ERMENT - 1.1

I at last got underway the Erment model reconstruction I have planned for ages.
The Erment model is a damaged terracotta model of a ship with three banks of oars. It was bought in a market in Erment in northern Egypt by a Danish tourist in the early nineteenth century. It has been dated to between 300 and 31BC by the museum but researchers have narrowed this to between 300 and 350BC. It has no surviving context so we cannot do better than this. Maybe the original was a votive offering made by an insecure trierarch or maybe it was just a coffee-table piece - we cannot know.

Erment model in Nationalmuseet København

I will write a detailed piece on the significance of the model later. It has been used to support various theories as to how ancient ships were constructed.

I have made the replica, about 75% original size to ensure it fitted in my kiln - original is about 50cm long. I will do a full size one when I have sorted out al the problems of construction.
I used a high chamotte red-firing clay which should give a similar colour to the original.

Erment Trireme sails again !

The original has been mistreated over the centuries and lost its oars and the deck-crew (always a dangerous job!). From the stubs remaining I made oars and men in suitably simplified style. The extra details give the model a more impressive appearance already.

Epibatai and kybernetes on deck

The fired model will be covered in a layer of very white slip and fired again. You can see the remains of this on the original. I will then paint the model as was usual in Hellenistic times with bright colours to include fine details not seen in the clay. Some details of the original colour remain to copy and we also have the famous Tanagra-style figures to reference.

Slim vicious profile of a trireme as it approaches to ram !

I am now itching to fire the thing but it must first dry thoroughly. There are  a lot of 'fixings' on this thing and as any potter knows, they can fall to pieces if dried too fast.

GET DOWN SHIP!

 Doing some work on 'how to sink a galley'. It is not straightforward. They just won't stay down !

To begin with, the concept of sinking a galley is a misconception. A galley has a lot of positive bouyancy and
even when full of water there is little chance of it disappearing beneath the waves.

A galley which had been at sea some time without being dried-out and was burnt-away to some degree above the waterline may have gone down but the usual occurrence was that the hull would just settle in the water.

The result of a very violent ram attack could cut a ship's hull in two. In this case the fragments may capsize and the bow section, for example, may float ram-down under the weight of bronze it bears.

The main effect sought by a ramming attack was to breach the hull of the target and render it unmanageable as it was flooded and swamped. The victor in an ancient sea battle preferred to recover damaged hulls for salvage rather than watch such expensive items sink or burn.

According to Coates if a trireme's bilge was completely full the ship would not suffer much in terms of performance except the maximum wave-height it could function perfectly in would be reduced by a few centimetres. This might be expected, with the bilges constructed to have capacity within limits the ship could usefully tolerate.

We have evidence of baling procedures and capabilities in ancient ships beyond that manual balers are known from archaeology

Baler from Nydam ship c.300AD

 and later ships were equipped with Archimedian screws,- worked by hand or treadmill - treadmill bucket chains or hydraulic pumps to remove water. There was little place for such devices on a trireme but a larger freighter or polyreme could have been equipped with them. By the time of Vitruvius in the first century BC such devices were commonplace.

'Well you said you wanted to be paid to screw for a living!'

 Or a more complex machine......HERE

The post of baler was a lowly one for an older or duller crew-member. He used his antleteria or bucket to keep the bilge levels down. In a pinch he would be assisted by more men. On a trireme there were about 10 deck crew in two teams who could help before oarsmen would be called upon.

In a trireme it would have been no easy task to bale at a fast pace in the restricted space down even below the world of the thalamian oarsmen. The bucket had to be filled, handed up to a level where it could be dumped overboard and returned below.

 The same buckets wooden or linen, could be used to fight fire if such occurred, though fire at sea was rare in the age of the trireme. Later, larger ships had kitchens with fires and used fire as a weapon.

Roman bucket. Owner kicked it, down a well, long ago.

If the function of the ram was to overburden the poor old baler and thus disable his ship can we figure-out the process in a little more detail ?

