Rowers and oars
Reply to the article "Roman fleet. Ship type and design"
Even a land hedgehog in the Tambov forest is clear that a ship with three rows of oars will be faster than one. And with five - faster than three. And so on. The same ship with a diesel engine in 3000 hp (other things being equal or close to the parameters) will be faster than with 1000-strong. As I have already said, from the book into the book float, the wave of the wave, the “ancient trireme”, however, for some reason always in the modern image. Not a single “antique” vase, not a single “antique” fresco with a reliable, uniquely interpretable and equally unequivocally dated image of a ship with a multi-tier arrangement of oars, I think, have not yet been able to present. Everything that sources offer us (for example, Shershov A.P., “K stories military shipbuilding "), upon closer inspection, it turns out to be either sculptural compositions of some monuments (triumphal / rostral columns, etc.), or - decorations on dishes or anything else. "Painting on the wine cup", for example.
And, by the way, monumental artists and graphic artists of all times and peoples never considered themselves bound by the need to precisely observe the forms and proportions of the objects depicted. You can abide, but you can also! There is even a term such as “stylization”. And then there is the term "canon." Where did the portraits of Peter the Great and Alexander Suvorov come from, encased in the blued steel of knight armor? Which they never wore? And such a canon was in those days. No more.
Nothing has come down to us that could even be considered a “trireme drawing.” We got pictures. Reached the canon.
Two questions:
1) how canon fit the prototype?
2) when did it originate? If during or after the formation of KVI, then there is simply nothing to talk about. The artist drew not what he saw, but what the history teacher convinced him of.
It would be nice to have an independent, so to speak, “absolute” method of dating all these columns, bas-reliefs, vases and night pots. By the principle - a sensor was attached to the object, the device squeaked, and gave the age of the product. But what is not, is not, which means that these images do not possess any evidential force. However, perhaps, modern historians know better than the Greek eyewitnesses what the Greek trireme looked like. Those of them who are more honorable, and indicate in the captions to the illustrations: "reconstruction".
In the same A.P. Shershov has drawings "trireme" with cuts, where everything is painted in detail. And in the book Dudszus, Henriot, Krumrey. Das Grossbuch der Shiffstipen (Transpress, Berlin, 1983), and in general a sea of other literature on the history of shipbuilding. And everywhere - reconstruction. This can be seen with the naked eye: all these drawings are made according to the modern requirements of GOST. I am not an inventor, not a creator, not even a designer or a reconstructor, but by descriptive geometry I always had a reinforced concrete “five” that was at an institute that was at a military school.
Yes, the plans, “side plates” and cuts are pretty. But it seems to me that the authors of these paper triremes themselves have never tried to flush upwind at least on the standard Navy-6 fleet, a six-weighted lifeboat. Displacement (roughly speaking, weight) of empty - 960 kg. With a full-time team, equipment and supplies of about one and a half tons. At the school I was the captain of the boat crew. So, authoritatively declare: the work of a convict. Especially if the wolf has spread points by four. It is not by chance that “hard labor” is the galleys on which convicted criminals serve their term for the rowers. This is then the maritime term crawled onto dry land while preserving its, so to speak, penitentiary content.
Rowing is very hard work. Firstly, it requires great physical strength in order to at least simply lift and bring in a heavy oar, and secondly, an excellent sense of rhythm. I beg you not to confuse the pleasure boat on the Moscow River with a lifeboat and the more so the gallery! With the height of the freeboard of the “six” of order 40-50, the length of the oar is about 4 m, it is made of ash, a heavy, durable tree, and the roller, the counterweight, is also flooded with lead to facilitate the oarsman to lift the oar from the water.
Think about it. For a six-wheeled boat, a sideboard half a meter is quite sufficient: its full-time team is 8 people, weight is 1500 kg. Suppose our hypothetical trireme has only 10 oars in a row on each side, just 60. Suppose a rower is paddle, plus ten deck sailors, about thirty soldiers, plus bosses and “gunners” - only about 110 people. I emphasize in particular - all my “suppose” are taken not just by the minimum, but below the lower limit, outrageously small, all the calculations here I simplify to the limit and far beyond this limit! But even with such an unrealistic preferential approach, we get the vessel by tonnage in 150 tons. Such a vessel must have a depth of at least one meter, unless, of course, it is not a river barge and not a port scow. It’s a long time to explain why, take it on faith or check with the ship’s engineers. Just do not forget to warn that we are talking about a seagoing vessel.
