Naval ram
The weapon comprised an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between 2 and 4 meters (6–12 ft) in length.
[5] The ram most likely evolved from cutwaters, structures designed to support the keel-stem joint and allow for greater speed and dynamism in the water.
Medieval galleys instead developed a projection, or "spur", in the bow that was designed to break oars and to act as a boarding platform for storming enemy ships.
The only remaining examples of ramming tactics were passing references to attempts to collide with ships in order to destabilize or capsize them.
[11] The casting of an object as large as the Athlit ram was a complicated operation at the time, and would have been a considerable expense in the construction of a war galley.
The front wall of the head of the ram has the thickest layer of casting at 6.8 centimetres (2.7 in) for extra protection during battle.
[13] In 1727, during the Anglo-Spanish War, Spanish engineer Juan de Ochoa proposed King Philip V his project of the barcaza-espín ("barge-porcupine").
These vessels were effectively floating batteries moved by rows and fitted with multiple naval rams, a main one in its prow and eight smaller around its body, which was the reason behind their name.
[14] With the development of steam propulsion, the speed, power and maneuverability it allowed again enabled the use of the ship's hull, which could be clad in iron, as an offensive weapon.
The first coastal battleship, France's Taureau, was built in 1863, for the purpose of attacking warships at anchor or in narrow straits, and was armed with a ram.
[citation needed] The theory behind the revival of the weapon derived from the fact that, in the period c. 1860, armour held superiority over the ship-mounted cannon.
This only really aggravated a number of incidents of ships being sunk by their squadron-mates in accidental collisions as ramming never featured as a viable battle tactic again.
They also served to decrease the length of forecastle that was exposed to muzzle flash when the guns were fired directly ahead.
The only battleship-over-submarine victory in history occurred during World War I, when the battleship HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank U-boat U-29.
Submarines were strongly built to resist water pressure at depth, so the ramming ship could be badly damaged by the attack.
The submarine eventually sank but Borie was too badly damaged by the ramming to be salvaged, so she was abandoned and deliberately sunk by Allied forces.
The British Admiralty in the First World War expected that some merchant captains might try to ram U-boats as much as twice the size of their own vessel and capable of much greater speed, if the situation favoured such a tactic.
[32] The Italian merchant ship Antonietta Costa rammed and sank submarine HMS Rainbow while on a convoy from Bari to Durazzo.
[35] Explosive motor boats which usually detonated after ramming their target were employed by the Italian and the Japanese navies in World War II.
Italian type MTM boats rammed and crippled the British cruiser HMS York and a Norwegian tanker at Suda Bay in 1941, while Shinyo suicide motorboats sank a number of US amphibious craft in the Pacific Theatre of operations in 1945.
Late in the century, ramming by major warships became the tactic of choice during the Cod Wars conflict between the Icelandic Coast Guard and the Royal Navy.
Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide a small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat.
Like monitors, torpedo rams operated with very little freeboard, sometimes with only inches of hull rising above the water, exposing only their funnels and turrets to direct enemy fire.