HOW MUCH WATER COMES IN ?
To work-out how much water comes in-board we must determine the size of any expected hole. To determine the size of hole expected we can examine the size of the hole-maker i.e. the ram.
We now have about a dozen rams to measure and they can be associated with various classes of ship. This gives us an approximate range of holes to put into any calculation.

 The area within the cutting fins is the 'driving centre' of the ram and this is the size of the hole. Circa.

The amount of water coming in to a hole of a specific size is governed by the
equation ... 
      Flood Rate per minute in tonnes = 

[100 b (h^3/2)]

where b= breadth, h= height in metres, of hole, for the part of the aperture below the waterline.

Here we can see how much flooding each ram can generate.

RAM DRIVING CENTRE       DRIVING CENTRE      FLOOD
         HEIGHT              BREADTH        RATE 
EGADI 1    22                 41                4,2
EGADI 2    20                 31                2,7
EGADI 3    22                 37                3,8
EGADI 4    22                 36                3,7
EGADI 5    22                 32                3,3
EGADI 6    24                 41                4,8
EGADI 7    24                 38                4,5
EGADI 8    C.29          EST. 50                7,8
ATHLIT     35            65   CIRCA.            13,5
Capo Rasocolmo   c.30       c.60                9,8
ACTIUM EPTEREIS(7)            95                C. 46 !
ACTIUM ENNEREIS(9)            110
ACTIUM DECEREIS(10)           LARGER            SCARY NUMBER

It is a little hair-raIsing to find that the rams of larger ships create holes that allow massively more flooding. The larger vessels displacement increases as a cubic value as their dimensons increase so they could tolerate damaging each other but if a larger class ship hit a smaller one we can see the effect would be catastrophic.
The Athlit ram is probably from a 3. This shows that the rams from egadi are from lighter warships. The Actium rams are from Anthony's monsters.

ACTIUM MONUMENT : ENNEREIS LEFT, ATHLIT RIGHT

HOW MUCH WATER CAN BE BALED OUT ?
If we take a standard bucket to have a capacity of .035 of a cubic metre or 33cm deep, wide and high(large bucket!) then with the ten deck crew working fast enough to each dump two buckets a minute - a back-breaking rate! - then they can remove 0.7 cubic metres a minute or 0.7 tonnes.

This rate will have no effect upon the flooding created by a decent ram attack. Even if we get the whips out and increase the work rate of the poor balers by a factor of 3 then they can only remove less than half of the water coming into our modest hole.

 From this we can see that a ship's crew would rapidly appreciate the severity of a successful ramming attack on their vessel. They would rapidly realise the inevitable result. The ship's officers and the epibatai would have a difficult job to persuade balers to work at this Sisyphian task or to keep the thalamians at their oars as the water level rose!

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF FLOODING ?
Within a minute of a successful ram attack from another ship of the same class we can say a trireme may have taken 5 tonnes of water onboard. With the deck crew baling, the ship will take on 4 tonnes each subsequent minute thereafter. The effects of this on a ship have been calculated by John Coates.

Firstly, the displacement of the ship increases, causing it to settle in the water.This leads to the vertical centre of gravity of the ship being lowered. It 'settles ' down into the water.

However, a more sinister effect is that the mass of water in the ship has its own centre of gravity and its own life, sloshing within the ships structure. The higher up the ship the water reaches the worse is the effect of the 'sloshing'. - the inertia of the water mass will accentuate any movement of the vessel and make slight imbalances in the ship create extreme rolling or pitching. This is a resut of the Free Surface Effect of an unrestrained body of water within the hull. Also, as the water level rises inside the ship it will settle deeper into the water.

Va's up ? or, rather , down...

To fill the bilges of Olympias would take 7,5 tonnes of water and cause a settlement of 6,7cm. The instability created would not be felt by the oarsmen or helmsman and stresses on the hull are the equivalent of taking a cargo onboard or 75 crewmen.

