Sea Battles of Gondor

[easterlinge]

NUmenor and Gondor were supposedly naval powers... but there is little mention of sea battles. Did Tolkien write anything about naval battles? Oh, LOTR Appendix did mention Aragorn, disguised as Thorongil, leading the Gondorians on a raid on Umbar that destroyed most of the enemy ships, and during the Kinstrife, Castamir used the ships to good effect. Castamir probably bombarded Osgiliath with Greek (Numenorean?) Fire and catapults from the ships on the River.

ASide from that, the Gondorian NAvy is notable for its absence.

What were the ships like, for one thing? My guess is that they were similar to the oared dromonds (like galleys, but larger and too unwieldy for ramming, but armed with ballistae, catapults and later, small cannon) practically every sea-power used until the English developed tactics using larger long range cannon and broadsides. BUt it's a guess only. The ships could have been Chinese junks for all I know. (Naaaahhh....)

THe English and French commandeered merchant ships and built "castles" at the bow and stern for fighting at the Battle of Sluys in the Middle Ages, but the resulting structure was a bit top heavy and rolled nastily. Both sides wisely abandoned them, and I doubt the Sea-Kings of Gondor and Numenor would ever put up with them.

[olorin7]

I never seen the battles described any where, but tolkien did day that in the days of numenor, at least in the dark years that fleets of ships would sail to middle earth to take dominion over the lesser men. As to the description of the boats i doubt that cannons were used. they were used in any battles during the third age. If gondor had had them they would most likely have still used them at minis tirith. also any time that saurons servents or sauraman used anything that was described as being anything close to a cannon, they were thought of as works of devilry

[Snowdog]

I always thought it was implied that during the Kin-strife the navel power was in Castimir's domain and they for the most part went to Umbar. Therefore there was an absense of naval power in Gondor and that was why Thorongil under orders from Echelion raided the ships in port and destroying them. It took time to build more ships, and the new fleet of the Corsairs were ready by the time of the War of the ring, hence Aragorn's need to again do battle against the ships with th army of the dead as they said into the Anduin.

[Wayfarer]

The numenoreans did have powered metal vessels... I picture a merrimac/minotaur style. So almost anything is possible.

[Mordomin]

Originally posted by Wayfarer
The numenoreans did have powered metal vessels... I picture a merrimac/minotaur style. So almost anything is possible. They did? :eek: Where did that information come from? I've never heard that before.

[Findegil]

I think it was taken out of The Lost Road (History of Middel-Earth volume 5). But I don't think it is cannon. The talk of Elendil and his son Herendil in that work is very early in the textual history of The Akalabeth, so I doubt if any think of it was left to stand.

Regards
Findegil

[Snowdog]

I dont go with every scrap-note tittle that Chris Tolkien publishes as fact for there are alot of revising to get a true story.

The reason much of the forests of Middle Earth were cut was to build ships. They are wodden ships to me. :)

[Wayfarer]

I guess I think of metal plated ships.

[noldorlord]

If they were metal plated it would probably be like napoleonic naval ships, with metal plated bottoms to stop limpets and other shell fish destroying the wood. However above the water the ships would look more like galleys or cogs from medieval/rennaisance times. Interesting topic. In unfinished tales it talks about the numenorean fleet landing men on shore to fight sauron when the gwaith i mirdan were murdered, like marines. This could meen they were falt bottomed to go up steam, like viking ships.

[Michael Martinez]

There is no evidence that the Numenoreans of The Lord of the Rings (which replaced those of the early "Akallabeth") had anything other than wooden ships. Tolkien abandoned many ideas from his earlier stories when he created the Middle-earth mythology in the late 1930s and early-to-mid 1940s.