As opposed to current warship, being powerd by relatively clean energy like nuclear power, the manouvering of the first battleships in history relied on clean muscle power. Rows and banks of oarsmen laboured to bring their vessels into contact with each other, and armed men prepared to board and fight hand-to-hand. Later the force of the wind was harnessed through sails to do the work of oarsmen, and in the 14th century gunpowder weapons appeared. In the 19th century the steam engine, replaced the sail at a time when naval guns were becoming more and more accurate and powerful. With the invention of the steam turbine at the turn of the 20th century, warships were able to strike their enemies when they were barely visible on the horizon. 

The first crafts

The first craft fitted purposely to make war were conversions of the dugouts, inflatable bladders, papyrus rafts, or hide boats used in everyday transport. It is probable that the conversion at first consisted a concentration of weapons in the hands of a raiding party. In time conversions added offensive and defensive powers to the craft itself. As vessels became more seaworthy and more numerous, warships designed developed both as marauders and as defenses against marauders. The first craft designed and built especially for combat may have sailed in the fleets of Crete and Egypt 5,000 years ago.

Egypt

The first recorded appearance of warships is on the Nile River, where Egypt's history has centred since antiquity. These boats were built of bundles of reeds lashed together to form a narrow, sharp-ended hull and coated with pitch, and they were hardly suited for tempestuous seas. By 3ooo bc larger wooden seagoing versions of the reed craft sailed for distant cruising, trade, and conquest. Egyptian wooden ships had both oars and sails, being fitted with a bipod (inverted V) mast and a single, large, square sail. The whole mast could be lowered when under oars. Large Egyptian ships had more than 20 oars to a side, with two or more steering oars. The war galley was built to the same pattern but was of stouter construction. Modifications that could be easily incorporated in a merchant ship's hull under construction included elevated decks fore and aft for archers and spearmen, planks fitted to the gunwales to protect the rowers, and a small fighting top high on the mast to accommodate several archers. Some galleys had a projecting ram, well above the waterline, which may have been designed to crash through the gunwale of a foe, ride up on deck, and swamp or capsize him.

Crete

By about 2000 bc Crete had evolved into a naval power and these Minoan maritime people in the eastern Mediterranean. may have been the first to build a warship designed as such from the keel up. Thus it was probably the Minoans who began to differentiate between war craft and merchantmen and between the rowing galley and sailing vessel. Sometime in the 2nd millennium bce the fast fighting so-called "long ships" were narrower, faster, and more agile than the tubby beamy "round ship" (cargo ships). These ships depended on oars when in action, and sails for cruising. The Cretan warship had a single mast and a single bank of oars. The sharply pointed or "beaked" bows suggets an emphasis on the tactical use of the ram.

Phoenicia

At about 1100 bce the Phoenicians dominated the eastern Mediterranean for about three centuries. Information about Phoenician ships is fragmentary, but they appear to have been built primarily for trading, with a capacity to fight effectively if necessary. Phoenician trading ships were apparently galleys, mounting a single pole mast with a square sail and with steering oars to port and starboard. Their war galleys show a Cretan influence: low in the bow, high in the stern, and with a heavy pointed ram at or below the waterline. Oars could be carried in a staggered, two-bank arrangement, allowing more oars to be mounted in a ship of a given length and increasing power and momentum. Because the ram was the principal weapon, the vessel's slender build and greater rowing power were important in providing more speed for the decisive shock of battle.

Greece

Unlike the Egyptians, for whom wood was scarce and costly, the Aegean peoples had an abundance of timber for length of over 120 metres (400 feet) and calling for a crew of 4,000 rowers. The vessel was never actually used. (The multiplicity of "banks," once a puzzle to historians, signifies the number of rowers on each oar or row of oars rather than an almost unimaginable vertical piling-up of banks.)

