VIEW FROM THE DECK

Taking a while to consider why the Greeks at Salamis were not simply shot off the decks of their ships by the heavily manned Persian vessels.

Persians pour arrows into a Greek ship

The Persian ships came from maritime nations including the Phoenicians who were the foremost mariners of the ancient world. Each ship already had a complement of marine infantry - epibatai - which, if the Athenians were following an established pattern, would be about a dozen to 18 men per ship.
Xerxes decided to add 30 of his infantry to each vessel according to Herodotos. The marines were armed as hoplites and the infantry in Persian style one would imagine.
Persian/Median/Iranian infantry were archers first and spearmen second. A proportion carried large shields to screen the rear ranks who would shoot in battle. 

Persian archers behind spearmen

At sea this model would not really work. It is difficult to see how the large shields could  be used in a mobile way. Most likey the ships had shields fixed along the deck rails to provide cover and the archers could shoot from wherever they could come to the rail. After this model each Persian ship now had a dozen heavy infantry and 30 archers aboard. However, Persian archers never presented serious opposition to determined Greek infantry and at sea the landlubbers would be even more inferior in a clash. 

Hoplites enjoy some quality time with their neighbours

The Persians were accomplished archers. The bow was their national weapon and nobles prided themselves in skill with the bow. However, on the Greek mainland Persian archery never dominated the battlefield as it could in Asia against less heavily armed and less determined opponents. Here we have the first reason to downgrade the effectiveness of the Persian seaborne throng. Greek deck troops would just not be very susceptible to Persian archery.



The rest of the trireme crew was unarmoured as far as we know, and largely unprotected. How could this semi-naked human motor not be susceptible to major disruption by a storm of bronze-tipped arrows arcing over from the Persian ships ? 

(Very) Lightly Armoured oarsmen

An initial point is that we do not really know what the Greek ships were like and the degree of protection they offered to the oarsmen.  Thucydides is our best source and he implies they were no kataphract at this time, i.e. not protected by deck and screens. We know from the Erment model and earlier depictions of Phoenician ships that shields could be mounted for protection.Maybe this was possible. The other source of protection is the epibatai with their large hoplite aspides these warriors could stand and block arrows to some extent.


We must also bear in mind that the archers did not have an ideal situation to bring their skill to bear. At Agincourt the English created the best possible situation where their archery could be applied. At Salamis almost everything is against the Persians.

Agincourt : historians can now give a more three dimensional picture of what went on.

Firstly, the archers could not all get to shoot at once. With many men on the ship's deck they could not all rush around to get the best shot or the ship would roll crazily and be unmanageable. On Olympias the movement of one person across the deck would lead to complaints from oarsmen as their strokes were made less effective. Probably individuals would have a station to keep to unless the ships was alongside an opponent and a boarding contest developed. This factor immediately probably more than halves the number of archers that would be able to shot at an oncoming enemy ship.

'Can some of you Johnies kindly move to the other side for a bit ?'

Secondly, the archers were infantry. Unused to being aboard ships, these men had just spent a night at sea in unfamiliar circumstances. In any circumstance in modern situations up to 25% of passengers feel some degree of motion sickness at sea.

Sailors are never sea-sick? Kaiser Bill's men feeding the fishes.

Novice sailors on ancient ships with ancient perceptions may have been more susceptible. And they sailed all night on ships with a monotonous pulsing movement as they moved under oarpower. The approach of deadly combat plus motion sickness would have reduced the number of men able to fight and the efficiency of those who could. On D-Day various accounts state 'most' infantry in landing craft were sea-sick. But they could get to land and recover before continuing to fight. The troops who were put ashore on the island of Psytalea must have kissed the ground when they were set off..before they later realised they were to be isolated and slaughtered as their fleet fled.

Sea sickness can be debilitating...

Thirdly, the trireme is a long narrow warship. It has a ram which is it principle weapon and this is at the bow. The ship is fighting well when it presents its bow to the enemy. If the ship has its bow to the enemy then the fewest number of archers can see or shoot at the enemy ship. 

i's all dotted and Ts crossed

Fourthly, there would not be much time to shoot. At Agincourt each archer could shoot 10 arrows a minute.  A charging trireme moving at 10 knots covers 5 metres per second. A charging trireme would cover the archer's maximum range of 250 metres in about 1 minute . However. the accuracy of shooting in an unusual situation from one moving platform to another on the sea would have drastically reduced the accuracy of the Persians. Add to the equation the degree of protection the oarsmen have- even if quite poor - and it is immediatley apparent that the apparent firepower of the Persian fleet evaporates.

Fifthly, the target is not very good. The target presented by an oncomng trireme with, maybe, hoplites protecting the frontal aspect with their shields is a poor one. Each shot is at a different range and the perpective of the target changes rapidly. Assuming one is placed to take a shot and feels like taking it.

Suddenly,thought Aspathus,the oncoming trireme looked tougher than it had from a distance....

Finally, should a ship find itself on a sticky wicket vis a vis the enemy. e.g. it was rammed or chased or surrounded, can you imagine the panic that would set in with the Persian infantry?! They could not swim. Viking Offshore would not be founded for more than two thousand years. The Greeks did not take prisoners. This is enough to make anyone's aim less than optimal.

