So Wikipedia says that this thing was the invention that allowed the Romans to recover from being BTFO by Carthage at sea so many times, but it doesn't say what the Phoenicians were doing at sea that made them so invincible before that.
And then it goes on to say that boarding tactics were the prime method of naval combat ever since then, again without explaining what kinds of naval combat it was replacing.
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Rowing and ramming. It takes a *lot* of coordination to get 180-300 oarsmen, none of whom can see each other, to get a galley going both fast and in the direction you want. And you need to do that if you want to get your bow into the other ship's side at a high speed so you can punch a hole and sink it.
Do people really read about history from fucking Wikipedia? I mean, to confirm something? Sure. To review? Sure. To see what other sources might say? Sure. But to read about X subject for the very first time? Do people really do that? Fucking monographs are less dry than Wiki articles.
carthage had problems with syracuse, with syracuse, it was a small city state, it was expected that they would lose to rome or any power for that matter
carthage aristocracy just wanted money and didnt care about the city. if only Hanno I would have been tyrant
The Corvus was a one off gimick that was only seriously effective in it's first battle because of surprise value alone.
The rest of the naval combat after the first battle was fought conventionally.
Like you said, depends how seriously you take it. It's worth a convenient quick rundown for most things. You're not liable to get anything wildly inaccurate.
I like how you don't even pretend to know of any sources that explains Phoenician naval tactics
RAMMING SPEED
>Syracuse was a small city-state
You do realize that Syracuse was considered THE richest Greek city-state until its fall. And it had the largest fielded army of any city-state, barring Sparta during the Second Greco-Persian War.
>one-off gimmic
Basically every Carthaginian naval engagement after its introduction was a defeat. You can't seriously be saying that a 50/50 ration went to a 90/10 ration after its inclusion by mere coincidence, can you?
carthage was bigger and had a bigger economy and they still lost to them, any nation at the time could have conquered them, they were weak, them depending on mercenaries was their huge mistake
carthage elite didnt want carthagian army, i guess they feared a revolution or something
>starting a phrase by so
I want reddit to fuck off
>what the Phoenicians were doing at sea that made them so invincible before that.
They simply had the biggest and most experience navy, and there wasn't anybody else with enough ships to even think about challenging their unquestioned dominance. The first punic war was the first time the Carthaginian fleet had to fight an actually dangerous enemy in a very long time, and they dropped the ball hard. Even though the Roman fleet was outnumbered, they were able to even the odds with some clever engineering.
what about syracuse?
Carthage never truly invested in any one front until Hamalcar decided that all of Iberia needed to be conquered. The reason the Carthaginians did so poorly against the Greeks was because they didn't ever fully commit to any one war against them, not because they relied on mercenaries/were weak.
In fact, the winning strategy for Carthage was to just throw mercs at the enemy with your infinite coffers to pay them until the Romans came around.
Rome's policy was to never surrender. From the Gallic invasions to Carthage, they just refused to be beaten. Nobody. NOBODY else at the time was like that. Even the legendary Sparta signed truces. The Romans? Until every last Roman was dead, the war wasn't over.
and that is why i blame carthage elite for their desctruction, they werent interested in conquering
too much of an oversimplification too say one factor affects the whole thing
its like saying the soviet union fell because dude communism lmao,well communism does suck but thats not the only reason
as proud and esteemed Veeky Forums we must conclude that the Carthigian lost because they didn't invest 5600 denarii to upgrade their stock port in Carthago to make quinremes
The phoenicians were experts in ship manuevers, pretty much ramming the opponents side. The corvus was effective, but handled terribly outside of battle. It's suspected they were abandoned because it made the ships capsize, too top heavy. But the Romans still focused on boarding, they packed their ships with marines.
Rome lost more ships in the first punic war, the issue is the Carthaginian oligarchs panicked after a supply fleet went into an engagement without unloading their cargo and got ass blasted because of it.
>Knowing what all the kids on Reddit are doing
I just thought it was normie-speak. If you browse reddit enough to know what is and isn't reddit, you should stay there
Rome never had a real navy until the first Punic War. So no, they weren't continuously BTFO by Carthage. They literally captured a Carthagian quinreme, copied it, trained guys who weren't rowers to be rowers by doing faux practices with oars on land, and managed to BTFO Carthage--a fucking naval power since it's conception and always had some of the best fleets in post-bronze age antiquity until the first punic war.
Carthage lost because all of their melee infantry was either cheap crappy units or overpriced decent ones. They should've just sent talents of silver to the Boii for them to fuck up Rome
Well that's incorrect. Why was Hannibal's core troops lybian-phoenician heavy infantry then?
Anyways, in the First Punic war Hamilcar was very effective in Sicily, his army was never defeated.
>Why didn't they just employ celtic mercs
They did that as well, going by Polybius, those were his least reliable troops.
>Boii
what is this meme?
>lybian-phoenician heavy infantry then?
source?
they were mostly mercenaries
Total War 2 reference, lads. Creative Assembly made melee infantry in the multiplayer the most supreme type of forces in the game that decide battles between factions that have good units and those that don't. The melee infantry in the multiplayer is biased to Celtic tribal factions and Rome, and every other faction--be it Hellenic, Carthage, Easterners and so on are all third-rate at best. Of the celtic factions, the Boii are notorious in online battles as being the best and easily defeating most non-Roman and celtic players no matter how good they are. I accidentally replied to the wrong guy, I meant to reply to who was likely making some stragedy game reference.
During Cannae, his 8,000 African troops (Libya-phoenician) were the back bone to his plan (they were about 1/3 of the infantry but were on the flanks). These were his main veterans, many served with Hamilcar.
My main source is Patrick Hunt, both his lectures at Stanford and his book, Hannibal.
Carthage used african troops, they just used a relatively high amount of mercenaries compared to other people, but that doesn't mean they didn't deploy their own. Their citizenry was more focused on naval warfare, to be fair.
All good, my computer is too shit to handle tw2, it's a tragedy.
t. rome 2 player
I heard that galleys were not manned by slaves, but rather it was a job that required training. They would lead comfortable lives. Is this true?
The corvus was replaced with the Harpax, user. Boarding never stopped, specially since capturing ships was economically beneficial.
They also had some good heavy cavalry, which they withheld from Hannibal.
Generally speaking. That shit was your job, if you were in the Navy. Even captains would start off as rowers, and it was a testament to the athletic prowess of both the Roman and Greek peoples. Anecdotally speaking, you could tell who served in the navy by the muscles in their back and how strong they seemed.
I read a bunch about them a few years ago, but totally forgot it. Someone else could probably tell you more, but the whole "Slave Rower" thing was only partially faithful to the reality of life in the Roman navy.
Was there any Naval combat beyond Actium, anyway?
