Warships The first warships were built by the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians during the 700s B C E They were called galleys a type of wooden ship powered by humans rowing long oars Galleys used many weapons including the catapult Galley ships were used in the navies of the Mediterranean until the 1700s The invention of the cannon then brought about a new type of warship the man-of-war It was powered by large square sails and armed with two to three rows of cannons on each side By the mid-1800s steam engines propellers and exploding shells changed naval warfare In the early 4
1900s steel battleships dominated the oceans These were big and fast and carried heavy guns Naval warfare evolved quickly during World War I WWI and World War II WWII Aircraft carriers made it easier to transport fighter jets that could destroy enemy ships beyond the range of the ships themselves Today modern weapons and stealth technology have again changed the way wars are fought A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is flanked by Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers The aircraft carrier is still the capital ship of most navies 5
Greco-Persian Wars 499 449 B C E Aegean Sea The First Warships The first warships were long narrow ships with a metal ram at the front designed to smash into enemy ships They were powered by oars and sails The most famous was the trireme which had three banks of oars The trireme was based on earlier designs of biremes and penteconter ships Biremes had two banks of oars and penteconters had 25 oars on each side These warships were used by the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians Hundreds of years later in the 400s B C E the trireme 6
During the Battle of Salamis in 480 B C E an ancient Greek trireme heads for an enemy ship at full ramming speed Sailors race to pull down the sails and masts before ramming Hoplites gather at the prow ready to board the enemy ship when they ram had become the main warship Fleets of more than 200 triremes fought during wars between the ancient Greeks and the Persian Empire Ships usually carried between 10 and 20 Greek soldiers called hoplites Hoplites boarded enemy ships after they were successfully rammed The use of oar-powered warships continued in the Mediterranean until the 1600s Galleys like this one from Malta carried many types of weapons They used rams catapults and cannons as well as large crews to overpower enemy vessels 7
