tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post7234126524130979280..comments2024-03-21T14:41:14.622-07:00Comments on Graphic Firing Table: Decisive Battles: Lepanto 1571FDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-45633405912442768962008-10-10T00:13:00.000-07:002008-10-10T00:13:00.000-07:00mike: the difference would have been, I think, tha...mike: the difference would have been, I think, that the Spanish had the only vessels capable of moving in a calm. They could have rowed their galleys and galeasses to a point where the English couldn't hit them (at an angle to teh bow or stern, say) and used the bow chasers to hammer away.<BR/><BR/>But I think in the larger sense, you're right: the English were on to the path to the true line-of-battleship. The Spanish had turned into the cul-de-sac of the galleass and the galleon. Armada was pretty much over before the fleets even met...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-59749379925623341132008-10-09T21:39:00.000-07:002008-10-09T21:39:00.000-07:00Chief -Again you are stretching my synapses. I ne...Chief -<BR/><BR/>Again you are stretching my synapses. I need to dust off my copy of Don Quixote. Didn't Cervantes allude to a renegade Spanish or Italian admiral in the services of the Sultan? Amazing that many of the Ottoman captains and admirals started out as privateers or Barbary pirates. Sounds very much like Hawkins, Frobisher, Drake and Raleigh. Too bad that Ali Pasha was more of a land soldier and not a former privateer.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the 'what if' of the Armada catching the Brits off Sardinia rather than in the Channel in October, you are undoubtedly right about the possibility of the table being turned in that case. But I believe that would be more due to the logistics tail and lack of close allies in the area, and have nothing to do with the weather and sea state in the Mediterranean. The English ships would have prevailed even in a bathtub. They had better mobility, like the Ottomans had with their rowed galleys prior to Lepanto. And with the deeper keels and lower castles on the upper deck of the English ships they made a more stable gun platform. They deliberately armed them with longer range cannon because at shorter range they were at the mercy of the devastating downward sweep of fire from the towers of the Spanish ships which would have raked their decks from above. <BR/><BR/>The galleons of the Armada made bigger targets. They were magnificently decorated, but unwieldly. Drake compared them to <I>"gaudy women great with child"</I>. They lumbered along at an average speed of about two knots. They too carried long range guns but were not mobile enough to use them effectively. Calm weather and seas would have made no difference.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-85832466351821215302008-10-09T20:14:00.000-07:002008-10-09T20:14:00.000-07:00Lisa: "I hold out that there are bondings of love ...Lisa: <I>"I hold out that there are bondings of love which transcend such pettiness, but they are rare."</I><BR/><BR/>Indeed. I have loved some magnificent women, but never have I found a love completely free of power-struggles. I would own the fault myself, save for I suspect, as you say, that those of us capable of loving without competing are rare and old souls, indeed...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-31189353531841652552008-10-09T17:38:00.000-07:002008-10-09T17:38:00.000-07:00Alas, the gorgon Babs Bush...nary a whit of femini...Alas, the gorgon Babs Bush...nary a whit of femininity to be seen there. I always thought HW to be the femme in that pair bond.<BR/><BR/>The jockeying for power is perhaps a forever thing--the "I Love Lucy" syndrome. It is either overt or covert. I hold out that there are bondings of love which transcend such pettiness, but they are rare.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-43833334189909730632008-10-09T16:35:00.000-07:002008-10-09T16:35:00.000-07:00Lisa: "Women have tended to maneuver to best advan...Lisa: <I>"Women have tended to maneuver to best advantage while operating within various constrictions."</I> Ouch! I have to agree - but am ashamed to admit that us Y-chromosome types have a lot to answer for...<BR/><BR/>Strange how the whole GWB farrago has played out without a smidgen of romance and only the horrific gorgon figure of Barbara Bush as the female power player. Another reason to loathe the loyal Bushies.<BR/><BR/>mike: I think a lot of it had to do with the fact, despite being more thought of as a land power, that the Ottomans had never lost a sea battle since the 15th Century. They and their Barbary allies were a caution at sea, and like all winners, they stood pat with what they knew. It was the long-whipped Europeans who needed a new paradigm and boy, did they find it!<BR/><BR/>Same-same with Spain ten years later. They sent the best technical and tactical organization that they had - the galleys and galeasses that had done so well at Lepanto. But the Brits had been pioneering a whole NEW paradigm: the all-heavy-gun all-sailing ship. This was forced on them by the heavy weather in the North Atlantic rather than by design, and if the Armada had caught them off Sardinia rather than in the Channel in October...well, they didn't, and we know the rest.