Until the late 4th century bce, maneuver, marines, and the ram constituted a warship's offensive strength, and archers provided close-in fire. At the end of the century, Demetrius I Poliorcetes of Macedonia was credited with introducing heavy missile weapons on ships. He started a trend that has continued to the present day. Demetrius' ships mounted crossbow-like catapults, for hurling heavy darts, and stone-throwing machines of the type the Romans later called ballistae. From this time on, large warships carried these weapons, enabling them to engage a foe at standoff ranges, though ramming and boarding also continued. Temporary wooden turrets — forecastles and sterncastles — were similarly fitted to provide elevated platforms for archers and stingers.

Following the fragmentation of the brief empire of Alexander the Great, sea power developed elsewhere. The city-state of Rhodes built a small but competent fleet to protect its vital shipping. Meanwhile to the west, Carthage, a state with ancient maritime origins, rose to prominence on the north coast of Africa and by about 300 bce had become the foremost Mediterranean naval power. Carthage's navy consisted probably of the same ram-galley types developed by its ancestral Phoenicians and by the Greeks.

Rome

Coincidentally, across the sea to the north the city-state of Rome expanded to include most of the southern Italian peninsula, with its extensive seacoast and maritime heritage. Rome's growth southward collided with Carthage's ambitions in Sicily, leading to the First Punic War, which began in 264 BCE. Unlike their seafaring opponents, the Romans were not a naval power. When in the fourth year of the war Carthage sent a fleet against Sicily, Rome realized its fatal disadvantage and moved to remedy it. The Greek city-states it had conquered had long seagoing experience. Employing their shipbuilders and learning also from the foe, Rome built a fleet of triremes and quinqueremes, the latter patterned after a Carthaginian warship that ran aground in Roman territory early in the war.

Not content with copying the enemy's tactics, the Romans took land warfare to sea and forced the Carthaginians to fight on Roman terms. Each Roman galley had fitted in the bow a hinged gangplank with a grappling spike or hook (the corvus) in the forward end, thus providing a boarding ramp. They added to the crews many more marines than warships usually carried.

The Phoenicians and Greeks had emphasized ramming, with boarding as a secondary tactic. A Roman captain rammed and then dropped the gangplank. Ram and corvus locked the galleys together, and the Roman marines boarded, overwhelming the opponent. The Roman fleet had extraordinary success in the great naval Battle of Mylae off northeast Sicily, destroying or capturing 44 ships and 10,000 men. After other victories, and some defeats, by the end of the First Punic War, 241 BCE, Rome had become the leading sea power.

As the Roman navy evolved, so did its warships. Though pictorial evidence is ambiguous, it seems clear that the gangplank and corvus disappeared as the Romans gained experience in sea warfare. Later Roman warships appear to have been conventional fully decked ram-galleys mounting one or two wooden turrets (probably dismountable) for archers. To the single mast with rectangular sail was added a bowsprit carrying a small sail, the artemon. Falces, or long spars tipped with blades, were used by Julius Caesar's fleet against the sailing vessels of the Veneti of northwestern Gaul to cut their rigging and immobilize them. Catapults and ballistae served as mechanical artillery, and it was under their fire that Caesar's legions landed in England.

Early Roman warships were all large; to escort merchantmen and combat pirates Rome found need for a lighter type, the liburnian. Probably developed by the pirates themselves, this was originally a light, fast unireme to which the Romans added a second bank of oars. In the Battle of Actium, 31 bce, Octavian's skilled fleet commander, Agrippa, used his liburnians to good effect. Although polyremes continued to be built after Actium, the liburnian became the predominant Roman man-of-war.

The Byzantine empire

With the breakup of the western Roman Empire, naval organization and activity in the west decayed. In the eastern Roman Empire, however, the need for Bea power wag well appreciated. During the 11 centuries that the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople, the Byzantine rulers maintained a highly organized fleet. Their original type of warship was the liburnian, called in Greek the dromOn; it was built in several different sizes, the heavier designed to bear the weight of battle and the lighter single-bank dromons serving as cruisers and scouts.

Throughout the eastern Roman Empire's existence warships changed little except in rig and armament. An average large dromon measured up to 46 metres (ISO feet) in length, with 100 oars and one or two fighting towers for marines. At some point early in the Christian era, the lateen sail, three-cornered and suspended from an angled yard, probably adopted from the Arabs, came into general use. Eastern warships had two or three masts. In a departure from classical customs, these were left in place in battle. Contemporary pictures show rams above the waterline.

