0:45:21.560 it probably actually get stuck in the ship that it hit. 0:45:22.040 --> 0:45:24.600 Yeah, or I also couldn't help but think about Star 0:45:24.719 --> 0:45:27.279 Trek a little bit, which makes sense. Star Trek and 0:45:27.400 --> 0:45:31.360 its space combat is very much based on naval combat. 0:45:32.040 --> 0:45:35.640 You know, It's it's basically just a space age variation 0:45:35.800 --> 0:45:37.880 on all of that, and so if but with no 0:45:38.040 --> 0:45:41.560 up and down right right, But but you could imagine 0:45:41.560 --> 0:45:44.680 a scenario where if you know, Captain Picard wanted to 0:45:45.160 --> 0:45:48.040 need or needed to ram another ship, he wouldn't want 0:45:48.040 --> 0:45:51.319 to like punch it into like into warp. That would 0:45:51.360 --> 0:45:55.439 be crazy, like that would just like atomize both vessels, right, Yeah, 0:45:55.480 --> 0:45:58.680 he would need to depend on a lesser velocity one 0:45:58.760 --> 0:46:02.520 that would accomplish whatever the goal is, you know, like 0:46:03.120 --> 0:46:05.520 I don't know, take out an engine on the enemy 0:46:05.600 --> 0:46:10.280 vessel as opposed to just destroying everything, trekkies. I'm depending 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:12.600 on you to point out an example where something like 0:46:12.680 --> 0:46:15.560 that surely happened. There had to have been some ramming 0:46:15.680 --> 0:46:18.040 maneuvers at one point or another, and I just am 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:18.880 not thinking of them. 0:46:19.280 --> 0:46:21.880 Oh man, I would love to see that. So one 0:46:22.120 --> 0:46:25.359 one more question, if we're thinking about trying to zero 0:46:25.520 --> 0:46:30.240 in on ideal ramming speed for one of these attacks. 0:46:30.719 --> 0:46:33.880 I was reading in several sources. One was a book 0:46:34.160 --> 0:46:38.120 by an author named Nick Fields called Athenian Trirem Versus 0:46:38.200 --> 0:46:42.120 Persian Trirem The Greco Persian Wars four nine four forty nine. 0:46:42.880 --> 0:46:46.560 This was published in twenty twenty two by Bloomsbury, and 0:46:46.680 --> 0:46:50.520 this book contains interesting photos of a bronze ram sheath 0:46:51.120 --> 0:46:54.160 that is from the ancient world. Maybe we'll come back 0:46:54.200 --> 0:46:57.839 and talk about that in the next part. But because 0:46:57.840 --> 0:47:01.840 it has some interesting design features, not just not just 0:47:01.960 --> 0:47:06.640 four ramming efficiency, but a decorative design features that I 0:47:06.680 --> 0:47:09.680 thought were interesting. But I just wanted to mention this 0:47:09.719 --> 0:47:12.000 book because it gets into the idea of ramming speed. 0:47:12.360 --> 0:47:16.319 So Fields says that if the target ship is either 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:20.320 stationary or moving towards you, and you can hit it 0:47:20.480 --> 0:47:25.080 within an angle of between twenty and seventy degrees, the 0:47:25.160 --> 0:47:28.680 attacking boat's ramming speed only needed to be about three 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:32.680 to four knots. So that's not that's not super fast. 0:47:32.840 --> 0:47:36.000 That's between five point five and seven point five kilometers 0:47:36.040 --> 0:47:38.839 per hour. And so that's if you're hitting it at 0:47:38.880 --> 0:47:42.440 a more oblique angle between twenty and seventy degrees. If 0:47:42.440 --> 0:47:45.120 you're able to line up something closer to a ninety 0:47:45.239 --> 0:47:47.960 degree hit, you hit it in the middle of its length. 