This amount of water would be inboard less than two minutes after being rammed.

If the flooding continues for a further 5 minutes 30 tonnes of water is now inboard.

With 30 tonnes of water inside the hull of a trireme the settlement will now be 25cm. Looking inside the hull one would see water was lapping over the floor timbers. Maybe not such a threatening sight. But now the ship is totally out of balance and requires very careful handling. A sharp turn could capsize the ship. Rowing becomes ineffective except in a flat calm. The increased displacement - the ship now effectvely weighs 70 tonnes - would overload the hull and it could split open in a swell as it 'hogged' when the bow and stern sag into wave troughs.

A weak-hulled container-ship hogs and breaks-up.

CONSEQUENCES FOR A SHIP IN BATTLE
Five mnutes after being rammed by a ship of its own class a trireme would be disabled.

The oarsmen could not propel the ship which now weighed 50% more than in battle order.

The ship would roll if turned or if many men move about. At some point the sloshing water mass inboard would probably throw the ship onto one or other side from which it could not recover . Water would enter the oarports and its fate would be sealed.

The capsized ship would not sink but steadily settle in the water. Oarsmen would emerge from their confines and their presence on deck would only add to the hulk's instability.

If the sea was a flat calm then a holed ship could make some headway if carefully nursed along by a crew who did not panic and remained at their stations. More likely the confusion and panic of being rammed combined with visible enemy nearby would rapidly seal the fate of the ship.

If there was a significant swell or the ramming impact and hole was large enough then the hull may split as the displacement exceeds its strength.

Once successfully rammed a trireme was doomed, and the crew well knew this ! Could onboard discipline keep order as the inevitable happened?

It is a sobering fact that the 150  crew of Olympias, after some training in forming-up in ranks on specific areas on the quayside and  getting themselves installed at their oars  in sequence with the thalamians first and thranites last,  could be ready to sail in about 1 minute and thirty seconds from getting the word 'go!';
but that same crew when abandoning ship could leave the trierarch alone and pondering whether to flounder with his vessel in precisely 24 seconds !

The ancient galley sea battle was a high-stress  duel between rapier-armed fighters who sought to keep their balance and poise, keep their guard up and look for the opening which could lead to a well-timed thrust into the enemy's vitals. Once pierced, the target was doomed and its combat role in the battle soon over.

TRANS-WARRIORS

Spot the Non-Shah-male

Seeing as how the Great King of Kings often tends to be portrayed as a rather androgynous character is it not rather appropriate if he should get some Trans-Warriors to go along with him on his Persian Pride cavalcades into foreign parts ?

I made a little experiment to try and improve on card soldiers. I like my card soldiers and consider they are a good solution to representing figures at small scales and go well with the card ships.A drawback with them is the opaque background they come with. Cutting the figures out at this size is not an option.

Reasoning that a transparent background could hide the card-ness of the card figures printed some off on transparency acetate to create some Trans-(parent)-Warriors.

First impressions not so bad...

But, sadly, the improvement was not without a down side.
The degree of transparency is just too great. They look quite colourful and translucent but when stood against anything tend to disappear. Quite a nice representation of some modern high-tech camouflage technology but not good at this scale to have vanishing troops.

Now you see them. Now you don't..

 To see the Trans-Warriors alongside the card ones shows up how much easier their dull cousins are to see and also to handle. 

Greeks, Trans-Warriors and.. is that a Gay Pride float ?

This long-sighted 'mature'- gamer reluctantly has to admit that not all good ideas have a practical application. As a consolation I have discovered a great way to make fire and smoke markers!

Carthaginian Naval Helmet ?

The Egadi excavations have dredged up what may be a Carthaginian helmet from the Egadi battle site.
Here reported on Archaeology News Network.

Battle of Mylæ as seen by Look and Learn. Egadi may have been a ramming rather than boarding battle but there were still plenty of deck troops on both sides.

Pea -Green Boats

Some very attractive model triremes in bronze produced for 'It's All Greek'.

