Fire
A Brander or fire ship is the name of a military ship type, at least from the ancient times was used to until the early modern period as a means of naval warfare. This type of ship is an old warship loaded with flammable materials or explosives that was driven onto enemy ships or sailed and then set alight to set them on fire. This application was most widespread in the days of sailing ships .
history
The first use of incendiary ships was known in antiquity as part of the Athenian expedition to Sicily (415–413 BC) and during the siege of Tire (332 BC).
In Chinese records, the incendiary ship is listed as the decisive means of action in the context of the Battle of the Red Rock (AD 208). From other records from the 11th century at the time of the Song dynasty , pictures of fire are preserved, so that the use outside of Europe and the use both at the beginning of the Christian era as well as in the Middle Ages is documented.
However, Brander mainly represented an important weapon in naval warfare from the 13th to the 17th century.
A last use in the context of a major battle apparently took place in the Greek struggle for freedom 1821-29.
With the increasing spread of steam drives in ships at the beginning to the middle of the 19th century and later with the construction of iron warships and the further development of ship guns, incendiary ships became superfluous, at least in Europe.
Structure and function of a fire
Usually smaller, outdated and therefore dispensable ships (e.g. disused sloops , pinnaces ) were converted for use with burners. On many paintings from that time, however, larger ships are depicted that show the use of fire, so that the use of 20 gunships and ships of similar size is also documented.
A so-called firebox was set up on board the respective ship, which was mostly closed off from the other rooms below deck between the bow and the main mast by a bulkhead or a crate. The firebox was filled with bundles of sedge , heaps of hemp , shavings, tow and bushes, all of which were in turn doused with flammable liquids.
On a scaffolding or on stanchions, wooden pipes or channels with resin inside were laid in several parallel rows along the entire length and width of this furnace, which were connected to one another and in which the wildfire required to ignite the main fuel ran along.
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On each side of the fire there were usually five to six hatches closed by flaps , which, in contrast to gun ports , could be opened from top to bottom by a hinge attached to the bottom. In front of each of these locked hatches was installed a ten- inch long iron tube, five inches in diameter, closed at the rear, which can also be called a chamber gun . These chamber guns were loaded exclusively with powder and a wooden plug was hammered into the barrel in front of the propellant charge. In use, the chamber guns were later fired by the kindled wildfire through a fuse in the ignition hole, so that the previously closed hatches were blown open by the shots and the conflagration spreading in the firebox could be given more activity by the additional fresh air flowing in.
Below the main and foremast shrouds, vertical tubes were attached in the firebox, under which a fire barrel stood. These tubes were covered with wooden plugs and a tarred tarpaulin on deck , in order to prevent an unintentional ignition or an ignition aimed at by the enemy . Immediately before the ignition, both were removed, so that the fire kindled in the firebox could quickly spread through the vertical tubes to the shrouds and the rest of the rigging of the incendiary ship.
The fire barrels as well as the fuel materials listed above such as bushes, shavings, sedge, etc. Ä. were with a in alcohol provided dipped and sprinkled with fine gunpowder Baumwolllunte and could so time delay are ignited (an).
There were also two other small hatches embedded in the upper deck , through which the ignited fire could then also spread well on deck, especially since the upper deck planks were specially resinated for this.
On the sides of the fire, pieces of canvas mixed with sulfur and gunpowder , so-called fire shirts, were hung, which could be ignited with a pistol shot.
Since a fire could not be controlled and ignited by a single person, there were also crew, officer and captain's cabins on board, which were located in exactly this order behind the sealed-off firebox and in which the ship's crew was accommodated according to their rank. Crew strengths of 10 to 12 sailors have been handed down, who received double pay because of the high level of self-endangerment.
Use in battle
In the battle, the fire went behind the line (s) of his own warships. This usually prevented it from being ignited by enemy fire before it was used. The ship was provided with Enterdreggen at the nocks and sailed towards the enemy while the battle had begun. On the way there, the protective covers of the vertical tubes and the fire barrels were removed, making them ready for use.
The fire then sailed through its own lines towards a certain ship and ideally hooked the boarding drags on the enemy ship, while the own ship's crew also tried to tie up on the enemy ship with grappling hooks . The ideal position for a fire attack was a bow-to-bow position, as the enemy could not get on the burning ship and countermeasures were hardly possible. If the fire got close enough to the enemy or even succeeded in mooring, the captain ignited the two tubes going out from the firebox with wildfire and went with the rest of the crew via a hatch attached to a dinghy and rowed hurry off.