0:47:48.640 --> 0:47:52.560 Even less speed is required to break through and make 0:47:52.600 --> 0:47:56.040 it take on water. That's probably between two to three knots, 0:47:56.400 --> 0:47:58.919 which is between three point seven and five point five 0:47:59.120 --> 0:48:02.160 kilometers per hour. There was also research published just this 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:06.000 year about the ramming speeds needed for trirems. This was 0:48:06.040 --> 0:48:10.279 published by Izak at All in the journal Journal of 0:48:10.480 --> 0:48:14.400 Archaeological Science Reports in twenty twenty four. The paper is 0:48:14.480 --> 0:48:18.040 called Damaging a Trirem by Ramming the Kinetics, and the 0:48:18.120 --> 0:48:22.200 main finding was that quote, the minimum impact velocity required 0:48:22.239 --> 0:48:24.680 to break a single plank is one point three to 0:48:24.920 --> 0:48:30.239 three knots, So this was obviously well within the capabilities 0:48:30.280 --> 0:48:33.120 of a trirem. There's really no question that it could 0:48:33.160 --> 0:48:36.160 easily achieve the speeds needed to cause damage to the 0:48:36.239 --> 0:48:39.719 opposing ships, and it didn't have to be near top 0:48:39.840 --> 0:48:41.839 speed to do it. They could go at a quite 0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:46.320 achievable speed and cause that damage with minimal risk to 0:48:47.200 --> 0:48:50.560 the attacking ship. And even on just an intuitive physics level, 0:48:50.600 --> 0:48:52.160 it kind of makes sense that you wouldn't need that 0:48:52.360 --> 0:48:55.000 much speed because, of course you are hitting a boat 0:48:55.120 --> 0:48:59.040 at its weak point with your strongest point, and you've 0:48:59.120 --> 0:49:02.320 got the four course of that impact concentrated down not 0:49:02.440 --> 0:49:06.000 across like the full like height of its of the 0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:09.480 ship's hull, but down into this small impact zone at 0:49:09.520 --> 0:49:10.319 the tip of the ram. 0:49:10.920 --> 0:49:13.000 Yeah. Yeah, I'd be interested to hear from many folks 0:49:13.080 --> 0:49:15.960 out there who have a lot of experience around boats 0:49:16.000 --> 0:49:21.400 who can speak to like accidental rammings or bumpings like 0:49:21.680 --> 0:49:25.799 in harbor and docks situations like you know, like how 0:49:26.960 --> 0:49:29.800 how easy is it to accidentally punch a hole in 0:49:29.880 --> 0:49:32.239 the hull of a small vessel or at least a 0:49:32.239 --> 0:49:36.920 wooden vessel that we're talking about wooden wooden ships here. Well, 0:49:36.960 --> 0:49:40.840 this has been fascinating. Yeah, ramming one boat into another 0:49:40.960 --> 0:49:43.960 seems that, you know, on the surface, to be something 0:49:44.000 --> 0:49:47.319 that would be very simple and straightforward. But yeah, there's 0:49:47.360 --> 0:49:50.000 a there's a whole, a whole engineering problem to it. 0:49:50.040 --> 0:49:53.000 There's an there's a there's a there's a military art 0:49:53.440 --> 0:49:58.239 to it, and involves a discipline and maneuver. It's pretty fascinating, 0:49:58.600 --> 0:50:03.520 and you can only imagine the mix of actual combat 0:50:03.600 --> 0:50:07.000 scenario learning that would be involved in all of this, 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:12.120 as well as experiments and testing. Yeah, it's it kind 0:50:12.120 --> 0:50:14.120 of boggles the mind. Gives you a new new respect 0:50:14.280 --> 0:50:16.239 for what these ancient mariners were up. 0:50:16.160 --> 0:50:18.680 To, how they had to all work together to make 0:50:18.760 --> 0:50:21.200 the boat function as kind of a single organism. 0:50:21.960 --> 0:50:23.640 All right, well, we're going to go ahead and close 0:50:23.680 --> 0:50:26.360 out this episode, but we'll be back for a third. 0:50:26.560 --> 0:50:31.400 I think the third episode will cap everything off, so 0:50:31.920 --> 0:50:34.879 tune back in on Tuesday as we return with Part 0:50:34.960 --> 0:50:37.960 three of Ancient Oars on the Wine Dark Sea. In 0:50:38.080 --> 0:50:40.319 the meantime, we'll remind you that Stuff to Blow Your 0:50:40.360 --> 0:50:43.319 Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core 0:50:43.440 --> 0:50:47.600 episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episode on Wednesdays. 0:50:47.920 --> 0:50:50.680 On Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to talk 0:50:50.719 --> 0:50:53.560 about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. 0:50:54.080 --> 0:50:57.760 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway, 0:50:57.880 --> 0:51:00.680 and huge thanks to our guests for dous for today, 0:51:00.760 --> 0:51:03.879 Andrew Howard. Appreciate you stepping in, Andrew. 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