Ramspur
Under Rammsporn (or prow) is understood to mean an extension of the bow of a warship . Its purpose is to ram an enemy ship below the waterline and to sink it or make it incapable of maneuver by breaking through the planks .
Ancient origins
According to a picture on an Attic crater, the use of the ram has been in use since at least the middle of the 8th century BC. Occupied. Further representations on a relief from Sennacherib's palace were dated to 701 BC. BC, an inscription on the grave of King Sargon to the 7th century BC. Dated. Phoenician , Greek and Roman warships were regularly equipped with it and until the third century BC. Rams were the essential weapons in naval warfare. From then on, Corvi were increasingly used to board enemy ships. In Greek, the ramspur was called embolon (what is driven into), and in Latin rostrum (which means gnawing). The Romans displayed captured ship's beaks as victory trophies. The place in Rome in question was called rostrum rostra (the ship's beaks) in the Republican period and subsequently referred to a speaker's podium, because speakers used to speak to the people at the same place.
So far, hardly any remains of ancient rams have been recovered. In 1971 the remains of two Punic galleys were found in a lagoon off Stagnone . The ram spur on the keel was still preserved on one. A similar ram was later found off the coast of Israel near Atlit . It is made of bronze and weighs 800 kilograms.
Further development
Despite the development of catapults , which gave new possibilities to naval warfare, the technique of ramming remained important well beyond antiquity. Even if it seldom succeeded in immediately sinking enemy ships, the rudder of the enemy could be sheared off, rendering his ship incapable of maneuvering. The last decisive use of ram spurs came in 1571 in the naval battle of Lepanto . The ramming spurs of the galeas at that time were extremely powerful and iron-reinforced. With the increasing spread of heavy ship artillery, the importance of the ramming spur then decreased. They last played a role to a significant extent in the naval battle of Lissa in 1866. By the First World War , the ram ram on warships had reduced to a ram bow. During the First and Second World Wars , the ramming was almost exclusively used by surface ships against surface submarines .
Parallels
Even in today's ships, the bow tip is often structurally reinforced. Although similar in shape, it is not a ram. Rather, such a bulbous bow serves to reduce the water resistance .
See also
literature
- Stefan Link: Dictionary of Antiquity . Alfred Kröner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-520-09611-0 .
- John Morrison: The Athenian Trireme . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, ISBN 3-8053-1125-7 .
- Bernhard Crochet: History of shipping . Delius Klasing, ISBN 3-7688-0912-9 .
- Björn Landström : The ship . Prisma, Gütersloh 1983
- Olaf Höckmann: Ancient seafaring . CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-30463-X .
- August Köster: The ancient sea creatures . de Gruyter, 1969, ISBN 3-11-001356-8 .
- Jürgen Hausen: Shipbuilding in antiquity . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1979, ISBN 3-7822-0197-3 .
- Arvid Göttlicher: The ships of antiquity . Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 1985, Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1985, ISBN 3-7861-1419-6 .
- Richard Hennig : Treatises on the history of seafaring . Fischer, Jena 1928.
