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Combat at Sea

Chapter 3 examines combat at sea. Boarding a ship on open water was difficult, and so naval planners and officers experimented to find other means of combat. They developed a variety of incendiary weapons and introduced battle lines and signaling devices to coordinate artillery fire. Beginning in the early sixteenth century, after guns were mounted on the decks of sailing ships, ship captains strove to evade hostile fire and direct the destruction of opposing vessels from a distance. Boarding declined in the sixteenth century, but seamen continued to fight on deck to defend their ships because ships under sail could still be seized from the inside by people already on board, including crew members, captives, and guests. Throughout the early modern era, piracy, mutinies, and insurrections on slaving vessels continued to challenge the authority and interests of ship captains and the evolving norms of naval combat.