These considerations argue for the firepower of the Persian troops onboard their fleet to have been tacically negligible. Unless the combatant ships were moving slowly and close to each other Persian bows would have no role in the battle. 

If we consider the armament of the troops that maritime nations put aboard their ships we can see that they knew this well. According to Herodotos they were overwhelmingly armed as hoplites, a few with javelins and only the Lycians as archers, with flightless arrows for close range shooting.  

Little bit gay maybe but I just can't shoot well in anything tight..

It was the landlubber King of Kings who insisted on trying to use weight of numbers to beat the Hellenes as he had at Thermopylae. The extra flesh aboard his fleet at Salamis would have just slowed his ships, made them more unstable and added an overwhelming stench of puke to the conditions onboard. This burden was added to the basic plan that involved patrolling at night and fighting an enemy whose whereabouts were unknown. Full marks to the Persians who did not just jump overboard in the dark and take their chances.

(Fab digital art by Kostas Nikellis)

OLYMPIAS IN 1/24

Fantastic 1/24 scale model of Olympias by naval architect Richard Braithwaite.

Deck and Cover

 

Some young thranites take position to avoid incoming missiles

Designing more TenCentimetre Triremes. In the process of organising exactly how they should look. I had to be clear about decks and covers.

The pentekonter was sometimes fitted with a deck. This was really a gangway connecting the focsle and the poop. With this in place sailors could move easily about the ship. The rowers were not covered by this deck in any way.

According to Thucydides it was Cimon of Athens (510-450bc) who first introduced completely decked ships into the Hellenic experience. 

Not Cimon's best day. Ostracised for 10 years after his first period of influence.

These ships were triremes, much larger than the pentekonter. Some Persian ships present at Salamis (480bc) are referred to as 'lofty decked' or 'high decked' and the Persian ships at Salamis could accept 30 warriors aboard over their normal complement which points to them having plenty of deck space.

Maybe not totally correct but this shows a high decked ship

The 200 ships Cimon decked-over were trained by Themistocles particularly for speed and manouvreability and with them he won the double victory at the mouth of the River Eurymedon in 466bc. (Plutarch).

Maybe these were not the first completely-decked ships used by Greeks but the text suggests they were a novelty.

The narrow bridge connecting focsle and poop was extended to create a continuous deck from gunwale to gunwale. The ships gained a broader profile.

The split deck is wrong here, taken from Olympias, but it gives an idea of a fully decked ship

Now the extra marines could be accommodated on deck without crowding and they could get to all points of the ship's perimeter to hold boarders off or attempt to board enemy ships.

The Athenian preference was for ramming tactics, not boarding tactics, and the extra troops would never become a permanent fixture. We later hear of transport triremes as distinct from fighting triremes. Ships built for naval supremacy in this era were built for speed and agility. 

Not a good idea to have a clump of hoplites standing in the bows. This would affect the ship's handling and each stroke of the oars would dig the bow into the water.

The extended deck, however, also gave a new opportunity for the seaworthiness and combat capability of the trireme.

The thranites were now protected from the sun's glare by a cover. The summer sun of Mediterranean latitudes is enough to debilitate men working hard at the oar in its full glare. Air could still sweep through the ship to aid cooling as the men sweated.

The deck's purpose was to allow troops to fight against other ships and defend their own. It was substantial enough not to collapse under ramming impacts or when men massed in one place. It was normally furnished with a knee-high rail to allow the troops to save themselves from slipping overboard or to rest shields against. At Salamis these shield-lined bulwarks were instrumental in disordering the Persian lines as the wind caught them and the ships drifted out of formation.

 

Greek trireme (somewhere between cataphract and aphract?)approaching a Persian vessel with a full deck and balustrade with shields afixed.

The edge of the deck continuous deck could also now be used as a fixing point for protective leather screens to keep missiles off the rowers in combat. This innovation created a definite class of ships toughened for combat, the kataphract. Kataphract simply means 'enclosed all around'. 

 

Also cataphract..

The motive power of the ships was now protected by a deck which covered them above and leather screens fitted in place when battle was due protected them all around.

Erroneous idea about missile screens: the shields should replace the screens or be fixed onto the main deck's guard rail.

The basic or 'pirate style' ship which was open in structure with the narrow deck and lack of screens can be termed 'aphract' or 'without enclosure / open'. 
 

Aphract / pirate-style deck

Just what this screen was like we can learn from later sources which describe ship equipment.

Each ship was equipped with two 'hairy parrarhymata', also called parablema. These could be attached when needed. These items could not have been made of rawhide, but hide seems obvious from the term 'hairy'. Rawhide sewn together to make a 30 metre strip 1.5 metres or so wide would be unmanageable. Dry rawhide is a very uncompromising material, impossible to bend or fold easily. If you own a dog, imagine manipulating a rawhide dog-chew bone 30 metres long......

Accurate illustration of a cataphract. The missile screens run from the deck edge down to the outrigger.

