The Fall of Carthage
“Instead, captains would manoeuvre their ships to ram the enemy's side. The ideal position was to attack from astern at a narrow angle, the ram not breaking through at one single point but rupturing a wide section of the enemy's hull, causing its seams to split and take on water. Sea battles therefore consisted of a series of individual duels as ships carefully tried to out-turn the opposition and strike from the flank, whilst trying to avoid making themselves vulnerable to another enemy, a type... of combat sometimes compared to the aerial dogfights of the First World War. A highly skilled crew might choose to strike an opponent at such an angle that the ram ran along the enemy's side slicing off the ship's oarbanks and rendering them helpless, but this was difficult to achieve without damage to the attacker's own oars. Manoeuvres such as the periplus, which involved outflanking the enemy line, and the diekplus, which involved penetrating the enemy line to deliver rams from astern, cannot now be reconstructed precisely, but it is probable that they were tactics for squadrons rather than individual ships.9 The alternative to ramming was boarding, grappling the enemy vessel and overrunning it with a swarm of attackers.MoreLess
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