Its development was greatly influenced by ancient Mediterranean civilizations. So, in 480 BC. e. Greeks skillfully used boarding in the battle of Salamis against a much stronger fleet Persians - and utterly defeated them, losing only 40 ships (Persians - 200). In the III century BC. e. Boarding was widely used by the Romans, fighting against Carthage. Being mainly a land force, having neither a powerful fleet, nor the experience of war at sea, they technical and tactical innovations changed the very nature of boarding combat and began to confidently smash the more skilled Carthaginian sailors.
At all times, the boarding prepared by shelling the enemy. Antique warships were armed with a variety of throwing machines, used until the invention of gunpowder. Having installed them along the sides and having covered the defensive walls, mats, shields from return fire, the attackers and defenders tried to “thin out” the enemy ranks at long range. Large-caliber catapults and ballista (analogue of heavy artillery) threw 5-meter arrows, massive stakes, logs, metal projectiles and stones with a diameter of 15 – 20 cm at a distance of 200 m, literally sweeping away all living things from the enemy deck. “Light Artillery” - easel bows of oxybelis, scorpion and hiroballistra - beat direct fire at a smaller distance, and the semi-automatic stone thrower polybol continuously fired small stone cores weighing 4 – 5 kg. Archers and slingers were connected at close range, stones, spears, and darts flew at the enemy. The Greeks first installed on ships Gelepola - towers on wheels. They moved along the deck in different directions, and the arrows on them fired from the height of the enemy deck, preventing the enemy from repulsing, serving his weapon, tackle, oars.
If the capture of someone else’s ship was impossible or unnecessary, incendiary arrows or ceramic containers with a combustible composition were thrown at him, the so-called “Greek fire”, a kind of absolute weapon of antiquity. The water did not extinguish it, and several precise hits decided the fate of a wooden, tarred vessel with easily flammable sails and rigging, and the team could only jump overboard. A fire roaster was also used as a weapon of fire, something like a bucket at the end of a gaff length 5 – 7 m in front of the ship. Filled with a combustible mixture, it was set on fire and emptied over the enemy deck. It was with these weapons that the Romans broke through the blockade of the Syrian fleet in the Battle of Panorm in 190 BC. er A handheld flamethrower-siphon (filled with oil pipe) "spit out" burning oil on the enemy.
The ram, an effective way to send the enemy to the bottom, was also an element of boarding training. The ram device was a complex structure. The bow of the ship was made in the form of a rigid vertical rib with a small ram-pro-embolon, which was above the water and had the shape of a ram / pork / crocodile head. It was a buffer when striking someone else’s side, and also prevented the main ram from penetrating into the enemy corps too deeply, which was fraught with misfortune: if you were stuck there, you could drown or burn with the enemy. The bottom of the keel protruded underwater on the 2 – 4 m forward. This was a combat ram (rostrum) in the form of a flat trident for punching the underwater part of an enemy ship. Cast from bronze, it was very heavy: the rostrum of the Greek Birema found by archaeologists pulled 400 kg. They rammed either on the move, or first passed along the enemy side, "shaving off" the vertical edge of the oars, which the enemy did not manage to drag inwards, and depriving him of the course. After that, they turned around and, aiming, beat already to death. The rostrum hit did serious damage. At that time, no means of pumping water existed, any hole was very dangerous, and even deadly for the ship. The upper surface of the ram bar protruded above the waterline and served as a bridge over which the boarding group ran to the enemy's side. The timber was composite, the damaged elements were easily replaced with new ones. The “ramming” tactic demanded skill from the team. Success depended on the right moment, the direction of impact, skillful taxiing, well-coordinated work of the rowers. Anti-abortion means was a primitive weapon "dolphin" - a load of conical shape with a pointed end. Made of bronze, lead or granite, that is very massive, it was fixed on a special rotary cargo boom or on a yoke and dropped when it hung over the enemy ship when the sides approached. His blow was enough to break through the bottom of the 4 – 6 thick boards of the board. The resulting hole destroyed the enemy because of the impossibility of repair in combat conditions. True, the "dolphin" worked only against free ships such as felucca or liburn. When colliding with a warship, which also had a deck, the weight of the load on two layers of boards was not enough.
