THE ROYAL WARSHIP VASA

The book is covering the construction and embellishment plus the armaments and rigging of the famous Swedish warship Vasa. Throughout the major part of the XVI century, marine warfare comprised actions at close quarters with the quite small-caliber cannons, boarding plus hand-to-hand combats. Only galleys, with their few but heavy cannon, could sink enemy vessels, but a galley was at a disadvantage if an action led to boarding.

In very light winds or flat calms, when other vessels lacked steerage-way. galleys had an edge on their opponents. The area of their operations was principally the Mediterranean, and then only during the summers, when winds were light; the French had both Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, and it is quite possible that they introduced galleys in actions in the English Channel. We know-that galleys were built in England in the mid-sixteenth century, but they never acquired any real importance in the windswept waters of north-west Europe.

In the beginning, namely first half of the XVI century, carracks were the largest warships that still relied only on the wind as a motive force. Originally they were straightforward roundships that had gradually developed from the cargo vessels of antiquity; they were seriously differing from the relatively small roundships of the northern Europe and Mediterranean primarily in their size and also armament...