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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 492082" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, the big problem with catapolts is that the rigging gets in the way.I was involved in a lengthy age-of-sail inspired campaign in which mangonels replaced cannon, but although this was quite fun, it isn't really all that realistic.The problem is these ships were really wooden castles.  So much so, that they really were all but immune to weapons of below a certain level.  A SOL would essentially take no damage from 12 lb. shot fired from a cannon into its side.  The ball would simply bounce.  It would take realitively little damage in fact from a 24 lb. shot.  Most ships were designed such that there wooden walls would resist the shot of any cannon smaller than the largest cannons that ship was itself capable of carrying.So, you can imagine how much less damage such vessels would take in reality from a similar shot fired at velocity that would only allow the shot to travel 200-400 yards, rather than the mile and a half that cannons actually attained.  However, feel free to ignore that.  It's fantasy.Ramming is an interesting topic.  Ramming is not really a ship to ship tactic.  I mean you can do it, but where ramming really comes into its own is as a fleet tactic.   The problem with ramming is threefold.   First, that even if you do it successfully, you open yourself up to a boarding action.  You may cripple his ship, but you got to stop him from taking yours as a replacement.  To be really successful with ramming, you need to be able to stop the boarding action (the purpose of that raised shield on the front of ram galleys), and disengage quickly.  That is to say, reverse.   Reversing implies oars.   Oars imply either giving up sea worthiness or giving up ranks of artillery (or both).   Oars also imply a vessel that is quite lightly built (more on this in a second).   The easiest way to stop a boarding action is to have the help of some friends nearby firing missiles at whoever is trying to cross over.The second is that it really is hard to outmanuever another ship completely in a one on one context.  Especially if this ship is also agile and designed to be used as a ram.  The best way to do it is coordinate your actions with someone else, and while your foe is distracted, gain an advantage on him so that either you or your ally has a ramming position.  This requires fleet level tactics, and it is how the ram is actually used.   Lastly, in order to maximize the advantage of the ram, you need a quick agile ship.  But a quick agile ship implies one that is lightly built.  Being lightly built implies that in fact you are quite vunerable to being rammed yourself.   That you need to oar your vessel only increases the problem.   That you need to be light implies you can't carry alot of extra marines, which implies that you better be darn good at stopping those boarding actions.If you can't counter a ram with a better ram there is another tradiational alternative.  Build something so big and sturdy, that its not that vunerable to being rammed, and carry alot of troops on it so that you can force a boarding action.  Equip the ship with boarding planks with spikes that when dropped nail themselves to your foes deck.  This is what a Quadrieme and latter a Galleon is for, so no, I don't think that naval evolution would have stopped with the ram if gun powder wasn't invented.   Galleon weren't really cannon based vessel anyway, at least not as they were originally built.  Mostly they carried alot of anti-personal type guns to stop enemy boarding actions (that was what those high charged castles on the ends were for).  It wasn't until the English (and to a less well recognized extent the Dutch) came along that the cannon came into its own as a fleet weapon.</blockquote>

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