Now we will build the simplest drawing. Bin Newton is not needed here, it suffices to recall the theorem of Thales. We get the length of the paddle of the bottom row of the order of eight meters! The boat oar weighs about 4-5 kg, I don’t remember exactly, unfortunately. How much will the galley weigh for the bottom row? 8-10? Dudka, 32-40, since the dependency is cubic here, any engineer will confirm this to you, not just the shipbuilder. Is it possible to roll such a paddle alone? Many, many hours in a row? Not. Who doubts - I ask for oars, at least for that very yal. So, we have two paddlers on the paddle, and that is speculative! - who tried? maybe they need three there? - not one by one, which automatically increases our crew from a 110 man to 170. What happens to the displacement? It also automatically increases!
The vicious circle, or rather, the spiral, which at all times has been a curse, is a bugaboo for engineers designing mobile equipment, no matter which wheelchairs or strategic bombers. The power grows - the mass grows, the greater the mass - the greater the required power! Though cry! Therefore, qualitative jumps in this area were achieved only by a sharp increase in the power density of the engines and the efficiency of propulsion. Example: Parsons created a workable steam turbine, and immediately warships significantly increased in speed with a sharp improvement in other martial qualities.
But these are only flowers. After all, we still have two rows of oars.
The height of the tier I take in the 1 meter, which again is not enough, well, God be with him. We assume that all the ancient galleys rowers served slaves, which this space between the decks was quite enough even in the course of many days, and even months-long voyages, although this, in fact, contradicts even the KVI, according to which legionaries were on the victorious Roman galleys free Roman citizens. Accordingly, the paddle of the second tier is obtained by a sixteen-meter length and weighing approximately about 300 kg.
Though kill, it is impossible to roll such a paddle while sitting. Neither the two nor the five of us. No, actually it is possible, but for how long will those rowers be enough? For an hour? For half an hour? For ten minutes? And most importantly: what will be the frequency of that rowing? Ten strokes per minute? Five strokes? One? A little later, I'll come back to this, but now quickly look at the third tier. And here the paddle is a length of 24 meter, a mass of 0,7-0,8 tons. By how many people do you want to plant on the paddle? Five each? By ten? How heavy is the ship after that? This means that we are increasing the aircraft again, the displacement will increase again, the ship will become much wider and more draft; - will those rowers pull him? It is necessary to increase the number of oars in the row, but how much will the size of the ship increase? And the displacement? There is grass in the yard, firewood on the grass ... And the wind in the face and a wave of four points? And God forbid, at six?
And let me ask, will the rowers of the first, second and third tiers synchronize their actions? Again, as a seasoned boat team captain, I report: debugging the synchronous, coordinated work of six oarsmen on a lifeboat is a very difficult thing, and despite the fact that the boat crew are entirely enthusiasts, it’s almost a fight for the right to take the place of the rower in the boat. And on the gallery, sorry, bastards, sir. And they have to (if you believe KVI) multi-day work on oars of completely different mass, therefore, with a completely different moment of inertia, therefore, with a completely different working frequency of rowing, and all this is completely synchronous! I emphasize: absolutely synchronous! Gather at least one rower, and Khan, at best, the trireme will stop, at worst leave the course (crashing into the next one), and will break half of the oars before the fight.
It is impossible to use oars with a different moment of inertia on a rowing vessel. Oars must be close in parameters to each other. It is desirable - generally identical. But any scheme proposed by the “reenactors” implies the presence of oars of different lengths and masses, that is, with a different moment of inertia. (By the way, there are two regular spare oars on Yala, as well as 30% stock. And where can you order 30% stock oars on the trireme? Consider how much and which ones.)
Having reached this point in my reasoning, I, to be honest, I myself began to doubt. In the end, my calculations, whatever you say, sin approximation, because they are based on a simple application of the principle of geometric similarity. Maybe it is not fully applicable in this case? To check, I turned to a professional, metalworker, an employee of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ph.D. Mv Degtyarev, with a request to carry out the appropriate calculation according to all the rules of iron and steel. Mikhail Vasilyevich kindly went to meet me, and this is what happened: in order to get, so to speak, the “right to life”, a twenty-five meter oar should have a diameter of 0,5 m (!) Oarlock and weigh 300 kg - it is provided that it is made of pine . Ash, everyone understands, will be harder. So, it turns out, the principle of similitude let me down? I do not think so. 300 kg or 700 - no difference. Both are equally unsuitable for classic, sit-down rowing. So if I made a mistake, then not much, it does not matter.
