Boats are cool. Both Venice and Great Britain were absolutely world renown for their navies. Venice was the terror of the Mediterranean at the height of its day, and the inspiration for GRRM's Braavos. They had such sophisticated practices that they could make a war ship in a day or something, right?
In the waters off the west of Scotland between 1263 and 1500, the Lords of the Isles used galleys both for warfare and for transport around their maritime domain, which included the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and Antrim in Ireland. They employed these ships for sea-battles and for attacking castles or forts built close to the sea. As a feudal superior, the Lord of the Isles required the service of a specified number and size of galleys from each holding of land. For examples the Isle of Man had to provide six galleys of 26 oars, and Sleat in Skye had to provide one 18-oar galley.
Carvings of galleys on tombstones from 1350 onwards show the construction of these boats. From the 14th century they abandoned a steering-oar in favour of a stern rudder, with a straight stern to suit. From a document of 1624, a galley proper would have 18 to 24 oars, a birlinn 12 to 18 oars and a lymphad fewer still.
(don't reference wikipedia in your essays etc etc; i'm just being lazy and needed some reference numbers)
Keeping in mind that being a sailor, an experienced one at least, generally means that you're an exceptionally valuable commodity. If you need a larger army, you just train your peasants for a few days or weeks, give them a few arms and armor, and then put them in rank and file. If you need more sailors, you can't teach someone how to sail in a few days like you can teach them how to use, say, a mace. The way you get more sailors is by kidnapping them off of other people's vessels and conscripting them into your navy, instead of, say, America's or France's or something.
What's the stance on NPCs/temps justifying having a decently sized navy? How does that affect the stance on NPC/temp armies?
In the waters off the west of Scotland between 1263 and 1500, the Lords of the Isles used galleys both for warfare and for transport around their maritime domain, which included the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and Antrim in Ireland. They employed these ships for sea-battles and for attacking castles or forts built close to the sea. As a feudal superior, the Lord of the Isles required the service of a specified number and size of galleys from each holding of land. For examples the Isle of Man had to provide six galleys of 26 oars, and Sleat in Skye had to provide one 18-oar galley.
Carvings of galleys on tombstones from 1350 onwards show the construction of these boats. From the 14th century they abandoned a steering-oar in favour of a stern rudder, with a straight stern to suit. From a document of 1624, a galley proper would have 18 to 24 oars, a birlinn 12 to 18 oars and a lymphad fewer still.
(don't reference wikipedia in your essays etc etc; i'm just being lazy and needed some reference numbers)
Keeping in mind that being a sailor, an experienced one at least, generally means that you're an exceptionally valuable commodity. If you need a larger army, you just train your peasants for a few days or weeks, give them a few arms and armor, and then put them in rank and file. If you need more sailors, you can't teach someone how to sail in a few days like you can teach them how to use, say, a mace. The way you get more sailors is by kidnapping them off of other people's vessels and conscripting them into your navy, instead of, say, America's or France's or something.
So this is the smallest number in my little blurb stolen from Wikipedia. You need one person operating each oar of your ship - which you could have galley slaves do, it's really quite simple, if outrageously exhaustive work. I can think of maybe four towns, if I'm pressed to, that could come up with enough people to man the oars of one of these. One or two that could come up with enough people to man two of them. But, this is just one comparatively small ship. There's some that required over a hundred skilled sailors, not galley slaves, to operate; and, a fleet would have a few of those sorts of ships in there.
What's the stance on NPCs/temps justifying having a decently sized navy? How does that affect the stance on NPC/temp armies?