The main tactical reception of the Greeks was a rammer strike, while the Romans had a decisive boarding battle. However, the fighters somehow needed to be thrown onto the enemy's side. They coped with this very well: the raven assault ramp (lat. Corvus - raven), which had spread widely after the First Punic War of the Romans against Carthage, had a great influence on the development of boarding combat. Usually its length was 5 – 6 m, but the ancient Greek historian Polybius gave an example of a whole bridge with a length of 10,9 m and a width of 1,2 m with low railings on the sides. This swivel ladder was installed vertically on the bow of the ship, one side attached to the bottom of a special post, and the second one pulled to the post by a rope. On the bottom surface of its front part there was a heavy iron thorn of the beak type (therefore, it was a “raven”). Upon contact with the enemy, the ladder was turned in the direction of its deck and dumped: it fell, punching the boards with its beak and reliably mating with the enemy deck, which the forward detachment of the ship infantry (skillularii) immediately ran to, skillful and well-armed. He captured a springboard for the entire boarding group.
"Crow" was adopted from the South Italian Greeks - sailors, pirates and inventors who built ships for Rome. Taking advantage of their infantry in hand-to-hand combat, as well as quickly creating a numerical advantage thanks to the "raven", the Romans began to gain one victory after another. For the first time, the "crow" massively used the fleet of consul Guy Duilius in 260 BC. er in the battle of Mila, where the Romans captured 31 and sank 14 from 130 of the Carthaginian ships. Through 4, Mark Regulus defeated the Carthaginian fleet at Cape Eknem using the same technique and tactics.
"The Crow" and the ship's infantry were the decisive factor in victories in the important battles of Sulok and at Tindar Cape. The “crow” also had serious drawbacks: its weight and bulkiness worsened the vessel’s seaworthiness. The Romans twice (255 and 249 years BC) almost completely lost their fleet in storms due to poor stability of ships with such a design on board. Subsequently, their victories were based on a more reliable basis - the best ships with skillful crews that delivered more and more efficient ship infantry to the place of its use. In battle, his own Roman invention, a harpagus log board (Greek αρπαξ; Latin harpax; also creagr) of length 3 m, iron bound and having thick metal rings at both ends helped. One ring was fastened with a rope to the throwing machine, and the second was a sharp hook. The abandoned harpag clung to the enemy’s close range, deeply digging into the skin; the vessel pulled up to itself and went to the boarding. When hooking over the far side, the attackers reversed and turned the enemy over. Because of the length of the harpag, the defenders could not cut the rope, although they tried to do this with the help of blades on the poles.
The tactics of the ancient fleets were simple and effective. Closer to the enemy, he was bombarded with a hail of incendiary and other projectiles. With an intense oncoming fire, infantry on the deck was built by a turtle, waiting for the shelling. Skillfully maneuvering, they attacked one enemy ship with two or three of their own, creating a numerical superiority. The enemy was rammed, threw a "crow" and went to the boarding. The fire support was provided by the arrows of both ships - archers, spearmen, and slingers. And then, as the Roman authors write, “everything was determined by the personal valor and zeal of the warriors who want to excel in battle in front of their bosses”.
Time passed, Europe fell into the darkness of the Middle Ages. The huge ships of antiquity disappeared, the art of boarding, the developed catapults and assault ladders disappeared. Kamnemety frondibolds and caroballists, single-arm arrow-throwers bricolees and treamer kammemety became artillery - the technology is much more primitive than the ancient one. How now fought? The battle also began with the shelling of the enemy. To protect against it, rolled-up mattresses were rolled to the false-board, leaving embrasures between them, hanging shields, sandbags, and hemp fenders. Anti-curb measures were taken on the attacked ship. Above the sides, the nets were stretched, making it difficult to jump from side to side. The net was stretched over the deck to protect the crew from falling fragments of rigging. Quarterdeck with control mechanisms defended barricades on both sides made of logs and barrels of iron scrap. To inflict damage to the enemy, they put on hooks on the ends of the docks to break the enemy rigging as they approached close. Ships converged side by side, grappling boardboard gaffs, hooks, harpoon-sharpened for tenacity. The attackers, under the cover of their archers and crossbowmen, used assault ladders, descended from boards, “landed” on someone else's board with the help of ropes with their own mast, or simply jumped from side to side. Not only were the ships being boarded when the ships were boarding aboard. The elongated nose and the bowsprit located at an acute angle to the waterline became a characteristic element of the design of sailing vessels. There was a boarding team at the ready. After ramming the nose, the enemy board was held not only by cats, but also by rigging of a bowsprit, along which, like a bridge, the fighters went to board the ship.