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-12724722623372657702008-10-09T15:54:00.000-07:002008-10-09T15:54:00.000-07:00Odd that the Ottomans used a fleet of under-gunned...Odd that the Ottomans used a fleet of under-gunned galleys. Consider that just a century earlier they had breached the fortifications of Constantinople with what was at that time the greatest artillery train in the world. Their siege guns included a super bombard that threw a cannon ball of 800 pounds. Not bad for the 15th Century! <BR/><BR/>But siege guns are probably not the best choice to mount on a platform that pitches and rolls. And the Ottoman were basically a continental land power. They saw the requirement for sea power but were never comfortable with it. They basically depended on their Greek subjects from the Aegean and Ionian littorals for expertise in naval warfare. <BR/><BR/>I think a major fallout of Lepanto was overconfidence and overreach by Spain. Less than two decades later, Phillip II sent a fleet to England that included many of the same naval allies from the Holy League at Lepanto. Most of the Tercios on board drowned - or if their ships later wrecked on shore - they were robbed, stripped and murdered by Scots and Irish looters. <BR/><BR/>Much has been said about the divine wind. But it was Brit seamanship, ship design, longer-range ship cannon, and fire-ships that bested the Armada. I am sure the Ottomans (like the Spanish after the Armada) had much to say about wind or fate or somesuch defeating them at Lepanto.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-12578610942868215332008-10-09T14:19:00.000-07:002008-10-09T14:19:00.000-07:00"she must have loved him to the degree her positio..."she must have loved him to the degree her position allowed" --<BR/><BR/>well, that is the crux of the biscuit. Women have tended to maneuver to best advantage while operating within various constrictions. Perhaps that is why men, if they love, love more freely and with less design.<BR/><BR/>Excellent point that the tragedy in an absolute monarchy has far-reaching repercussions. It will be the same with our own Selim, GWB, and his (un)constitutional monarchy, the unitary executivehood.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-90960512040854846282008-10-09T10:57:00.000-07:002008-10-09T10:57:00.000-07:00ael: Good point. Until the 16th and 17th Centurie...ael: Good point. Until the 16th and 17th Centuries the Ottomans had the immense advantage of a professional, meritocratic civil service and a trained military force that no individual European principality (let alone the bizarre artifacts like the religious orders of knighthood) could match. But competition with and imitation of the Ottoman system gradually produced similar professional organizations like the politicomilitary bureacracies of the Hapsburgs and true nation-states in France, Spain, Austria...while the Ottomans degerated into a corrupt and inefficient slough run from the harem in Topkapi.<BR/><BR/>Lisa: I couldn't agree more. We tend to forget, in our accounts of dry history texts, that "history" was the current events of the day, and that loves and hates, jealousies and camraderies made it then as they do now.<BR/><BR/>I've always had a sort of wry affection for Suleiman and his "Roxana". I don't know if it's a question of the depth of love. He very obviously truly loved her. And I suspect that she must have loved him to the degree her position allowed. But that was just it: he was free to give or withhold his affection without reservation. She was terribly boxed in by her position and the lethal rivalries of the harem. Nothing I can think of shows the toxicity and fallacy of the notion of a "harem" than the lengths she was forced to go to knowing that if Mustafa ascended to the <I>cadi</I> her children would be murdered. Their story is really a tragedy, and in that in an absolute monarchy a tragedy for the rulers is often a tragedy for the ruled, beyond just a "Chuck and Di" palace soap opera.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-20201383507256919202008-10-09T09:55:00.000-07:002008-10-09T09:55:00.000-07:00What a wonderful analysis, thank you.Military tact...What a wonderful analysis, thank you.<BR/><BR/>Military tactics not being my strong suit, I am fascinated by the psychology. How could the wise Suleiman be so blind to his Roxane and her feeble Selim? This is not the first time in history of such things. "When a Man Loves a Woman"... Some say men love more deeply than women (when they do.)Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-82421847107422489832008-10-08T22:48:00.000-07:002008-10-08T22:48:00.000-07:00Lepanto also demonstrated the need for technical e...Lepanto also demonstrated the need for technical excellence and an organized bureaucracy. Those ships (and the men fighting them) were insanely expensive. <BR/>Furthermore, a ruler couldn't throw them all on the shore during peace and still expect a navy when war came.<BR/><BR/>Given the obvious value of a navy (and the requisite cash flow to sustain them), national institutions (and nationalism itself) were given a powerful boost. Kings and merchant towns were winners, feudal lords were losers.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.com