And now we look at the pictures and engravings of real galleries, well dated and documented, of the 16th — 18th centuries. Fortunately, the galley as a class of a warship remained in the military fleets of many countries for quite a long time, until the end of the 18th century, where before, where later, it was not forced out by the more sophisticated type of ship of the coastal action, the so-called gunboat ), more successfully combined the paddle, sail and artillery weapons.
And here we have whole herds of galleys: Spanish, Genoese, Venetian, French, Swedish, Peter, Turkish, Arab. One and all with one row of oars. Well, okay, Christians are stupid, like traffic jams, but the Arabs have forgotten how to build tririmas too ?!
To clarify the issue read clever books.
Here is what the same professor A.P. Shershov, just a few pages back painfully trying to recreate the trireme, about the Mediterranean gallery: oars could reach the length of 25 m, the weight of the paddle - 300 kg, the number of paddlers - up to 10 by the paddle. The venerable "Das Grosse Buch der Schiffstipen" reports: oars could reach lengths of 12 m, paddle weight 300 kg. With the height of the galley (galeas - heavy deck galleys) in 1,5-2 m.
As we see, there is inconsistency here. But he should not confuse us. Firstly, he, again, is not of a fundamental nature: all the numbers, whatever one may say, are of the same order. Moreover, it cannot be otherwise. In the cited sources, the characteristics of oars are indicated in meters and kilograms. But meter and kilogram are, strictly speaking, very young units. In the "era of galleys" they were not. In the “era of galleys”, inconsistency and hustle in this area could drive any metrology specialist crazy. All these pounds, pounds, spools, ounces, stones, tour livres, etc., etc., etc., not only differed from each other, but also constantly “fluctuated” here and there, depending on the place and time. use. In addition, they still managed to change their value in principle: for example, a pound and a livre are both a measure of weight and a monetary unit. So if a certain chronicler, well, let’s say, Father Bernard of Saint-Denis, writes that Count Montmorency during the siege of Château-Renault used 60-pounder guns, this does not mean anything at all. Guns cost him the price of 60 English pounds apiece? Or weighed on 60 English pounds? Or 60 pounds - core weight? But then - what pounds? English? Russians? (He could have bought it in Muscovy as well!) Or special “artillery” pounds (see Yu. Shokarev, “History weapons. Artillery")?
There are more questions than answers. Therefore, there is not and cannot be any unambiguous translation of old mass-dimensional parameters into modern ones. Speech can go only about approximate, plus-minus bast, translation. So disagreement will be - this is natural. But he will not - and not eat - the principal. Indeed, my calculation is rather rough, the calculation of Degtyarev is engineering-accurate, the reports of historians (based on reliable documentation of the Renaissance) fit very close to one. Nowhere is there a scatter of even an order of magnitude.
Head over to the other side. Thirty years ago, so-called replicas came into fashion, copies of various ancient techniques, made as close as possible to the historical prototype. They copy everything: from Egyptian papyrus boats to the First World War fighters. Including, copy and rowing-sailing vintage ships. For example, in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, a great many replicas of drakkar and Viking ships have been built. All - single row! Englishman Tim Severin created replicas of the Irish rowing-sailing vessel and - oh happiness! - Greek galleys, the notorious "Argo". But you need to: both that and the other - single row!
But maybe no one has yet simply reached the reproduction in nature of the formidable battle trireme? The answer to this question is astounding! The fact of the matter is that “they have come down”. Have tried. And nothing happened!
In the late fifties and early sixties, Hollywood swept another fad: the fashion for films from ancient history. Many of them even became world classics: here are Ben-Hur, Spartak, and Cleopatra. Their budgets, even in modern times, were frantic, especially since the dollar at that time was much more expensive. Producers spared no money, the scale of extras and scenery surpass any imagination. And so, in addition to everything, for the sake of heightened entourage, it was decided to order full-fledged replicas-replicas of antique stone-throwing machines and the same antique trirides. About catapults it is discussed below; this is a separate and very interesting topic, here it is about ships.
So, bad luck came out with a trireme: a matter that seemed so familiar to ancient shipbuilders, it suddenly turned out to be inappropriate for the ship engineers of the mid-twentieth century. I foresee an instant response, the objection of KVI defenders: the ancient shipbuilders possessed "special techniques", magic and hermetic, which allowed them to solve technically impossible tasks now. And then came the unknown nomads, masters chopped into cabbage, and burned scrolls with magic spells. And ends in the water.