With the advent of gunpowder, the preparation and conduct of boarding became more efficient and transient. From the 16th century, artillery began to be used in the navy. True, its accuracy and rate of fire left much to be desired, so success, as before, depended on the final hand-to-hand combat. Handheld firearms entered the boarding teams and cover groups (“Mars shooters?”), And this affected the boarding battle. Sea battle became a joint affair of fire fighting specialists - land soldiers with long-barreled weapons and selected sailors - masters of hand-to-hand combat with melee weapons. According to the command “On boarding!”, That part of the team whose task was to neutralize enemy personnel and seize the vessel landed on the attacked board.
Flashed a brief boarding battle. Those who went first (if they survived) sometimes received then any captured weapons in excess of their share of loot. This is understandable: they fell under the only one in such a case, a rifle salvo, literally jumping on bayonets. And the security of the boarding fighter was low. For the sake of maneuverability in the cramped battle and survival when falling into the water, he tried to wear as little iron as possible. Boarding gunshot arsenal included various weapons. Fire support groups used their long-range views from their own side, for example, a musket, the first mass long-barreled shotgun with a wick lock, barrel up to 140 cm (total length 180 cm), weight 6 – 7 kg and range to 200 m. Weapon boarding groups more compact. Particularly interesting is the musket (fr. Mousqueton) - a short musket that shot canister, chopped lead and cores to 350 g. It was a rather heavy thing weighing 5 – 6 kg with a wick, wheel lock or flint lock and 25 – 40 caliber mm. The length of the barrel was 900 mm, and the weight of the 60 – 80 grapeshot charge. The barrel bell accelerated the load in the conditions of rolling, increasing the rate of fire. The musketon was lighter than the musket, but the shot was less accurate. True, this was completely offset by a large area of destruction. He was effective precisely in boarding, where he was shot almost at close range, without aiming. Spanish smugglers and pirates used the musketon-trabuco until the beginning of the 20th century, which is why they were called trabukers.
The Russian naval musketon-tromblone was produced in Tula, had a barrel of steel (in Europe of bronze) and a conical chamber in the breech breech to increase the initial speed of the canister. “Korotyshs” of 35 – 36 mm / barrel 560 mm and 42 – 44 mm / barrel 360 mm were especially effective. According to the “Navy Armament” report card from 1734, the battleship was relied on 36 – 50, on the frigate 30, on small rowing ships 12 of these weapons. There were also pistols of a similar device and pistols in general. Blackbeard (Edward Teach) is credited with the creation of a sword belt. These were two wide belts, thrown over the shoulders and fastened to the belt. They had loops that hung up to 6 pistols. With a certain skill, it was possible to shoot straight from the loops.
In the boarding battle, there was no time to reload, so that ultimately everything was decided by hand-to-hand combat with melee weapons. Due to the narrowness and pitching, the manner of conducting the battle was special: mostly horizontal or stabbing blows were struck. The piercing, rapier and sword were ineffective, they got stuck and broke. But the special boarding chopping weapon was stronger and allowed to deliver a stronger blow, despite the shorter length. These were mostly shortened modifications of cold weapons of their era, for example, a halberd with a sawn-off shaft. In battle, a boarding saber with a straight or slightly curved wide blade and a well-developed basket-type guard, which almost completely protected the palm, was comfortable. Having a large mass, it was good when cutting ropes, masts, doors. A massive boarding ax with a long ax had, with a relatively small blade area, a very good penetrating ability. Hipping and stabbing boarding baton up to 80 cm long with a straight wide blade without a dale, one-sided or one-and-a-half sharpening, guard or armor type had a high destructive power. A slashing-pricking Venetian cleaver with a blade in the form of a saw with large teeth put heavy ragged wounds almost without a swing. A piercing dirk with a straight one- / double-bladed or three- / four-sided narrow blade was effective in close combat. For fencing paired with a longer powerful blade there were all sorts of daggers, for example, daga (isp. Daga) length 40 cm (blade 30 cm). A distraction was struck with one, and a deadly lunge with the other hand. Sometimes Doug had a “zest”: when the button was pressed, the spring laid out the blade on the 2 – 3 part, which made it possible to catch the enemy’s weapon and disarm it. A boarding cold weapon in general often had “bells and whistles” such as hooks, daggers, additional blades, etc. Thus, the Vikings had “spears with a hook that could also be chopped down”. With the advent of gunpowder in the boarding battle began to use grenades. They were thrown just before disembarking on the enemy board. The wick ignition scene shown in Pirates of the Caribbean has a real basis: sometimes the men braided smoldering wicks into their braids, using them in a battle to heat the grenades. To protect the defenders quickly stretched on the hooks a frequent net from the side of the threatened side: grenades bounced off it and fell overboard.
