Interesting, thanks for that info. All sounds like very, very inneficient forms of fighting, nonetheless. Am I right in assuming that the boarding method was still the tactic most commonly employed in ancient sea-battles?
Still, Aragorn's strike on the Corsairs remains a raid and not a full sea-battle as has been said. It might clarify matters somewhat if someone was to print the information that we have, of Appendix A to LotR, here;
Quote:
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Thorongil often counselled Ecthelion that the strength of the rebels in Umbar was a great peril to Gondor, and a threat to the fiefs of the South that would prove deadly, if ever Sauron moved to open war. At last he got leave of the Steward and gathered a small fleet, and he came to Umbar unlooked-for by night, and there burned a great part of the ships of the Corsairs. He himself overthrew the Captain of the Haven in battle upon the quays, and then he withdrew his fleet with small loss. But when they came back to Pelargir...
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(Came back to Pelargir... of course, Gondor's old naval base. Some proof that Gondor did have a navy, perhaps, and that this was it?)
In the attack on Umbar, lit pitch/Greek fire-type chemicals would presumably have been how the Corsair boats were fired (fire-hulks, always an effective tactic right up until the end of the era of timber warships,
could have been used; but one imagines the great light and burning giving the raiders away if they did come 'unlooked-for'). Gondor was overwhelmingly out-navied by Umbar (at this stage); the business of ramming the ships, which at any rate would highly endager your own ships if fire was involved, would have taken a lot longer and given time for the Corsairs to counterattack a bit more. Again, a highly difficult and not-very-effective method of taking down the Corsair ships, especially the more gargantuious of them, and particularly as they were in harbour.
That there was 'fighting on the quays' suggests that the raiders landed and set light to ships from the landing bays, rather than by flinging burning missiles at them (sounds like quite a stupid idea :/) from their own boats.
If they fought on the quay, Felagund, then they probably did user smaller landing boats to get them and their weapons there. Umbar
was a very large natural harbour, though. Perhaps small fire ships could have been used; little boats, filled with pitch and set alight and towards the Corsairs once they were inside. But I certainly imagine the destruction happening by first boarding, then burning boats,
from the docking platforms.
[ September 25, 2003: Message edited by: Gwaihir the Windlord ]