The flames of the burning fire hooked onto the outer wall of the ship to be destroyed then spread to the enemy ship and ideally ensured that the fire that broke out here made it incapable of fighting or maneuvering. Not infrequently, the action ended with the total loss of the enemy ship if the fire could not be extinguished in time and it reached the powder chambers.
Defense against a fire
In order to defend oneself against an incendiary ship - i.e. if evasive maneuvers with one's own ship or attempts to sink the fire were unsuccessful or not possible - fire hooks were used. Fire hooks were strong trees or spars by the gun ports were applied, in order to prevent the Brander at hooking on own ship's hull.
However, it was most expedient to send out armed dinghies in the direction of the incendiary ship and to hijack this or the escape boat.
The strategic importance of fires in battle
Fires were used particularly successfully against anchored fleets , as they could not get to safety quickly enough. For the same reasons, sailing fleets sometimes had to perform breakneck evasive maneuvers. As a result, the order of an attacked fleet could dissolve, which often led to defeat. A well-known example of this is the fate of the Spanish Armada , which suffered a defeat against an English fleet with just eight incendiary ships.
The effect of incendiary ships could be more devastating than gunfire, since the rigging , sails and hulls of the wooden sailors were often bone dry and also sealed against moisture with tar . Completely undamaged ships could therefore be almost completely in flames in a few minutes and had to be abandoned.
Special forms
In addition to the fires described above, there were also special forms of incendiary ships.
Some historians consider these incendiary ships, known as the hell machine or hellfire , to be one of the first weapons of mass destruction. There were also other forms of ships that were specially constructed to cause considerable fire damage to the enemy, but did not have to be ignited in order to pursue this goal.
Dutch Hellfire (Antwerp Fire)
Dutch Hellbrander (Dutch: Hellbrander ), also known as the Antwerp Fire , was first mentioned in the chronicles of the siege of Antwerp of 1584/1585. On April 5, 1585, they were used on the Dutch Scheldt near Antwerp against Spanish troops. Constructed by the Italian war builder Federigo Giambelli , they were used here against a ship blockade bridge reinforced with garrisons .
It was not possible to destroy the bridge and restore the navigability of the river, but one of the unmanned Hellbrander ran into a part of the bridge near the garrison located there and exploded here. The explosion and the damage it caused apparently killed almost 1,000 soldiers in one fell swoop. The explosion must have been so significant that it was a very memorable experience even for surviving war-experienced eyewitnesses.
English infernal machines
A British bomb (English: infernal machine or light burner ) was an armored fire ship, which was further developed on Dutch design patterns of hell fire-ships based on the English and on November 27, 1693 St. Malo for the first time was used. The aim was to destroy the fortified city of St. Malo with such a ship, but this did not succeed because the unmanned infernal machine ran aground before reaching the fortification walls. Another use of English infernal machines became known as part of an attack on a pier in the French port city of Dieppe in 1693 as part of the Nine Years War .
Structure and functionality
English infernal machines as well as Dutch infernal fires were ships that were loaded with the fuels customary for incendiary ships. In addition, these were equipped with a considerable number of black powder barrels in the firebox and thus represented floating bombs that were detonated by a combined clockwork and flintlock mechanism or another ignition delay mechanism .
In addition to the combustible and explosive materials described above, there were also scrap metal parts (e.g. plowshares), tombstones and marble balls on board, which had a shotgun-like function due to the explosion of the gunpowder barrels and could result in serious or even fatal injuries if These were accelerated by the pressure wave directly on people in the vicinity of the explosion or simply rained down. Buildings and fortifications could also be severely damaged. The upper deck of the ships was often still covered with granite slabs, so that on the one hand there was a protective function against enemy fire and granite splinters or whole granite slabs impacting had correspondingly damaging effects on the enemy as part of the intended explosion.
In addition to the devastating consequences of the explosion, the fuel originally loaded on the ships ultimately ensured that additional fires broke out in many places around the periphery of the source of the explosion.
Missile ships
This form of incendiary ships did not have to be ignited and could even attack from a certain distance. These ships were armed with incendiary missiles and could attack land and water targets. Although these rockets were relatively unreliable and also very imprecise, they could cause serious fires in the enemy. In addition, this weapon, in combination with bomb fire, had a demoralizing effect that should not be underestimated.
In contrast to the aforementioned incendiary ships, the crew of a rocket ship was considerably larger, as the many rocket launching devices had to be operated in addition to the seamen required to move the ship.