Missile-launching weapons grew in size, some hurling projectiles as large as 450 kg (1,000 pounds) up to 685 metres (750 yards). Greek fire, a combustible material for setting fire to enemy ships, was invented in the 7th century cIr earlier. The various compounds passing under the name used a blend of some of the following: pitch, oil, charcoal, sulfur, phosphorus, and salt. As the composition of Greek fire was improved, tubes shaped into the mouths of savage monsters were placed in the bows of war galleys and the flaming substance, which water merely spread, was hurled on the enemy. Greek fire was an important factor in terrifying and repelling the Muslim fleet in sieges of Constantinople from the early 8th century on.

Viking Vessels

By the beginning of the Viking period, about Boo ce, the early and primitive Scandinavian craft had evolved into the well-known Viking ship, a sturdy, double-ended, clinker-built (i.e., with overlapping planks) galley put together with iron naib and caulked with tarred rope. It had a mast and square sail, which was lowered in battle; high bow and stern, with removable dragon heads; and a single side rudder on the starboard (steer-board) quarter.

Viking vessels were essentially large open boats. Like the Homeric Greeks, the Vikings at first made no distinction between war and caTgo ships, the same vessel serving either purpose as the occasion demanded. Later, however, they built larger ships specifically designed for war. By 1000 ce they sailed three categories of these: those with fewer than 20 thwarts (40 rowers); those with up to 30: and the "great ships" with more than 30, which might be considered the battleship of the time. Expensive and unwieldy, though formidable in battle, the great ships were never numerous. The middle group, maneuverable and fast, proved most valuable.

Viking "long ships" played an important role in exploration (reaching Greenland and America before Columbus), in the consolidation of kingdoms in Scandinavia, and in far-ranging raids and conquests. In them the Norsemen invaded the British Isles and establishedthemselves in Normandy, whence their descendants under William Ithe Conqueror crossed the Channel in 1066.

The age of guns and sails

To about the end of the nth century, the typical ship in northern European waters remained a clinker-built, single-masted, square-rigged descendant of the long ship. In that century, and even more in the 14th, changes began that would bring an end to the long dominance of the oar in battle. About 1200 CE came one of the great steps in the history of sail: the introduction, probably in the Netherlands, of the stern rudder. This rudder, along with the deep-draft hull, the bowsprit and, in time, additional masts, transformed the long ship into the true sailing ship, which could beat into the wind as well as sail with it.

Until the 15th century, northern ships probably continued to have single masts, though in the Mediterranean a two-mast rig carrying lateen (fore-and-aft) sails had existed for some time. Then change came rapidly in the north, spurred on by Henry V of England's construction of large and strongly built warships for his cross-Channel French campaigns. The remains of one of these, the GrUce Dieu, reflected the clinker-built construction of the Viking long ship, but they had a keel to beam ratio of about 2.5:1 and now carried a second mast.

Some historians believe that the Grâce Dieu carried a third mast. At any rate, in a few decades ships had three and, by the end of the century, large vessels mounted four masts carrying eight or more sails. A three-master carried a large sail on each mast and in addition a main topsail and the spritsail under the bowsprit — the rig, in fact, of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria in 1492. Ships, no longer dependent on fair winds, could and did range the world.

The beamier round sailing ship used for commerce also became the warship when the need arose. In times of war, temporary wooden castles were added at the bow and stern to provide bulwarked platforms for archers and stingers. A complement of men-at-arms embarked, in addition to the ship's seamen. Tectics were usually simple and straightforward, opposing fleets closing and attempting to beat down each other's archers before grappling and boarding. At war's end, off came the castles, and the ship went back to trading.

The trading vessel that could be promptly adapted to war did not, however, fulfill the need of the European nations for navies. The coming of gunpowder and the period of world exploration brought changes that were to cause the sailing man-of-war to become more and more distinct from the merchantman.

