Herald of Steel

Once the carriage arrived at its destination, and Alexander felt the movement of the vehicle slow down and then fully stop, a guard from the outside placed his armored fist against the wooden carriage door and gave it a solid knock, before proclaiming, “My lord, we have arrived.”

And so soon the three people got down and found themselves looking at the wooden walls and raised palisade of what likely appeared to be a small hamlet that had been renovated into a military fort.

Pasha Farzah and Lady Inayah were certainly intrigued to know what mad thing Alexander had cooked up for them this time.

“My lord, my lady,” And they did not need to wait for long, as once their escort was ready, Alexander addressed the two nobles with a gesture of his hand and invited them inside.

And as the group traversed this short distance, eager to see what lay beyond, Alexander himself recalled the naval tactics of this time.

Naval fights were eerily like land battles, with the ships acting very much like phalanx units. While the ships themselves typically hugged the shores, one reason being so that the ships could be quickly resupplied as the battleships really could carry only a few days worth of food and water.

And so if they ran out of this, they would either starve or have to make landfall and forage.

The other reason for always being close to the shore was because the shipbuilding of this time could not build crafts that would guarantee adequate safety in rough seas.

So no naval power was willing to put tens if not hundreds of thousands of men together and then sail them out into the middle of the sea where rough storms could instantly make them disappear.

And even if they wanted to, the men would likely mutiny before that.

Because the realization that there was no way to retreat in their rickety wooden boat and the fear of drowning, coupled with the superstitions regarding the seas played such havoc on the morale of soldiers that neither the attacker nor defended would dare launch full-scale attacks against one another in the open sea.

Hence all naval engagements actually occurred close to the shores, either to one’s own coast, or their opponents.

And the reason for such an evolution of naval warfare lay in the design of the main ‘battleship’ of this time- Trireme.

This ship’s average length was about 40 meters and weighed 50 tons, which was big enough to cause significant damage to enemy ships through ramming, but also light enough to be transported by the crew on land, if necessary.

But its most important feature was that it was made out of pine and cypress wood, built such so that it could be fast and agile, with a top speed of around 8 to 10 knots, which allowed the commander to ram enemy vessels with significant force and momentum.

The ship had three rows of oarsmen, hence the name tri-reme, who, contrary to popular belief were not tied to their seats but well armed, so that they were able to board an enemy ship or defend their own.

These men would be seated on wooden planks extending from the ship’s hull on top of one another, forming a sort of three-layered rowing team, with the top position being the most prestigious, as the men there would be most exposed to the elements and enemy fire.

But perhaps the most prominent feature of a trireme would be its bronze ram, which would be two to three meters long and be attached to the ship’s keel, often shaped like an animal like a ram’s head.

Using these metal extends, triremes would most regularly try to ram each other enemy ship and follow it up by infantry boarding and clashes.

Hence naval warfare at the time really looked much like a land battle on the sea.

Inside the average trireme, it would have a crew of 200 men, with 7 officers, 170 oarsmen, 14 marines, 10 phalangites, and 4 archers, along with 9 sailors who were responsible for the ship’s sails and general maintenance.

From this it could be seen that usually a navy had to rely on the naval maneuvers of their captains and depend on skilled oarsmen to correctly steer the ships according to their superior’s command, in order to be able to flank and ram the opposing ships from the sides, dealing maximum damage.

Or at least that was the preferred tactic of Cantagena and Sybarsis, whose ships usually had a much lower number of marines so that they were able to have more oars for more speed and maneuverability,

Now, this particular set of strategies was unique to Cantagena, who Alexander knew so much about not because he was a Thesina, but because there were extensive records about them in Adhan’s royal library, as the two had fought uncountable times over the past few centuries.

Hence it would be wrong to extrapolate the same strategies to other navies.

For instance, Exolas had a completely opposite strategy to Cantagena, as they would rely more on the infantry’s capabilities and would prefer to quickly ram the Cantagenans vessels head-on and board ships since it was almost impossible to compete with the superior Cantagenan maneuverability and their highly-skilled oarsmen.

While Cantagena would attempt to flank the enemy fleet while infantry and ranged troops

harassed the enemy.

Now, the reason why the trireme was the king of the navy at this time, and not some of the better ships of later times was simply because the people of this time were unable to build better ships, as they were still quite primitive in their ship-making technology.

Now did have good techniques to be sure.

For instance, they were able to build ships with multiple internal frames and crossbeams that provided structural strength, thus letting them transition from small boats to large ships capable of even transporting 1,000 tons of cargo.

The hulls of those ships would be constructed using overlapping planks which were individually cut, shaped, and fitted together, and then fastened to the frames using nails or iron clamps.

And then to make these watertight, they filled the gaps between the planks with materials such as wool, moss, animal hair, or tar-soaked ropes, which prevented water from seeping into the ship’s hull.

All these were great achievements in naval technology.

But their biggest flaw was with how they built the body of the ship.

They still used mortise and tenon joints extensively in ship construction, which was a technique where mortise holes were cut into one timber, and tenons were formed on the end of another timber, which was then fit into the mortise holes and after the joints were secured with wooden pegs or iron fastenings, creating a somewhat strong and rigid connection.

But as it could be seen, this meant that the ship’s strength was not equal to the multiple layers of thick planks with which it was used to make it.

But the strength just came from the relatively thin peg that was used to hold the planks together, which any decent amount of force could simply snap in two.

A decent enough force such as a bronze ram crashing against it, or even just large, rough waves repeatedly battering it.

This was the reason for the navy operating close to the shore and just ramming each other in wars.

A very similar thing had happened in Alexander’s previous life too, and it was not until the advent of better ship construction techniques, such as the “shell-first” method, where the hull framework was built first, followed by planking and additional features, thus allowing shipbuilders to use sturdy hardwoods like oak for the frames and planks, that ships could get much bigger and stronger.

And this was one of the reasons the Europeans discovered America, while the Romans never left the Mediterranean.

Now, for Alexander copying the Europeans was not an option.

At least not right now.

He neither had the known now nor did he shipwrights of this time.

So after the naval block, he had racked his brains over how to build a navy.

His very first thought was to copy the Romans and build the Corvus.

But those ships were notoriously unbalanced and though the Romans destroyed Carthage using them, there were two nasty incidents of the Romans losing their entire fleets during storms in 255 and 249 BC due to how unstable the ships were, which contributed to them abandoning ship design over time.

So Alexander wanted something better if possible.

Hence he came up with the idea to improve the mortise and tenon joints technique.

He thought of using his high-quality weapons-grade steel for his pegs, which would be tens of times stronger than the wooden ones.

And then to stave off corrosion, he even thought of using zinc or even tin as a galvanizing metal.

This was one option. 𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘦𝑡

But the other, much more radical option was for Alexander to use cement as the binding building for the planks, just like building a house.

Ships made entirely of concrete ships were built in the 1900s, so it was certainly possible.

And so, even if Alexander could not build a ship made of only concrete, almost like a ‘cementclad’ (as in ironclad), even if could just build a ship with a mixture of wood and concrete. he was pretty sure his ships would be invincible not just now, but even in the age of sail, being immune to burning and almost impervious to ramming and cannon fire.

It would almost be a floating castle!