Boards were widely used by Vikings, who terrorized European waters on their Drakkars. Their weapons were shields, helmets, chain mail, spears, swords, axes, bows. Almost the entire crew went on the attack, before the 150 fighters. To get to the enemy deck, they used hooks, ladders, and then they were cut with a wall. The masters of boarding tactics were Genoese and Venetians, who fought for dominance in the Mediterranean, and the Genoese constantly beat the enemy with the skills of their boarding teams. So the famous Genoese infantry was tempered, the storm of all enemies and on land. During the Hundred Years War with France (1337 – 1453), the English archers, who ensured the victories of the army, helped the victories of their fleet. He trashed a larger French, and the reason for this was a long English bow clearing the way for boarding teams. Often, landing on the "Frenchman", they found there only a handful of defenders, because the rest were killed by arrows.
Russian mastered the boarding. It is noteworthy that, most often yielding to the enemy in the number of ships, their size and cannon equipment, they won not by number, but by skill. For example, the famous Novgorod ushkuyniki pirates walked along the sea and rivers in boats, giving a light to many from Kama to Norway. In 1349, they immediately took the Swedes' ships on boarding Oreshek with a raid, and then drove all the army of King Magnus out of the original Russian city.
In the 16th – 17th centuries, a great example of boarding was given by the Cossacks on their low-tonnage “seagulls”, which were significantly inferior in speed and firepower to the ships of the Turks. Constantly walking “behind the zipuns” (booty) to the shores of Turkey, they heated both merchant and military ships. Thus, under the command of the famous hetman Sagaidachny, the fleet of Ibrahim Pasha was crushed, including an 15 gallery captured by boarding. The Donets did not lag behind, trashing the Turks for their part. The effectiveness of their trips can be judged by the fact that they sometimes recruited one "yasyr" (prisoners), sometimes up to three thousand. There was a special exchange place where the Cossacks exchanged Muslims for Russians, sometimes demanding a ransom. So, Azov Turks paid for 30 000 gold for pasha. And then, going with Peter I to Azov, the Don people aboard the Turkish fighting galleys. The same tactics Don chieftain Stepan Razin defeated the Persian fleet. When they met with the enemy, the Cossacks avoided him so that the sun was behind them, an hour before sunset they approached the victim by a mile and a half. In conditions of agitation and brilliance of the water surface, their small vessels could not be seen. Surrounding the ship in the dark, they took him to the boarding; with calm, they did not consider it necessary to hide. An important technique was the luring of large enemy ships to the shallows and the subsequent boarding. Sovereign fleet also skillfully used the boarding. In the battle of Gangute 26.07.1714, in the hand-to-hand combat, all the ships of the Swedish squadron of Erensheld and the admiral were captured. The fighters were led to the boarding by the emperor Peter I. And here, as always, there was a maneuver of ships and boarding tactics against the Swedes superior fleet. In 1720, at Grengam, the Russian fleet from galleys and boats (!) Again grappled with the Swedes. Without going head-on on the enemy with his artillery superiority, the Russian-like Cossack lured him into the shallow water and in a boarding battle captured all the Swedish frigates. In the battle of Chios between the Russians and the Turks, 24.06.1770, everything was also decided by boarding, the stronger Turkish fleet was defeated.
The development of boarding combat naturally led to the appearance in the crew of a vessel of such a command, the specialization of which was not navigation and maintenance of shipboard equipment, but direct combat with the enemy (“face to face, knives in knives, eye to eye”) - ship infantry.
