In Royal Navy jargon, a man-of-war (also man-o'-war, or simply man) [1] [2] was a powerful warship or frigate of the 16th to the 19th century, that was frequently used in Europe. Although the term never acquired a specific meaning, it was usually reserved for a sailing ship armed with cannon. The rating system of the Royal Navy classified men-of-war into six "rates", a "first-rate" having the greatest armament, and a "sixth-rate" the least.
The man-of-war was developed in Portugal in the early 15th century from earlier roundships with the addition of a second mast to form the carrack. The 16th century saw the carrack evolve into the galleon and then the ship of the line. The evolution of the term has been given thus:
man-of-war. "A phrase applied to a line of battle ship, contrary to the usual rule in the English language by which all ships are feminine. It probably arose in the following manner: 'Men of war' were heavily armed soldiers. A ship full of them would be called a 'man-of-war ship.' In process of time the word 'ship' was discarded as unnecessary and there remained the phrase 'a man-of-war.'" – Talbot.
— Henry Frederic Reddall, Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1892, p. 340 [3]
The man-of-war design developed by Sir John Hawkins was a type of galleon which had three masts, each with three to four sails. The ship could be up to 60 metres long and could have up to 124 guns: four at the bow, eight at the stern, and 56 in each broadside. All these cannons required three gun decks to hold them, one more than any earlier ship. It had a maximum sailing speed of eight or nine knots.[ citation needed ]
In ancient Rome, Appias was a statue of a nymph near the Appiades Fountain in the Forum of Caesar. Ovid wrote that the fountain was in the middle of the Temple of Venus Genetrix and surrounded by statues of nymphs who were called "The Appiades". Traditionally the Appiades are said to be of Concordia, Minerva, Pax, Venus, and Vesta.
Henry Grace à Dieu, also known as Great Harry, was an English carrack or "great ship" of the King's Fleet in the 16th century, and in her day the largest warship in the world. Contemporary with Mary Rose, Henry Grace à Dieu was even larger, and served as Henry VIII's flagship. Built by William Bond under the direction of Robert Brygandine, she had a large forecastle four decks high, and a stern castle two decks high. She was 165 feet (50.29 m) long, measuring 1,000 tons burthen and having a complement of 700 men. She was ordered by Henry VIII, probably to replace Grace Dieu, which had been destroyed at the Battle of Saint-Mathieu in August 1512. At a time of naval rivalry with the Kingdom of Scotland, her size was in response to the Scottish ship Great Michael, which had herself been the largest warship when launched in 1511.
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the faction with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower – typically had an advantage.
A broadside is the side of a ship, or more specifically the battery of cannon on one side of a warship or their coordinated fire in naval warfare, or a measurement of a warship's maximum simultaneous firepower which can be delivered upon a single target. From the 16th century until the early decades of the steamship, vessels had rows of guns set in each side of the hull. Firing all guns on one side of the ship became known as a "broadside". The cannon of 18th-century men of war were accurate only at short range, and their penetrating power mediocre, which meant that the thick hulls of wooden ships could only be pierced at short ranges. These wooden ships sailed closer and closer towards each other until cannon fire would be effective. Each tried to be the first to fire a broadside, often giving one party a decisive headstart in the battle when it crippled the other ship.
Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Portugal and Spain and first used as armed cargo carriers by Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the Age of Sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-17th century. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.
A warship or combatant ship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are typically faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew.
The caravel is a small sailing ship that uses both lateen and square sails and was known for its agility and speed and its capacity for sailing windward (beating). Caravels were used by the Portuguese and Spanish for the voyages of exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries, in the Age of Discovery.
The forecastle is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers.
A carrack is a three- or four-masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for European trade from the Mediterranean to the Baltic and quickly found use with the newly found wealth of the trade between Europe and Africa and then the trans-Atlantic trade with the Americas. In their most advanced forms, they were used by the Portuguese for trade between Europe and Asia starting in the late 15th century, before being gradually superseded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by the galleon.
The rating system of the Royal Navy and its predecessors was used by the Royal Navy between the beginning of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th century to categorise sailing warships, initially classing them according to their assigned complement of men, and later according to the number of their carriage-mounted guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy formally came to an end in the late 19th century by declaration of the Admiralty. The main cause behind this declaration focused on new types of gun, the introduction of steam propulsion and the use of iron and steel armour which made rating ships by the number of guns obsolete.
The full-rigged pinnace was the larger of two types of vessel called a pinnace in use from the sixteenth century.
A galley was a type of ship which relied mostly on oars for propulsion that was used for warfare, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during antiquity and continued to exist in various forms until the early 19th century. It typically had a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and often a low freeboard. Most types of galleys also had sails that could be used in favourable winds, but they relied primarily on oars to move independently of winds and currents. The term "galley" originated from a Greek term for a small type of galley and came in use in English from about 1300. It has occasionally been used for unrelated vessels with similar military functions as galley but which were not Mediterranean in origin, such as medieval Scandinavian longships, 16th-century Acehnese ghalis and 18th-century North American gunboats.
Due to centuries of constant conflict, warfare and daily life in the Iberian Peninsula were interlinked. Small, lightly equipped armies were maintained at all times. The near-constant state of war resulted in a need for maritime experience, ship technology, power, and organization. This led the Crowns of Aragon, Portugal, and later Castile, to put their efforts into the sea.
The square-rigged caravel, was a sailing ship created by the Portuguese in the second half of the fifteenth century. A much larger version of the caravel, its use was most notorious beginning in the end of that century. The square-rigged caravel held a notable role in the Portuguese expansion during the Age of Discovery, especially in the first half of the sixteenth century, for its exceptional maneuverability and combat capabilities. This ship was also sometimes adopted by other European powers. Its hull resembled the shape of the later galleon and some scholars have claimed that this vessel is a forerunner of the fighting galleon, by the name of caravela de armada.
The Venetian navy was the navy of the Venetian Republic which played an important role in the history of the republic and the Mediterranean world. It was the premier navy in the Mediterranean Sea for many centuries between the medieval and early modern periods, providing Venice with control and influence over trade and politics far in excess of the republic's size and population. It was one of the first navies to mount gunpowder weapons aboard ships, and through an organised system of naval dockyards, armouries and chandlers was able to continually keep ships at sea and rapidly replace losses. The Venetian Arsenal was one of the greatest concentrations of industrial capacity prior to the Industrial Revolution and responsible for the bulk of the republic's naval power.