No, except for jokes. At the place of custody trad. I would have erected a Monument to the Unknown Nomad in front of each humanitarian university. Truly, if it were not for this omnipresent and elusive guy of uncertain appearance and mysterious origin, it would be much more difficult to hide the ends in water.
And if you remain realistic, then it is clear: the “ancient Greek” carpenter did not know and could not even know a thousandth part of what is known to modern specialists in materials science, mechanics, ship architecture, etc. There were neither aluminum-magnesium alloys, nor titanium, nor ultra-light carbon plastics. If this were not the case, we would all speak Greek now and would have led the colonization of Jupiter’s satellites at an accelerated pace.
In general, filmmakers had to shoot triremes in the pavilion, making them from foam and plywood. With a frame made of duralumin pipes, or I don’t know what. Well, yes they are not used to.
George Kostylev "Rowers and paddles"
***
CONCLUSION. Neither the Greeks, nor the Romans built any two-, three- or more longline ships, because, unlike the historians, they were friends with the head. Opinion about the existence of antiquity "Birem", "trireme", etc. there is a misunderstanding that arose either:
a) due to the complete misunderstanding by the authors of ancient texts about what they write about;
b) due to problems with translation and interpretation. It is very likely that Pliny had a good idea of what he was talking about with Diodorus, but when writing the originals of his works, they used some kind of maritime terminology that had not come down to us, which was customary and common in their time. They couldn’t even think of putting a glossary at the end of the scroll. Then the translator - as usual, through the land shtafrika, besides, perhaps, not a first-class expert on the language, without understanding some kind of speech circulation and not penetrating into the subject, created (on paper) "trireme", "quadrireme", etc. .
And then the original was lost. And that's the cover of truth.
Another option: the author wrote a science fiction novel. Today we have ships with one row of oars. Let's dream up how many enemies we will scare and drown if we have a court - hoo! - with two, three, ... fifteen rows of oars.
The third option: the authors, under the terms containing numbers, meant something else, some other characteristic feature that makes it possible to distinguish ships of one type from another. Which one? Here's an option. All terms with a numeral do not denote the number of rowing lines, but the number of rowers per row. If this condition is met, even an incredible decera may acquire the right to life. Interesting: in the absolutist and early bourgeois fleets the criterion for the distribution of warships by rank was something similar, namely the number of guns. Note, not the number of battery decks, but the number of guns! That is, it turns out that the trireme is a medium-sized galley, single-row, of course, with three oarsmen per oar. A pentirema or decera is a large rowing and sailing ship, on which oars, of course, are more massive, as a result of which more rowers are required.
Again we re-read the description of medieval galleys and their “sisters” from the New time. What do we see ?! The number of paddlers on the paddle reached ten people !! In this case, the rowers did not sit on the banks, benches, but continuously walked along the deck back and forth. Here it is! Indeed, with this method of rowing, you can put ten people on the oar, and they will work with about the same efficiency. It’s just that the outermost rower will take one or two steps, and the outermost rower will take five to six. If you put at least five oarsmen on the banks, the outermost one will only slightly move his arms, and the outermost will dangle at the end of the oar, like a rag on a pole. Absurd! From three to ten people to one oar can be put ONLY in the STANDING POSITION.
But then again, no multi-row ships are out of the question: if this is the first row, then what will be the oars of the second, or, Lord, protect the third row, considering that the height of the tier we automatically jumped to at least two meters, oarsmen after all in growth stand!
As for the galleys of Northern Europe, for example, Swedish or Petrovsky identical to them, then this is another shipbuilding tradition, coming from the Viking draccars. Its formation was influenced by the harsh conditions of navigation in the Baltic, the North and the Barents seas. Rowing there is exclusively sedentary, no more than two people at the oar, and the oars, respectively, and in short, and easier. By the way, the Mediterranean galleys and galeasy in the inhospitable northern waters felt very uncomfortable and lost to the ships of the northern European type.
I do not claim that rights are unconditional and unequivocal. Perhaps someone can offer a more elegant explanation. What is important now is that the "ancient" sailors did not and could not have multideck rowing ships, but there were ordinary galleys. Some are larger, others smaller, but generally similar in type and all, naturally, with one row of oars.
d_trader
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