Gun-armed warships

The employment of guns afloat, bringing a slow but progressive revolution in warship construction and naval tactics had its first small beginnings by the 14th century. The first guns used at sea, undoubtedly hand weapons, were probably in Mediterranean galleys in the nth or early 14th century. Such weapons played a minor role. In fact, in the numerous sea battles of the Greeks, Genoese, Moors, Turks, and Venetians during this period there is no mention of guns. But by the middle of the 14th century, the English, French, Spanish, and other navies mounted guns. Most were relatively small swivel pieces or breech-loading deck guns located in the castles fore and aft, but heavier guns were added later. The Mediterranean galleys of Venice, Turkey, and Spain at first simply mounted a heavy gun rigidly in a timber bed that was fixed to fire the gun forward over the bow. By the late isth century these rigid mounts gave way to sliding mounts for the main centreline bow gun, as the pieces were called. Though some of these pieces were quite large, the light structure of a galley meant that there was only one large gun per vessel. 

European guns were originally built up of wrought-iron bars welded together to form a tube, then banded with a thick iron hoop. Initially, they were breech-loaders with an open trough at the rear of the barrel through which the ball was loaded and a cylindrical chamber, filled with powder, inserted and wedged tight. They were replaced after 1500 by brass muzzle-loaders, cast in one piece. Some of these muzzle-loaders attained great size for their day; by the mid-16th century even some 60-pounders (firing 60-pound [27-kg] solid shot) were mounted in the largest ships. In this century also, increasing knowledge of iron metallurgy led to the production of cast-iron cannon that slowly replaced the brass guns in ships, though brass remained predominant for the lighter calibre well into the 19th century.

The Portuguese and Spanish, and then the French, seem to have been the first to cover transoceanic distances with cannon-armed warships. Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in India in 1498 with a squadron of cannon-armed carracks, and the Portuguese gained a number of signal victories over their Muslim opponents in the East in the early years of the 16th century using standoff artillery tactics that their foes could not match. The Spanish were patrolling the waters of the Caribbean in ships well-provided with wrought-iron breech-loading cannon by the 1520s or 30s, if not before, and heavily armed French raiders were not far behind.

Henry VII of England created the first true oceangoing battle fleet. The "king's ships" carried many guns, but most of these weapons were small breechloaders. Following him, Henry VIII initiated gun-ports in English warships, a development that was to have a far-reaching effect on man-of-war design. Neither stability nor structural strength favoured heavy guns in the high castles built upon the deck, so that Henry's introduction of gunports, at first low in the waist of the ship and afterward along the full broadside, made possible the true heavy-gun warship. The cutting of gunports in the hull must also have been a factor in causing the northern nations to shift from clinker-built ships to caravels with Rush-fitting planks, a change that took place in the early 1500s.

The armament of an English man-ofwar of the early 16th century consisted of four or five short-barreled cannon, or curtails, a similar number of demicannon, and culverins. The average cannon, a short-range gun, hurled an iron ball of about So pounds (23 kg), and the demicannon one of 32 pounds (14 kg). The culverin, a longer and stronger gun, fired a smaller shot over a longer range and was likely to be more accurate at other of 28 or more ship-smashing guns, a much heavier armament in proportion to their size than their predecessors. For their handy, maneuverable ships, the British had relatively large cannon carried in broadsides. Thus they were designed for off-fighting, permitting the English fleet to get the most out of its ships' superior maneuvering qualities. When the Spanish Armada arrived in 1588, the British sought and fought a sea battle with ship-killing guns, rather than the conventional fleet engagement of the past that concentrated on ramming, boarding, and killing men in hand-tohand combat. With superior ability and long-range culverins, the English ships punished the invading fleet outside the effective range of the heavy but shorter-range cannon the Spanish favoured. This historic running battle of July i588 closed one era and opened a greater one of big-gun sailing navies.