And much else besides if you have some dosh burning a hole in your pocket. Great to add atmosphere to a trireme wargame.

Why not play with a dramatic mask available to reflect your emotions as the Fates play with you.

With the money saved by using card ships this is possible !

RULES

Still plugging away. Many aspects still to finish-off. Basic movement is more-or-less done with templates still out of the picture. Combat is a new deal compared to other galley rules and involves target and attacker getting choices that are resolved as a final result. Dice and cards involved. A taster coming soon.

The first booklet will be 'Trireme Tactics' : 600 to 323 B.C.'.
Other additions to the rules and models to cover Hellenistic Wars, Rome and Carthage, The Roman Lake, Late Rome and Early Medieval.

The ships may now be produced as pre-printed, push-out, coloured cards. Up to 3 per A4 sheet.

THAT UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING ON DECK

 

"Single to Sphacteria please"

In the Age of the Ram, before ships became fighting platforms, it was the trireme which dominated ancient naval warfare. No other oared ship, before or since could achieve such speed and agility under oar - the ideal characteristics for ramming combat.

The ramming attack has, though, the paradox that the attacker has to come into contact with the target and give him a chance to engage in deck fighting. Pure ramming tactics eschew deck fighting. The attacker should, ideally, hit the target and back away before its deck crew can take any action against the ship that just sank it. 


Deck troops were a necessary evil to those using what Thucydides terms modern tactics. A sea battle which just resembled a land battle on floating platforms was not very edifying. Brute strength could win rather than skill and technical prowess. The raison d'etre of the trireme was manouvreable speed. Sacrificing this to stay locked with another vessel while the deck troops hacked away at each other was a crass folly. But there was a necessity for some combat troops on deck.

Deck troops had a special role and must learn how their role meshed with the other activities and priorities of the fighting ship. Everything hinged on keeping the ram in action .
Deck troops were there to defend the ship. There were only 10 or so spearmen on each trireme as fighting deck crew. Ten men cannot possibly board and take over an opponent which has 170 oarsmen plus deck crew. With casualties and leaving some men on their own ship this idea leaves us with the suggestion that, say, 6 or 8 marines could fight their way onto an enemy ship and then subdue 200 men. Thus, their job was effective defence in the very special situation of being riders on a ram. They must be effective but not hinder the operation of the trireme. What must they have done and how did they do it ?

Epibatai  were  ranked second on the ship after only the trierarch. Aristotle considered them to control the ship and so these socially and militarily elite members of the crew seemed to have helped the trierarch maintain discipline and morale. Leaving one's oar at a critical stage of the battle was obviously not tolerated. The rowing crew or nautai were usually free men and had some status of their own but that freedom did not extend to endangering the trireme's human engine.

Also a naughtai crew in need of discipline

We have a hint that the Athenian epibatai were a military elite when we learn from Thucydides that the loss of 120 epibatai in Aetolia in 426bc by Demosthenes was considered a tragic loss of the best and fittest soldiers.

The archers aboard Athenian triremes were described as sitting beside the helmsman  and trierarch in the stern. The hoplite-armed were to be found on the main deck.The armament of the epibatai may have included specially long spearsfor ship-to-ship fighting and javelins alongside their normal doru and some form of sword.Throwing javelins from a sitting position was the preferred method. Quite a skill. This was to avoid men standing and moving on the deck which could cause the ship to roll a few degrees and hamper the strokes of the oars, especially the thalamites. - the lowest  row. On Olympias, the movement of one man could lead to complaints from rowers that they could not row efficiently.

Pictures of epibatai standing or running as their ship approaches another to ram it or watching as another attacks them,  are misleading. The force of impact could be up to 2G and the crew must have had a procedure to brace for impact. Anyone standing on the deck when two triremes collided would be thrown off their feet, maybe injured and maybe chucked into the drink.
The epibatai must have waited for the impact to subside and then moved to the forecastle to deter enemy boarding attempts as the ship backed-off to sail away or maybe ram again.

