The Armada Campaign - Military Aspects

Frank81 · Dec 17, 2012

arras said:
Here is patache from Livro de Traças de Carpintaria (1616) written by Manoel Fernandez:

arras said:
Bye the way, ship on that picture is caravel.

Thanks, very good correction! It is certainly as you told, a galleon, but with razed castles.

pikeshot1600 · Dec 17, 2012

viking said:
Have to disagree, hull design is important. but not so important as the cutting down of the superstructure in sailing to windward. Any excess top hamper creates problems connected to leeway. First the weight induces more heeling and of of course the obvious sideways push that the sheer area presents. What is not easily understood is that heeling changes the shape the wetted area the vessel presents to water. Upright the underwater profile is symmetrical. As the ship heels so the leeward side increases and the curve of the hull on that side is accentuated. The vessel wants to resume symmetry and in extreme cases will "round up", that is swerve into the wind in an uncontrolled manner. When a ship is heeled over the rudder is used to resist rounding up. The result is it is out of line with the centre line of the ship. So you have two forces acting that oppose each other and it is as if you are putting the brakes on. I agree that the type and construction of sails is important but so is seamanship, a point I'll discuss soon.
I agree that 45 degree to the wind is more than optimistic. I spent eight days on a replica of a 1837 boat that had jib, fore and aft main and a square yardarm on the fore mast and we could not hope to get better than 60 degrees to windward.

Couldn't get that close-hauled? Well....you didn't have Hawkins and Drake aboard.

Frank81 · Dec 17, 2012

Belisarius said:
This doesn't sound right to me, might be the translation, but I understand this to mean that the restraing ropes for the gun were shorter on one side than the other. If the gun fired, the recoil would slew the gun round inboard for reloading. This might be fine with one gun but would be suicidal for several guns unless they all fired simultaneously and the crews were well out of the way. If only one gun missfired (a common occurrance) other guns would career into it causing mahem on the gundeck. The guns themselves would also have to be widely seperated and all the loading would have to take place on one side of the gun.

Might he used to shot smaller pieces, that could make the movement. Maybe larger ones were allowed to move only a bit to its side, instead of doing a full turning.

What is true is that Spanish seamen knew and practiced reloading.

A comment against reloading is usually based on the fact that carriages oftenly had no wheels. But I've read Artillery manuals of the age, and also pictures, and the common design was a two wheleed carriage.

arras said:
I forgot one important thing, stone firing cannon tended to use weaker charge therefore it had thinner walls. As a consequence you usually could not fire iron projectiles out of it. I am not sure if it was caused by lower weight of stone or higher fragility. Or both.

arras said:
I doubt that. Ammunition used for anti-personnel role was shrapnel or grapeshot. If large solid projectile shattered on the surface without penetrating hull or superstructure, it would do no damage. Roundshot did lot of wounds and kills by producing splinters. Wooden splinters from shattered wood. But for that you have to penetrate hull.

Stone shot was still in use and there is fair chance English had also few pieces. It must have been effective otherwise it would not have been used. Iron replaced stone mostly thanks to stone shot been very laborious to produce.

The Armada certainlly used stone projectiles. They were intended for both purposes, and some authors have argued that, giving the high emphasis of the Spanish on anti-personnel ammunition, might this is behind the innefectual Armada gunfire. I should disagree, because the performance of the Spanish artillery in other battles.

In regard to "Pedreros", you are right, that was the reason behind shooting stones. I have an Artillery Manual of the age and tells that: given that a stone ball is 1/3 lighter than a metal ball, the Pedrero should have 1/3 of metal only, in comparation to other pieces. That artillery makers fearing that such amount were too few, usually makes Pedreros with 1/2 of the metal needed for other pieces. Also, that Pedreros should not fire metall balls, because these needs much more gunpowder, and the explosion can destroy the piece. That proportionally, firing stones should be done with 1/3 or 1/2 of the usual amount of gunpowder.

I've read some accounts on how throwing stones was a good idea to attack enemy people on board. But in the Artillery manual, it is clear that every piece could shout stone balls, and that Pedreros were used mostly to fire grenades, explosive devices, antipersonnel material and so.

viking · Dec 17, 2012

arras said:
I am not sure if size of hull have such a large impact. Hull area is fraction of area of sails and so I imagine most of the leeway is caused by force applied by wind on sails.

