100 Chapter Threesailing ships of the sort already in use in Atlantic waters could readily be
converted into floating gun platforms—comparable in their concen
trated firepower to the bastions with which military engineers were
simultaneously beginning to protect city walls. Such floating bastions,
being readily maneuverable, made missiles decisive offensively as well
as defensively. The impact of a cannonade on lightly constructed ships
was as catastrophic as the initial impact of the same guns on castle walls;
and its effect lasted much longer, since no technical riposte to the
supremacy of heavy-gunned ships at sea was discovered until twentieth-
century airplanes and submarines came along.
A far-ranging change in naval relationships resulted. Mediterranean
galleys, built for speed, were pitifully vulnerable to cannon if they
allowed themselves to come within range. So were the merchant ships
of the Indian Ocean, whose light construction suited the monsoon
winds but made it impossible for local seamen to meet the Europeans
on anything like even terms by fitting guns to their own vessels. The
recoil of a heavy gun was, after all, almost as destructive to lightly built
craft as the impact at the other end of the cannonball’s trajectory.
Cannon, in the forms developed by French and Burgundian gun
founders between 1465 and 1477, were admirably suited for use
aboard a stoutly built ship. The only modification required was to
design a different kind of gun carriage, capable of absorbing recoil by
rolling backwards across the deck, and thus, conveniently, bringing
the cannon mouth inboard to allow reloading. Return to firing posi
tion required the crew to pull the gun forward with special tackle,
since firing inboard risked igniting the ship. But the new guns were so
heavy that they had to be carried near the waterline to avoid danger
ous topheaviness. This meant they had somehow to fire through the
sides of the hull itself. Cutting gunports just above the waterline, and
equipping them with stout, waterproof covers that could be secured
when no fighting was expected made a formidable broadside compati
ble with general seaworthiness. As early as 1514 a warship built for
King Henry VIII of England pioneered this design. Some seventy
years later, Sir John Hawkins lowered the “castles” fore and aft to
improve the sailing qualities of Queen Elizabeth’s warships. With
these changes, the adaptation of oceangoing vessels to the artillery
revolution of the fifteenth century was effectively achieved. There
after, European ships could count on crushing superiority in armed
encounters with vessels of different design on every ocean of the
earth.
Heavy guns, routinely carried by ordinary merchant ships, allowed