It is not impossible that the parrarhymata were made of sub-elements fitted together, such as individual skins, but they are listed as two definite items.

Missile screens in place

They were probably made of tanned hides but tanned hides were different to what we think of today. Ancient tanning processes did not penetrate the whole skin but left a layer of near-rawhide sandwiched between two softer outer layers. The finished product could be more manageable than rawhide but still be very tough and capable of repelling missiles or trapping them rather than letting them pass right through. 

Knife-makers know about partly-tanned leather

The screen was rolled-out along the deck and fixed to the gunwale somehow – probably with loops and ropes. It could then be hung down and attached by its lower edge to the top of the outrigger upon which the thranites rested their oars. The oars were not obstructed and the rowers could still see the water surface downward past their oars. With the parrarhymata in place, the oarsmen were now protected from javelins, stones and arrows in combat. Even if a missile could penetrate, it could not be aimed at an individual.

Parrarhymata were not the only solution. Shields could be hung from the gunwale to fill the space in the same way. The cover provided by this was not so complete but was more robust. The Erment model clearly shows that this was used on Phoenician ships.

 

The shields on the Erment model hang down to protect the thranites.

WHY WERE MISSILE SCREENS NOT USED UNIVERSALLY?

At first thought it seems odd that missile screens were not fitted to all ships for combat. We know. however, that missile screens were not used by all ships at any one time or by Roman warships A.D. .

One reason why this seems odd is that we assume that the rowers were very vulnerable and that disabling a few of them would disable the ship. This may not have been so for several reasons.

A ship had sailors on board who were not rowing. They could help wounded rowers and maybe take their oars inboard or post them out to discard them before they caused to much chaos. 

The thranites, the upper tier of oarsmen were most vulnerable and these were the most easily helped if stricken.

The deck crew and sailors could use shields to deflect incoming missiles from the thranites.

Unless in the act of ramming, triremes would hold a respectable distance from each other, about 150 metres. It is not easy to shoot accurately over this distance at sea. For this reason shooting with bows would be reserved for closer ranges. 

When ramming, a ship would approach bow-on to the target and often from the rear so that the oppurtunity for effective shooting was reduced.

A trireme has 170 oarsmen. Shooting 5 of them will not disable the ship. Shooting 20 will disrupt the ships operation. However, a 'standard' Greek trireme had just 4 archers onboard, detailed to protect the captain and helmsman. It seems the concept of shooting an enemy ship out of action did not really exist.

Finally we must remember that 'fast' ships did not have decks. The weight of a deck and the weight of the men who used it decreased a ship's agility significantly. So long as ramming was the raison d'etre of the trireme the deck was not universal and therefore neither were missile screens.

The last word we will never know, but it seems that the practicalities of fighting at sea ruled out any serious advantage to be gained by trying to shoot the enemy ship's motor to pieces.

Sun and Spray

The parrarhymata had another useful function on triremes.

The problems of wave tops and spray coming into the ship in choppy conditions was countered by running the parrarhymata from the hull up to the outrigger and even on to the gunwale. 

Spray-screens in place

In this way a screen for reducing the amount of water coming inboard and also to reduce panic amongst drenched oarsmen which would otherwise interrupt a good rowing rhythm.

Not quite accurate but closest I could find.. A trireme under way with some kind of spray-screens in place.

Despite the deck, the sun could be a problem if the ship's course continuously exposed the thranites of one side. A single sun-screen was among the ship's equipment. It was stored with the sails so was probably also of linen canvas. This would be lighter and less claustrophobic than the leather missile-screens. Perhaps the sun-screen could also be erected to shade the deck area but to avoid the sun deck crew could just go below for a while. 

This is what you get for websearching for sun-screen and deck.

Aphract ships would have use for a sunscreen also. It could be rigged on ropes to lie over the rowers at an angle against the sun. One must not think that rowers normally sweated and baked in the sun over their oars, though, the ship would use its sail as soon as it was out of port and the wind was suitable.

Roman amphitheatres had sun awnings operated by sailors.

In summary:

Fast ships were not decked-over and did not have missile screens.

Kataphract triremes had continuous decking and missile screens.

Screens were not permanently fitted but put in place for combat.

An aphract ship had neither a continuous deck nor missile screens.

To be used as a fighting platform, and to carry more than a handful of combat troops, ships needed a continuous deck.

The replica Olympias, contrary to many commentaries, does not have a continuous deck suitable for supporting combat troops. The top decking on Olympias is there to act as a sun canopy. It is too light to take more than a few people – certainly not a mass of armed men. In addition it has no side-rails. The poop and foc'sle are separate deck areas. Despite mentioning that it was used to stop misiles and protect against the sun, there is no ancient evidence for this arragement. Either there was a continuous deck or there was a central way. If a central way then the ship could not be enclosed.

katastroma on Olympias : NOT a troop-carrier's deck

The Athenian triremes present at Salamis were aphract. Their combat troops were for defence rather than siezing enemy ships.

The Persian ships were mostly fully decked and had 30 to forty troops aboard for shooting and boarding. They had rails around their decks, a defended foc'sle and crews which had been rowing all night.

'Something's wrong with our bloody ships today !'