Leeway is wind force applied to any part of the ship that provides resistance to the beam wind. While it is obvious the sail is the largest area, any part of the upper works of the boat also produces resistance. So the larger the fixed area the more prone to heel.
But other factors also come into play. The higher superstructure of the Spanish galleon meant more weight above the waterline especially as cannon and shot was carried up there.. Worse still is the height of that weight above the waterline. Anything top heavy is unstable.

arras said:
Moreover amount of leeway is reduced by area of the hull which is submerged. Shallower vessels tend to have more excessive leeway. It of course can be offset by size and shape of keel.

Ships of that period had so insignificant a keel that that can be discounted. What you are arguing here is about "trim", the distribution of weight. The lower the weight, the better the resistance to leeway.

arras said:
In other words objects try to present shape which gives less friction and resistance to the water right?

Which support all my arguments above.

arras said:
Lucky you My experience is purely theoretical. Well I used to do windsurfing but no experience with sailing boats.

Hope other forumites will forgive digression.

It was a wonderful experience. Left Hobart on southern tip of Tasmania and sailed across Bass Strait to Port Philip Bay and up to Melbourne.
Icing on the cake was to pull into a bay fo the night to find two other replkicas. One was a Dutch yacht of the type you posted and the other was Endeavour, Cook's exploration ship. Three totally different eras of sail in one bay.

arras · Dec 18, 2012

viking said:
Hope other forumites will forgive digression. It was a wonderful experience. Left Hobart on southern tip of Tasmania and sailed across Bass Strait to Port Philip Bay and up to Melbourne.
Icing on the cake was to pull into a bay fo the night to find two other replkicas. One was a Dutch yacht of the type you posted and the other was Endeavour, Cook's exploration ship. Three totally different eras of sail in one bay.

You are forgiven

Are you sure it was Dutch? Or was it reconstruction of Dutch ship but build in some other country actually?

Only other replica of similar sized ship from 17th ct. in Holland is state yacht Utrecht. It is however different type of ship, fore and aft rigged. It is type modern yachts are based on:

Only other replica of Dutch ship from 17th ct. similar to Duifken I posted earlier is from USA. May be it was this one?:

Halve Maen

There are other 17th ct. replicas in Holland but those are much larger ships like Batavia:

or Prins Willem

Which unfortunately seems to have been burned down:

arras · Dec 18, 2012

Frank81 said:
The Armada certainlly used stone projectiles. They were intended for both purposes, and some authors have argued that, giving the high emphasis of the Spanish on anti-personnel ammunition, might this is behind the innefectual Armada gunfire. I should disagree, because the performance of the Spanish artillery in other battles.

I am not much in to this "anti personnel" story. Standard artillery munition in those times was round shot. It accounted for most ammunition fired. Real specialised anti-personel ammunition was in those times shrapnel/grape shoot. And that was used only from very short distance and had to be fired directly on to the deck of enemy ship as it was unable to penetrate hull. In ship to ship combat it most probably was not used other than during boarding.

So at the end both English and Spanish were both firing canon balls at each other. Not much difference.

I also do not find much evidence for "one shot and board enemy through the smoke" theory. During armada campaign there are actually accounts of artillery duels so not much evidence for that.

viking · Dec 18, 2012

Arras dealing with the digression. The ship was an Australian built replica of the Duyfken--see Duyfken.com. The ship I was on was Enterprize--see Enterprize.org.au and Edeavour was Australian built replica..

Mangekyou · Dec 18, 2012

Fascniaing thread so far. There has not been a great deal for me to add in terms of what you guys have been discussing.

We would move on to the compliment on the ships now, which would be an interesting facet. Like the amount of marines on the ships, if any.