Ship of the line

The late Elizabethan galleon that began the true fighting ship of the line reached its culmination in England's Prince Royal of 1610 and the larger Sovereign of the Seas of 1637, along with similar great ships in other European navies. These two English ships mounted broadside guns on three decks; the Sovereign of the Seas, the most formidable ship afloat of its time, carried 100 guns. In this mobile fortress displacing approximately 1500 tons, there was some reduction of height; the bonaventure mizzen disappeared, leaving the standard three masts that capital ships thereafter carried.

Soon ships began to be standardized into different categories. James I organized his ships into four ranks, and, by the mid-nth century, six "rates" existed as a general concept, though not yet a system. The number of guns a ship carried determined its rate, with a first-rater mounting lex) guns and a sixth-rater 18. An important improvement came in the standardization of batteries in the higher rates so that guns on the same deck were of the same weight and calibre rather than mixed, as originally in the Sovereign of the Seas. Near the end of the century, guns began to be described by their weight and calibre, with the 32-pounder long gun favoured as the standard  lower-deck weapon for british warships.

The frequent hard-fought sea battles of the 17th century, particularly in the Anglo-Outch wars, led to the column formation of heavy warships called line ahead. In the line formation, each warship followed in the wake of the ship ahead so that every ship in the line had a clear field of fire for a broadside discharge of its guns. The adoption of line-ahead tactics made it necessary to standardize the battle line, which had consisted of ships of widely varying strength. Now only the more powerful warships were considered suitable "to lie in the line of battle". Hence the origin by the 1700s of the term line-of-battle ship, or the ship of the line, and, in the second half of the 19th century, the derived term battleship — ships that could hit the hardest and endure the most punishment.

Some first-raters were built to carry as many as 136 guns, but, because the biggest ships were often cumbersome, relatively few were built. The handier 74-gun third-rater proved particularly successful, combining sufficient hitting power with better speed and maneuverability. Most of the ships of the line of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were 74s. One of these might be approximately 50 metres (163 feet) long with two full gun decks, the lower mounting the heaviest guns, by the Napoleonic Wars usually 32-pounders.The upper gun deck customarily carried 24-pounders, while the forecastle and quarterdeck mounted lighter guns. The bigger ships were similar but had three covered gun decks instead of two. Viscount Nelson's Victory, launched in 1765 and preserved in dry dock as it was at Trafalgar in 1805, is a classic example of this powerful type.

Warships gradually improved in design through the 17th and 19th centuries. New types of sails, providing more canvas and more versatile combinations for varying weather conditions, such as staysails and the jib sail, came into use in the 17th century. Soon thereafter the steering wheel replaced the old whip staff, or tiller. 

And here is where the ships of the Battle of Trafalgar enters, a battle we have covered in one of our monthly feature articles.

Frigates and Smaller Vessels

Ships of the line, first to fourth rates, had strong, fast frigates as consorts. This ancestor of the modern cruiser evolved during the mid-18th century for scouting, patrol, and escort, as well as for attacking enemy merchantmen. The frigate carried its main battery on a single gun deck, with other guns on forecastle and quarterdeck. Like ships of the line, they varied in size and armament, ranging from about 24 guns in early small frigates to as many as 56 in some of the last. Two classic examples, still preserved, are the U.S. Navy's Constitution, with 44 guns, and Constellation, with 38.

Smaller vessels aided frigates in their blockade, escort, commerce raiding, and other duties. The single-masted cutter served as scout and coastal patrol craft. Brig and schooner-rigged types, generally called sloops of war, by the time of the American Revolution grew into the three-masted, square-rigged "ship sloop." Called a corvette on the Continent, the fast ship sloop complemented frigates on the fringes of the fleet. Smaller sloops, schooners, brigs, and luggers were widely used for special service. Fleets also needed ordnance and supply ships and other auxiliaries; these were usually merchantmen taken into service in war emergency. Converted merchantmen, such as John Paul Jones's Bonhomme Richard, often played combat roles. Fleets also had various special types, such as fire ships and bomb ketches. The latter, with two large mortars hurling bombs of about 90 kg (200 pounds), were developed by France in the late 1600s and were used with devastating effect against Barbary pirate ports.