Aries ship
Ram ships (from English ram = ramming spur ) were first used in the Civil War. The first Aries ship was the Manassas in 1861 . After that, the northern states also used the United States Ram Fleet ram ships on the Mississippi River .
After 1866, ram ships were introduced into the Prussian Navy , the German Imperial Navy and the Austro-Hungarian Navy. In the sea battle near Lissa on July 20, 1866, the Austro-Hungarian fleet decided the battle for itself by ramming Italian ships into it. As a result of this battle, the navy at times returned to the ancient ramming tactic.
In the German and Austro-Hungarian navy, warships with a ram bow or ram stem formed the main armament were referred to as "Aries". The name is derived from the animal kingdom, where rams attack their opponent in a duel with rams . The prerequisites for a successful ramming attack at sea should be high speed, great maneuverability, large dead weight and high hull strength of the attacking ship. However, it was not possible to achieve these requirements. Since the development of ship artillery made great progress at the same time, the development of the Aries did not come out of the prototype stage.
The Prussian-German Arminius was because of its sharp Vorstevens z. B. also used as an icebreaker .
The heavily protected variant of the Aries ships was called Panzerwidder or Panzerwidderschiff .
In addition to the ram ships, ramming cruisers and ramming monitors were also built .