The bas-reliefs of the ancient Phoenicians depict biremes with warriors on the upper deck - perhaps these were the first infantrymen of this kind. The ancient Greeks called them epibats. Fighting in a sea battle on the decks of ships, they then pursued the enemy on land. At the Greeks themselves, the boarding teams consisted of infantrymen-hoplites, according to 100 people for one trial, the main ship of the Greek fleet. Protected by shells, helmets and shields, they were armed with swords and spears, like their land brothers. But the Romans ship infantry is already somewhat different from the land, having a lighter protection. On the Roman pinteras, triremes, galleys it was up to 100 of such fighters, later their different number was introduced depending on the size of the ship. In Rome, the era of the republic in boarding teams served as simple legionaries. In the era of the empire, a maritime legion was created, i.e., it was already a step towards the marines in our understanding.
The fleets of England, France and Spain began to apply it in the 17th century. The teams assigned to the ships constituted the core of the boarding groups. So, the English 74-gun ship of the line relied 136 such infantry, led by the captain. In Russia, the marines appeared in 1705 year. In the battle of Gangut, on each Russian gallery there was a device like “crow” and a boarding team of 150 fighters armed with muskets, pistols, broadswords and sabers. During the 18th century Russian-Turkish wars, marines were also seconded to the fleet ships as boarding teams. In addition, land regiments were also sent to the boarding teams of their soldiers. Boarding remained one of the main methods of naval combat in wars until the middle of the XIX century, and only the development of long-range rapid-fire naval artillery and the booking of ships brought it to naught.
But at the pirates boarding never went out of fashion, because the purpose of the sea robbers is not the destruction of another ship, but the seizure of goods - cargo, people, the ship itself. In the 16th century, often without leading official wars, seamen of England, France, Holland with might and main "gutted" their colleagues from other countries. The fact is that with the discovery of America the richest territories - the former empires of the Incas, Aztecs, gold and silver mines, deposits of precious stones - went to Spain and Portugal. Systematically robbing overseas territories, they strongly revived sea caravan routes. For less fortunate countries, boarding has become an effective means of redistributing wealth. The transports with valuable cargo on board were hunted, even if they were armed. Thus, in 1523, near the island of Santa Maria (Azores), the famous French corsair, Jean Fleury, with a flotilla of 8 ships seized Spanish caravels along with Aztec treasures, sent to Spain by conquistador Cortes, with boarding. He was not forgiven for this: through 4, the fortunate Fleury was captured and executed in Spain. And someone robbing other robbers was beneficial and even brought career growth. Thus, the boarding and the threat of boarding were the main techniques of the thugs of the great master of pirate craft Francis Drake. He handed over a significant part of the treasures taken away from the Spaniards to the English treasury, for which he received the rank of vice admiral in 1588. Or, for example, the equally famous Englishman Henry Morgan, whose name thundered in the second half of the seventeenth century in the Caribbean: for his success, he was appointed vice-governor of Jamaica and commander of its naval forces. Filibusters, corsairs and privateers were almost always equipped with a special permit (Letters of Marque, license, letter of marque, corsair patent, etc.) of their government in exchange for the obligation to share loot with it. The paper indicated which ships and colonies have the right to attack its owner, and in which port he must sell trophies. The governors of the British and French islands of the West Indies (America) gave out such “crusts” to anyone who wanted them, and the lack of a document made him an ordinary robber, a man outside the law.
... Sea robbery as a type of human activity exists to this day. The goal of modern pirates is to capture not only cargo, but also hostages, for which ransom is then required (world statistics for recent years: 2010 - 445; 2011 - 365; for 6 months 2012 - 265 attacks). So, a truly global problem, and for many centuries now, is piracy in the Malacca Strait (Southeast Asia). Over the year, 50 000 ships serving 25% of global maritime turnover go through the strait. And here 30% of all pirate attacks in the world is committed. This 900-kilometer narrow water corridor, surrounded by thousands of tropical islands, is the perfect place for a boarding attack.
Nigerian, Filipino, Chinese pirates are actively using boarding. In recent years, the Horn of Africa has become another “minefield” for world shipping, where Somali pirates hunt merchant and passenger ships passing through these waters without an armed escort. But you won't put an escort on everyone. There are promising attempts to repel attacks with various non-lethal technical means, for example, an acoustic (sonic) gun that does not even allow intruders to approach the board for boarding, but the number of ships hijacked by pirates is growing. Combined international forces, including specialists of the Russian Navy, are acting against the "bespredelshchik".