viking · Dec 18, 2012

Can't help on numbers but can throw some light on quality, comparing English sailors with those of Spanish galleons. Might sound Jingoistic but I believe English sailors were far superior.
First is they were all highly experienced sailors. This stems from the act of 1565, known as "Cecil's fast." This extended the fasting days from Friday and Saturday to include Wednesday.. It's main aim was not to change the dietary habits of the British but to greatly increase the size of the fishing fleet. This meant a great pool of men who were used to handling small boats in all weathers. Moreover they would be men with an intimate knowledge of the English Channel's tides and moods. So quality was high down to the lowliest deckhand. They were all seamen and no soldiers.
Now I have mentioned before that the English had changed their chain of command to a style we know today. The Captain was the supreme authority. This is not to be underestimated. A seaman with seamen as crew meant every order could be executed smoothly and with knowledge there would be no confusion.
Now compare this with the situation on the Spanish galleons. Command was in the hands of the noble officers who had no maritime experience at all. The captain had to defer to them for instruction. How bad this could be is illustrated by an incident of a galleon which ran onto a rock off the Irish coast when retreating to Spain. The sailing master cut the cable and headed for shore to beach the boat. The senior officer, misunderstanding his intent, had him hanged immediately.
So poor command structure. The view of the captain as an inferior minion was reflected by the soldiers who treated seamen as inferior. This attitude would have not been an inducement for the best men to volunteer as seamen.

Mangekyou · Dec 18, 2012

viking said:
Can't help on numbers but can throw some light on quality, comparing English sailors with those of Spanish galleons. Might sound Jingoistic but I believe English sailors were far superior.
First is they were all highly experienced sailors. This stems from the act of 1565, known as "Cecil's fast." This extended the fasting days from Friday and Saturday to include Wednesday.. It's main aim was not to change the dietary habits of the British but to greatly increase the size of the fishing fleet. This meant a great pool of men who were used to handling small boats in all weathers. Moreover they would be men with an intimate knowledge of the English Channel's tides and moods. So quality was high down to the lowliest deckhand. They were all seamen and no soldiers.
Now I have mentioned before that the English had changed their chain of command to a style we know today. The Captain was the supreme authority. This is not to be underestimated. A seaman with seamen as crew meant every order could be executed smoothly and with knowledge there would be no confusion.
Now compare this with the situation on the Spanish galleons. Command was in the hands of the noble officers who had no maritime experience at all. The captain had to defer to them for instruction. How bad this could be is illustrated by an incident of a galleon which ran onto a rock off the Irish coast when retreating to Spain. The sailing master cut the cable and headed for shore to beach the boat. The senior officer, misunderstanding his intent, had him hanged immediately.
So poor command structure. The view of the captain as an inferior minion was reflected by the soldiers who treated seamen as inferior. This attitude would have not been an inducement for the best men to volunteer as seamen.

Some interesting information. Thanks

Ill try and add my own input soon. Now, I need to sleep though, lol!

Frank81 · Dec 19, 2012

Mangekyou said:
Fascniaing thread so far. There has not been a great deal for me to add in terms of what you guys have been discussing.

We would move on to the compliment on the ships now, which would be an interesting facet. Like the amount of marines on the ships, if any.

Spanish ships were vastly provided with infantry, and probably poorly in comparation to English ships. Spanish learnt from this, and furthers authors concluded that ships should be as best served by sailors as possible. They, however, didn't change its combined boarding-artillery approach to warfare until much more later

Spanish sailor-infantry, p.8-11 http://www.portencrosscastle.org.uk/documents/ASpanishGalleonatPortencross2010.pdf

The more numerous crew was that of Portuguese galleon San Juan, vice-flagship:

Sailors: 156
Infantry: 387

pikeshot1600 · Dec 19, 2012

Mangekyou said:
Fascniaing thread so far. There has not been a great deal for me to add in terms of what you guys have been discussing.

We would move on to the compliment on the ships now, which would be an interesting facet. Like the amount of marines on the ships, if any.

I have not seen 'official' numbers on manning of Elizabethen ships. I have to assume the number of crew would be the number considered necessary by the Master, and how many the Admiralty could pay. It is possible there was some sort of ratio of men per Ton. The Spanish had a similar device for determining crew.

'Marines' is a subjective term when considering naval personnel in the 16th century. Sailors capable of handling weapons would often constitute a landing party engaged in amphibious, or infantry actions. Bigger operations such as the failed expedition in Spain and Portugal, 1589, carried large numbers of soldiers aboard the fleet (I have seen 7,000 and also 9,000 as numbers). Those were both in transport ships and aboard warships.

Members of the ships' complements are listed as soldiers, as distinguished from gunners, on a list of Royal Navy ships for the Armada campaign. There are a few similarities at least for new and rebuilt galleons, so that might be a rule of thumb. Examples:

Elizabeth Bonaventure (600 T)

Rainbow*

Golden Lion*

Vanguard*

Revenge*

*(all 500 T)

All these ships are listed as having 150 sailors, 24 gunners and 76 soldiers.