Nice picture shame about the place.

If they were already assembled at the forecastle this would depress the ram in the water, if at the stern this would raise the ram. Either of these cases could increase the chances of the ram being lodging in the enemy hull. The logical solution is that the troops remained midships or distributed but not concentrated in the bows.
If the ship was itself rammed then the epibatai must get to the point of impact as fast as possible and repel any enemy boarding attempt and support or assist their own crew's attempts to get off the enemy ram a.s.a.p..


The elite deck troops were fit and agile. They were used to getting around the shifting  deck in quick order, and they had to be. Their equipment included the large aspis which was about 7kg in weight, the doru a 2.3m spear and a sword about 60cm in the blade. They probably had helmets - In the Persia Wars possibly in Corinthian style and thereafter a more open-faced style. The intense nature of deck fighting might make a simpler, more open helmet more liely so that the soldier could see and hear better. Armour may or may not have been worn. If the epibatai equated with hoplites then they probably did have armour. This would be a linen or bronze cuirass. Greaves were available too. The whole kit could add 25 kilos to the soldier's weight. 
 

Hop-light : Not necessarily soooo heavy infantry

Some authors have written that if an hoplite equipped warrior fell into the sea he was doomed to drown. This is not true. It is possible to swim in a mail shirt so if the man throws his shield and helmet away he should stand a chance to swim a short distance or hang onto a nearby oar. The equipment was, however, quite a burden in a hot climate and the cross-gripped shield in particular could not be shed easily and meant the man's hands were not available to grab a hold if he needed.  When I was a boy I was impressed by bus conductors who could effortlessly stand issuing tickets as the floor of the bus bucked and rolled beneath them using both hands to take money and reel out tikcets. . Epibatai needed to develop such skills.

Bus conductors adjusting extra 25 kg of 'equipment'

The requirement for a deck soldier thus equipped  to get around amongst the ropes and gaps on a moving deck support Thucydides description of the dead of Demosthenes' force as particularly fit and able. Any attempt to go on the offensive and try to board an enemy vessel would be a daunting prospect even for these men. To make an opposed crossing onto the enemy deck would be very dangerous. 

'Lets finish this outside !'

Most of the anecdotes we have for deck fighters end badly. There are no accounts of swashbuckling heroes clearing enemy decks. There are  examples of warriors coming to grief, such as Brasidas - felled as he tries an amphibious landing at Pylos and  Ariamnes at Salamis who is pitched into the sea on the end of Athenian spears as he attempts a boarding. Successful boarding is achieved by the Samothracians at Salamis who, though suffering a deadly ramming attack , revenged themselves by taking over their tormentor whose ram became lodged fast. We must remember here that the Samothracians would have had c. 50 deck troops against the Aeginetians' 15 and the battlefield was now relatively motionless with access to the other ship assured - an exception proving our rule, maybe.

Talking of Brasidas.. the deck soldiers' other function was as amphibious marines. They had to disembark and fight on occasion. Another versatility which infantry did not have to match. At the battle of Kyzikos the Athenians disembarked troops to attack the town and to attack the beached Peloponnesians. They may also have re-embarked some troops and set them into the fight on the other side of the bay. The chance of normal hoplite infantry re-engaging on the same day were small indeed.

In summary; epibatai (literally 'topsiders' or 'passengers') were a special breed. They operated in a small unit with the objective of both helping to control their ship and of protecting it from enemy assault. The deck troops had to get around their ship quickly. They had to meet attacks from all directions and to keep an eye on thier own crew. This was  a tall order for men in heavy gear on a galley at sea. One of the secrets of Athens naval supremacy must have been their maintenance of a corps of quality epibatai . The age of the polyremes reduced the requirement for these specialists and the Romans, characteristically, totally punctured the concept by just floating their army out to sea - before much later developing their own specialist corps of marines....

..and then, there is this ....