Ramming

[2] Navies in antiquity commonly used the ram: the "beak" (Latin: rostrum) became an important part of the armament of the galleys of Imperial Rome.

In ancient China, rams were largely unknown, as the lack of a keel and the flat shape of the junk's bow was not conducive to constructing an elongated underwater spur.

Another significant use of the naval ram occurred during the Third Italian War of Independence (June to August 1866) at the Battle of Lissa, between Italy and Austria.

During the War of the Pacific of 1879-1884, the Peruvian ironclad Huascar repeatedly rammed the Chilean corvette Esmeralda, sinking the wooden steam- and wind-powered ship (May 1879).

On 29 January 1943 the New Zealander naval trawlers, Kiwi and Moa rammed and wrecked the Japanese submarine I-1 in shallow water at Kamimbo Bay, Guadalcanal, during Operation Ke.

The famous British anti-submarine specialist Captain Frederic John Walker used this tactic from December 1941 to the end of World War II.

The operation succeeded, and a large explosive time-bomb charge hidden in the bow of the ship exploded the next day, putting the dock out of commission for five years.

On 2 August 1943, while returning from a "Tokyo Express" night reinforcement mission in the Solomon Islands, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri spotted USN PT boats at a range of about 1,000 yards.

Rather than open fire—and give away their position—the destroyer captain, Lieutenant Commander Kohei Hanami, turned to intercept and closed in the darkness at 30 knots.

Commander Gerard Roope, the captain of the G-class destroyer HMS Glowworm, posthumously won the Victoria Cross for the 1940 ramming of the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper following a close-range action in bad weather off the Norwegian coast.

As well as Royal Navy coastguard vessels, Britain sent large, ocean-going tugs and frigate to protect its subjects, and numerous ramming incidents occurred against both sides, sometimes with very serious consequences.

On 30 March 2020 the Venezuelan patrol-boat Naiguatá rammed the cruise ship RCGS Resolute after failing to damage it with a volley of gunfire.