Every one of these ships carried a differing number of guns, so how accurate the ships' complements are from the list is questionable. Certainly the number of soldiers embarked for the Armada was unusual, and was done in case boarding could not be avoided.

**********

The Armada, as a rule of thumb, went by a ratio of one man per tonnelada of burthen. That might be increased due to necessity, or decreased due to fiscal inadequacy. For the Armada, it appears no expense was spared in manning.

As discussed elsewhere, Spanish gunners were soldiers who served the guns, and boarding was an established aspect of Spanish naval tactics, so soldiers were part of the ships' crew.

pikeshot1600 · Dec 19, 2012

Frank81 said:
Spanish ships were vastly provided with infantry, and probably poorly in comparation to English ships. Spanish learnt from this, and furthers authors concluded that ships should be as best served by sailors as possible. They, however, didn't change its combined boarding-artillery approach to warfare until much more later

Spanish sailor-infantry, p.8-11 http://www.portencrosscastle.org.uk/documents/ASpanishGalleonatPortencross2010.pdf

The more numerous crew was that of Portuguese galleon San Juan, vice-flagship:

Sailors: 156
Infantry: 387

Terrific link! How 'bout them archaeologists!!!

Frank81 · Dec 19, 2012

viking said:
Can't help on numbers but can throw some light on quality, comparing English sailors with those of Spanish galleons. Might sound Jingoistic but I believe English sailors were far superior.
First is they were all highly experienced sailors. This stems from the act of 1565, known as "Cecil's fast." This extended the fasting days from Friday and Saturday to include Wednesday.. It's main aim was not to change the dietary habits of the British but to greatly increase the size of the fishing fleet. This meant a great pool of men who were used to handling small boats in all weathers. Moreover they would be men with an intimate knowledge of the English Channel's tides and moods. So quality was high down to the lowliest deckhand. They were all seamen and no soldiers.
Now I have mentioned before that the English had changed their chain of command to a style we know today. The Captain was the supreme authority. This is not to be underestimated. A seaman with seamen as crew meant every order could be executed smoothly and with knowledge there would be no confusion.
Now compare this with the situation on the Spanish galleons. Command was in the hands of the noble officers who had no maritime experience at all. The captain had to defer to them for instruction. How bad this could be is illustrated by an incident of a galleon which ran onto a rock off the Irish coast when retreating to Spain. The sailing master cut the cable and headed for shore to beach the boat. The senior officer, misunderstanding his intent, had him hanged immediately.
So poor command structure. The view of the captain as an inferior minion was reflected by the soldiers who treated seamen as inferior. This attitude would have not been an inducement for the best men to volunteer as seamen.

I can't agree on seamen quality. But you are correct on command structure.

About seamen: I doubt the English were superior to Iberian ones in this time. Because of two factors:

1. Iberian Atlantic sailors had a long, very long tradition of extensive trade in Atlantic waters, at least since the late 13th century, they were linking the Mediterranean with North Europe. Moreover, after colonial expansion, Portuguese and Spanish sailed in a regular way the furious tropical seas, while they regularly brought goods to Antwerp and Hanseatic ports. Basque fishers were working as far as Terranova. So neither tropical, nor subpolar waters were unknown for them.

2. They used to sail in large convoys.

If somenone were to manage a large fleet on rough seas, they were the Iberian sailors.

Now, it is true that the command structure was a problem. The supreme commander of the ship could not be the sea experts. As a result, sea maneuvers were often hampered by poor army captain decissions. This point should be clarified with more time, because its complexity.

The situation also should be moderated: Spanish ships were usually commanded in that way, since Marine corp was created since early 16th century, and soldiers served onboard doing the "Carrera". In consequence, officials involved used to get some degree of understanding, the army captain usually leaving sea operations to sea experts. In any way, it was a inferior system to that of the English, that was adopted by everybody soon or later.

viking · Dec 19, 2012

When I wrote on the quality of the English sailors I was careful to compare them only with the galleon sailors who, as I said, suffered a poor command structure that would have a marked adverse effect on them. The Armada was so mixed in ships and quality of sailors that a blanket statement could never be made. But one obvious point I will stay with is local knowledge. The English Channel was the English sailors home ground
.Whilst on the quality of sailors, the Dutch Sea Beggars should not be discounted. Again they were men who knew their ships and home waters intimately and Parma feared them.