See also
literature
- Peter Kirsch: Fireship. The terror weapon of the age of sail . Seaforth Publ., Barnsley 2009, ISBN 978-1-84832-025-3
- Fire . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 3, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 320. Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. 4th edition. Volume 3, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1885–1892, p. 320.
- Fire . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 3, pp. 418–419.
- Online universal lexicon "Academic" accessed on September 7, 2012
- Wujing Zongyao Military Manuscript, China, 1044
- Joseph Needham: Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology; the Gunpowder Epic
- Eduard Bobrik: General nautical dictionary with factual explanations . Leipzig 1850, p. 560.
- Georg Dietrich von der Groeben : Explanations for understanding shipping and sea warfare according to alphabetical order. Breßlau 1774. Reprint: Neufahrn / Percha 1984, ISBN 3-88706-235-3 .
- Robert L. O'Connell: Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression . Oxford University Press, New York 1989, p. 199, cap. Death Machine, Hellburners of Antwerp.
- Garrett Mattingly: The Armada . Mariner Books, New York 1959, pp. 143 ff.
- Cathal J. Nolan: Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715 . In: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization . Greenwood Press, Westwood USA 2008, p. 213 ff.
- John Lothrop Motley: History of the Netherlands . 1846, Vol. 2 of 4, p. 349 ff .; republished 2008, Forgotten Books, forgottenbooks.org
- David Stephen Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler: Encyclopedia of the War Of 1812 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1997 p. 23ff.
- Johann Hinrich Röding: Brander. In: General dictionary of the Navy in all European maritime languages with complete explanations . Nemnich, Hamburg & JJ Gebauer, Halle, 1793–1798, Volume 1, Col. 368–372.
Individual evidence
- ↑ to the universal lexicon "Academic"
- ↑ after Bobrick, p. 137
- ↑ this definition is the most common and applies to most incendiary ships. Special forms of incendiary ships can also be included in some cases. A few exceptions to the special forms, however, cannot be included, because although these were also developed for burning enemies, the constructional design differs somewhat
- ↑ Brander . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 3, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 320.
- ↑ Brander . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 3, pp. 418–419.
- ↑ Thucydides 7.53.4
- ^ To Wujing Zongyao Military Manuscript and to Needham
- ↑ to the universal lexicon "Academic"
- ↑ According to von der Groeben and Bobrick, the European perspective of the 19th century is given here as an example
- ↑ to von der Groeben
- ↑ The British 20 gunship Dolphin from 1731 was converted into an incendiary ship in 1747 - as shown on a model ship of the Dolphin in the National Maritime Museum, London, United Kingdom. In addition, von der Groeben and Bobrick report on incendiary ships with gun ports, which, however, were only built in from a certain ship size
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ According to vd Groeben, channels covered with sulphurized canvas or ignition cardboard were also used
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick and other sources; Pistol shot means pulling the trigger of a pistol. By the sparks of the located on the gun stone lock the highly flammable fire shirt on fire has been set or other firing mechanism
- ↑ after vd Groeben
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick, confirmed also in vd Groeben
- ↑ after vd Groeben
- ↑ von der Groeben also cites the helmsman here as the one who lights the fire on the fire
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ after Bobrick
- ↑ According to Bobrik: As a countermeasure to the countermeasure, however, the escape boat was often secured against enemy removal with rotating guns and strong chains. According to vdGroeben: In the stern of the fire, cannons were often housed in order to be able to defend against sloops and boats
- ↑ after vd Groeben
- ↑ after O'Connell, Nolan, Mattingly and Motley
- ↑ the two hellbrands were called Glück (Dutch: geluk ) and Hope (Dutch: hopen ). The hope exploded there near a stationed at the bridge garrison
- ↑ after Motley
- ↑ after Motley; He further describes that it rained plowshares, gravestones, marble balls and granite slabs
- ↑ after Nolan
- ↑ after Nolan
- ↑ after Nolan
- ^ After Nolan and after Mattingly
- ↑ after Motley, after Nolan
- ↑ after Nolan and Motley
- ↑ According to Nolan, a garrison of the Spaniards consisting of wooden palisades and wooden buildings was destroyed when the Antwerp fire was used in 1585 on the Scheldt
- ↑ after Motley
- ↑ after Nolan
- ↑ According to Heidler and Heidler, the British rocket ship HMS Erebus was manned by a half- company of Royal Marine Artillery Men