Pirates Not of the Caribbean

[Venusian Broon]

Oh, other sorts of pirates - the German raiders of WW1 and 2. There are some amazing stories of what they did.

See here about the SMS Move:

Also look up the SMS Seeadler SMS Seeadler (1888) - Wikipedia

One of the last fighting sailing ships.

 

[Danny McG]

Last fighting sailing ships makes me think of something I read....
WW2 and Royal Navy. Some captain and his crew attacked and boarded a German ship using cutlasses. Anyone heard something like that?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Last fighting sailing ships makes me think of something I read....
WW2 and Royal Navy. Some captain and his crew attacked and boarded a German ship using cutlasses. Anyone heard something like that?

From memory I believe (hence probably wrong) that the Royal Navy was still getting cutlass drills near the start of WW1 - because some admirals still hadn't quite figured out that 15 inch guns could hit a target at ~30km, and expected that boarding a ship was a viable way of fighting at sea.

 

[Cli-Fi]

There were many kinds of pirates throughout history. In some ways, the Caribbean ones were not even the most interesting. My candidate is Stepan Razin, the Cossack pirate of the Volga.

Once, Razin was surrounded by a Persian fleet in the Black Sea. The Persian commander put his ships in a circle, chained together, to keep Razin from escaping. The pirate ships were smaller and lower, completely vulnerable to the Persian cannon fire. But Razin attacked anyway. A lucky shot set off the powder magazine in the Persian flagship, sinking it almost instantly. When it sank, it dragged the other ships down with it and only three Persian ships survived. Razin sailed away unscathed.

Good stories abound for this guy.
Stepan (Stenka) Razin – Russiapedia History and mythology Prominent Russians
Pirates & Privateers: The History of Maritime Piracy - Stepan Razin

What is your candidate for memorable pirates?

Black Sails is the best TV show about pirates you will ever watch. Trust me on this.

 

[Dave]

From memory I believe (hence probably wrong) that the Royal Navy was still getting cutlass drills near the start of WW1 - because some admirals still hadn't quite figured out that 15 inch guns could hit a target at ~30km, and expected that boarding a ship was a viable way of fighting at sea.

What about submersibles? Wikipedia says the Royal Navy had 74 submarines at the start of WW1. Some already were built with torpedoes but the idea was to get close to ships and shoot them with guns. Climbing on board at night with cutlasses would have worked too (in the mind of an old admiral obviously.)

 

[Venusian Broon]

What about submersibles? Wikipedia says the Royal Navy had 74 submarines at the start of WW1. Some already were built with torpedoes but the idea was to get close to ships and shoot them with guns. Climbing on board at night with cutlasses would have worked too (in the mind of an old admiral obviously.)

I believe so - subs may have wanted to actually pilfer the ship first before sinking her - if her own supplies were low. Certainly a lot of the surface raiders would do that, for example taking fuel from the captured ship (because the Germans lost all their coaling stations more or less at the start.)

 

[hej]

Surely the most successful pirate of all time. And a lady

Ching Shih

Ching Shih - Wikipedia

Apparently had a fleet of 300 ships at one point (admittedly probably gathered as part of a pirate coalition beforehand...but she became the leader of them and led them successfully) and went to war against all the biggest Empires at the time.

And retired with wealth. How many other pirates could say that?

She is exactly of whom I thought when I saw this thread. Good call!

 

[Tulius Hostilius]

Sayyida al Hurra was a Mediterranean pirate, allied with (but independent of) Baba Oruç (a notable figure himself). She was also a provincial governor, commander of a pirate fleet, and became Queen of Morocco. Okay, came to a possible sticky end, but...pirate, you know.

We must be careful about her, since we don’t have many sources. I don’t know if she even entered in a ship.


But, the piracy was a quite common activity among the sailors since the beginning of time. Sometimes it is difficult to separate that activity from the trade.


At least since the Antiquity the Mediterranean Sea was full of pirates. The Strait of Gibraltar was a dangerous zone in the Medieval and Early Modern Period.


The Portuguese Álvaro Vaz de Almada (Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches - Wikipedia) was identified as a pirate (well… a Corsair) working for England against France, during the Hundred Years' War


Due to the proximity of the Strait of Gibraltar Portugal suffered much with the Piracy in the region, both Muslim and Christian. The Conquest of Ceuta in 1415 allowed the Portuguese to nullify a pirate base and use themselves Ceuta as a base, both in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea.


But for many years the scream among the coastal population “Há Mouros na costa!”/“There are Moors at the coast” was quite common. The “Moors” were the pirates, and they could be Moors, Castilian, French, English or Duch!


Possibly the first time than Christopher Columbus arrived to Portugal, and according to his son, was in the sequence of a Pirate attack near the Cape São Vicente (in 1476?). The name of the Pirate attacker was Columbus, the Younger; the nick exists so he can be differentiated from another pirate at the time, Columbus, the Older.


Palos was a traditional port of Pirates. The Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso, Vicente Yáñez, Francisco Martín) were most possible themselves pirates (well… corsairs). Queen Isabel in 1478 gives to Palos a letter to engage in Piracy acts against the Portuguese in the Guinea Coast.


When the Portuguese arrived to the Indian Ocean (1497/8), they soon begun to do what they were already used to do in the Atlantic/Mediterranean, but also there they found the seas quite active in Piracy acts.


The Indian pirate (well… corsair) Timoji helped the Portuguese in the conquest of Goa.