Mangekyou · Dec 20, 2012

Sorry guys, been busy lately. Ill get around to posting my own figures very soon.

I wanted to spend some time talking about the Alderney ship wreck, which was a small communications ship carrying orders (and military supplies) from Lord Burghley to Sir John Norrys, but was wrecked. The guns were high tech, although not designed for ship smashers, and it was a ship that was properly crewed (it was a few years after the Armada; 1592).

Here are some excerpts (Ill highlight some notable facts):

The importance of the Alderney guns lies not in any one piece, but in them all as an entire, coordinated, uniform weapon system, a weapon system that gave Britain a domination of the seas that lasted until the twentieth century, and whether for better or worse, helped build and sustain an empire which changed the economic, political and social history of the world.

The Alderney guns represent the victory of iron over bronze, muzzle-loaders over breech-loaders, trucked carriages over stationary stocks, new breeching over old, corned powder over serpentine powder and iron shot over stone.

The cannon from the Alderney Elizabethan wreck represent a high point in artillery science that would not be surpassed until the Victorian period. Their importance, however, lies not in any one piece but in them all as a coordinated seriation, for the Alderney guns are our earliest complete, datable, provenanced gun unit of a kind that was to become (in the words of the esteemed ordnance scholar Adrian Caruana) ‘the standard naval weapon system for over three hundred years, during which period the Navy accomplished more than ever before, and arguably more than it has ever done since.

The study of the weapon system with which the Navy achieved global dominance is as significant as the study of the warship itself’

Source: Guns and Shot « The Alderney Elizabethan Wreck

the Alderney guns were new, or virtually new at the time of their loss. Very likely they reflect the earliest English pattern for cast-iron muzzle-loaders, a type of gun that would remain in service for over three hundred years and which, at Trafalgar in 1805, would put an end to Napoleon’s dreams of European conquest. Technically speaking, they would not be surpassed until the Armstrong rifled, breechloader of 1859.

Between the Mary Rose of 1545 and the Alderney ship of 1592 a new type of powder was introduced that had far-reaching consequences and which, together with the developments that have just been discussed, and others to which we will turn, mark the forty-seven years between these two vessels, as not just a period of transition, but one of revolution.

Source: Gun Design « The Alderney Elizabethan Wreck

To satisfy the demand for guns the Queen was forced to look to the Wealdon ironworks for her heavy ordnance. England might be poor in copper, but it was rich in iron ore.

So when did the change to iron occur? Interestingly, though not surprisingly, it took place during the Armada and post-Armada period when the threat of invasion by Spain was at its sharpest and when the need for guns had never been greater or more urgent (s.v. Historical Background). The earliest document on the state of naval armament was that prepared in 1546 (just a year before Henry VIII’s death) by Anthony Anthony, the Navy’s Surveyor of Ordnance. From the so-called Anthony Rolls we learn that the Navy had 256 guns all of bronze.

A typical ship of the Armada period was the Tiger of 1586. It was armed, or intended to be armed, with 4 culverins, 8 demi culverins, 8 sakers, 2 falcons, 2 fowlers and 6 bases – all of bronze.

But in two separate surveys conducted in 1595 (just three years after the Alderney ship) we find the Tiger armed with six demi culverins, 14 sakers and two falcons – all of iron.

A survey of naval-fire power in 1585 recorded 545 big guns of which only two were of iron, but in a survey of 1595 (just three years after the Alderney ship) we find that the weapon-pile had grown by 71 per cent to 931 guns, and that 137 of the increase were of cast iron. Clearly a major shift in technology, product and supply had occurred within the foundries. The armament industry had gone through its first industrial revolution, and it all happened in less than ten years, the period which also saw the arming and sinking of the Alderney ship.

Source: Bronze to Iron « The Alderney Elizabethan Wreck

Frank81 said:
:

Sailors: 156
Infantry: 387

Thats ridiculously top-sided with infantry, lol!

I suppose it gives insight into the type of tactics they were wanting to utilise. Probably for extreme boarding actions, or they were on an expeditioary mission to somewhere.

viking · Dec 20, 2012

To add to the Aldernay information, a small piece of information concerning the production of guns is the active encouragement the government gave to the mining and metallurgical enterprizes of the realm. This is shown in the incorporation of the Mines Royal Company and the Mineral and Battery Company in 1568 which was largely aimed at making the country independent of foreign ordinance.

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