Anchor order
In historical seafaring, anchoring order denotes a military tactical alignment of sailing ships of an anchored war fleet or an anchored association .
History / development
With the keel line formation successfully used by the Portuguese in naval battles for the first time at the beginning of the 16th century , this naval war tactic spread to other nations, especially in the 17th century, and thus found its way into relevant military publications and regulations of the respective naval armed forces. In 1653, Admiral Robert Blake published the corresponding specifications for the Royal Navy in the English Navy's Fighting Instructions for the first time , which then changed its naval warfare tactics accordingly. The French military tacticians Paul Hoste , Sébastien Bigot de Morogues and Bourde de Villehuet also wrote down national corresponding tactical specifications in the service regulations for the Navy . The Tactique navale , published by Bigot de Morogues in 1763 , was evidently of such excellent quality that it quickly found its way into the English and Dutch-speaking areas through appropriate translations and also influenced the naval tactics of other nations.
As a result, the move was made not only to develop tactics for the battle and for the route to or from the battle, but also to consider how fleets should anchor at certain locations (port, passages, bays) without doing this losing tactical advantages. This positioning of ships, called "anchor order" in some publications, was standardized and also found its way into the naval tactics of the navies of different nations.
Principles and ideal positions
The fundamental advantage of the anchor position of a sailing warship is that, with one or more anchors lowered next to the ship, which act as pivots , it could be maneuvered or rotated using the anchor ropes completely independently of the wind and current, if there was enough water around the anchored ship . As a result, the entire ship and its cannons could be aligned in the direction of the approaching enemy by hauling in or loosening the anchor ropes, thus creating a good starting position for a successful defense. The anchored ships thus became floating batteries .
Ideally, the anchoring ships were positioned so that all conceivable approaches of the enemy were covered and as complete broadsides as possible could be brought to the target, but at the same time an advantageous position for sailing maneuvers from the anchor order was taken.
Although the ships were on the anchor lines, certain precautions were also taken in order to be able to quickly pick up speed or to take certain sailing maneuvers such as marching orders or combat orders . In the ideal case, the ships were positioned perpendicular to the wind on the open sea, which was very favorable for a quick departure and minimized the risk of being thrown ashore by the wind when the anchor was lifted. The ships were anchored in a line at least one cable length apart so as not to collide when lifting anchor. If the entire fleet was unable to anchor in one line, several parallel anchor lines were taken, which were at least 300 fathoms apart.
The anchor lifting was carried out at the same time as possible for ships lying in a line in order to be able to quickly take one of the aforementioned evolutions . Anchoring in one instead of several parallel lines was an advantage here, as marching or line formations could be taken out of the anchor order more quickly. If the ships lay in several parallel lines, the furthest outermost ships lifted their anchors first, followed by those lying next to them, until all ships had sailed in their place of the formation to be taken.
literature
- Eduard Karl Edmanuel Jachmann : General principles of a fleet tactic: after the Dutch tactic of the Knight of Kingsbergen, Berlin, 1850
- HF Rumpf: General Real Encyclopedia of the Entire Art of War, Volume 2, Berlin, 1827
- Sam Willis: Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century: The Art of Sailing Warfare, Boydell Press, Suffolk, 2008
- Nicolas Marie Ozanne: Marine militaire, ou Recueil des differens vaisseaux qui servent à la guerre; Reprint under the title "Die Kriegsflotte" in the military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, 1989
- Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800, p. 94, Press Syndicate Oxford University, Cambridge, 1996
- Eduard Bobrik: General nautical dictionary with factual explanations, Leipzig, 1850
- Wilhelm Riistow: Military hand dictionary. From the standpoint of the latest literature and with the support of experts, Volume 1, Zurich, 1858.
- Georg Dietrich von der Groeben: New War Library: or, Collected Articles on War Studies, Breslau, 1776
- Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn: Explanations for understanding shipping and naval warfare, reference work from 1774, Volume 33, p. 86, Historische Schifffahrt, 2009
- Sir Julian Stafford Corbett: Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816, Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX.
Individual evidence
- ↑ after Jachmann, after von der Groeben, after Rumpf; Ozanne states that there is no special anchoring order in France, as this often depends on the local and weather conditions, but contradicts itself in the same paragraph on p. 88 ff. And specifies specific rules for anchoring. Other authors such as Jachmann, Rumpf and von der Groeben affirm a dedicated anchor order, from which the marching order or even a battle order was adopted as a rule, if there was no time for a marching order
- ↑ after Parker
- ↑ so quoted in Corbett
- ↑ after Willis p. 160
- ↑ after Willis p. 160
- ↑ according to Ozanne, p. 88
- ↑ according to Ozanne, p. 90.