And according to the myth, the Portuguese possession of Macao (China) was established after the Portuguese fight against Chinese Pirates. This myth is unsubstantiated.


At the time (16th century) the Piracy around the Strait of Malacca was already quite intense. By Sea Dayaks. More to North the Chinese Pirates and the Wokou (Japanese) attacked constantly the sea trade and the coast.


After the Caribbean pirates, and eventually the Berber pirates (in the North West Africa), mostly known for their mystified and romanticized histories, the other area quite romanticized was the Malaysia, with Emilio Salgari, and his novels “Sandokan”, the Malaysian Pirate, even if he also wrote about the Caribean with the “Black Corsair” series. Curious for a man that never leaved his country!

 

[sknox]

How did someone capture a ship in those days? Preferably we're talking 16thc or before; 17thc at the latest -- you will see I'm trying to eliminate cannon fire.

My first guess would be grappling hooks and boarding, probably after disabling either sails or oars in some way, even if just to bring them into the lee. I know about the Roman corvus, then there's a huge gap, and I know about 18thc methods. In between is a great unknown.

 

[Abernovo]

Sorry for the brief thread derail.

Curious for a man that never leaved his country!

Not really, if you consider Jules Verne wrote many of his travel adventures due to a love of maps and a desire to see far-off places he could only read about, and imagine visiting one day. He did leave France to visit Britain, courtesy of a contact in shipping and, later in life, bought a small vessel of his own for travelling around Europe, but the writing was originally fuelled (in part) by a frustrated hankering to explore the world.

 

[Caledfwlch]

From memory I believe (hence probably wrong) that the Royal Navy was still getting cutlass drills near the start of WW1 - because some admirals still hadn't quite figured out that 15 inch guns could hit a target at ~30km, and expected that boarding a ship was a viable way of fighting at sea.

In fairness, just after the turn of the century, naval technology suddenly exploded, its not surprising Admirals were struggling.

IIRC, all the so called experts claimed that a large warship made entirely out of metal was impossible, it would sink, or snap in half etc.
Then the Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought, the first "Battleship" and scared the holy crap out of pretty much any nation with a Navy.

HMS Dreadnought (1906) - Wikipedia

It's not an unforgivable error like that made with the Army in WW1 - not even the Machine Gun was new, the Grunts in the British Trenches, their technology was not that far advanced on what a grunt in 1815 had, just a bit better, it was recognisable, but a Captain or Admiral from 1815, HMS Dreadnought would have been utterly alien.

 

[Tulius Hostilius]

How did someone capture a ship in those days? Preferably we're talking 16thc or before; 17thc at the latest -- you will see I'm trying to eliminate cannon fire.


My first guess would be grappling hooks and boarding, probably after disabling either sails or oars in some way, even if just to bring them into the lee. I know about the Roman corvus, then there's a huge gap, and I know about 18thc methods. In between is a great unknown.

In Portugal the Cannon fire begun to be used effectively during the reign of D. João II (late of the 15th century), he personally developed a method of naval firing (with ricochet).


But for boarding, we must assume from what we can read from the chronicles that it wouldn’t be much different from the scenes that we see in the Hollywood movies, like you say, with hooks, taking advantage of the pilot skills and the different velocities from the ships. The ships could previously attack and defend with javelins and arrows (from bows and crossbows), or even with liquid or stones if one had a higher parapet.


The warships were usually of the galley type, with oars, not only in the Mediterranean, but also in some parts of the Atlantic, and the merchants were sail ships. The oars allowed greater maneuverability and instant velocity, but allowed them a shorter range (too many mouths to feed).


After the 16th century the boarding would only be made if the defenders were in disadvantage, because the ships would be bombard with different kinds of projectiles.


More on topic:


For those who read in Spanish (or want to try a Google translation), here is an article about Basque corsairs in the Mediterranean Sea, for the centuries 14th and 15th:

http://um.gipuzkoakultura.net/itsasmemoria5/ferrerimallol.pdf


Some more reads about the introduction of the artillery in the ships, a source (avoid this!):

Platica manual de artilleria : en la qual se tracta ... de el arte militar y origen de ella, y de las maquinas con que los antiguos començaron a vsarla, de la inuencion de la poluora y artilleria, de el modo de conduzirla ... fabricar las minas, varios secretos y importantissimos aduertimientos al arte de la artillería y vso de la guerra vtilissimos y muy necessarios. Y à la fin un ... importante examen de artilleros ... | Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes


and an article, more recent and readable:


El artillado de las naves: el diseño de las piezas, su ubicación en los barcos y los centros de producción durante los siglos XVI y XVII. | López Martín | Antropología. Revista Interdisciplinaria del INAH

(sorry, again in Spanish!)

Sorry for the brief thread derail.


Not really, if you consider Jules Verne wrote many of his travel adventures due to a love of maps and a desire to see far-off places he could only read about, and imagine visiting one day. He did leave France to visit Britain, courtesy of a contact in shipping and, later in life, bought a small vessel of his own for travelling around Europe, but the writing was originally fuelled (in part) by a frustrated hankering to explore the world.

Yes, Jules Verne is another curious case. I call it curious because it is difficult to have the knowledge only from the books, without never really seeing it in reality, and yet transmitting it to the books with some credibility, at least for those who are even more unfamiliar with those exotic realities.

 

[Caledfwlch]

I would imagine, that apart from the invention of Cannons, muskets & pistols, the actual business of boarding an enemy vessel once it you are alongside wouldn't have changed vastly from the days when Marines of the Imperial Roman Navy boarded vessels.