Naval Warfare and Sea Power

Fleet combat, blockade, amphibious operations and the fiscal-technical base of navies; shapes empires from Athens and Rome to Britain.

Corpus cases (this patch)

• Salamis 480 BCE (triremes; Battle of Salamis (480 BCE)).
• First Punic War (Rome builds a fleet; First Punic War (264-241 BCE)).
• Lepanto 1571 (galleys with guns; Battle of Lepanto (1571 CE)).
• Trafalgar 1805 (sail-of-the-line; Battle of Trafalgar (1805 CE)).
• First Opium War 1839-42 (First Opium War (1839-1842 CE)).

Framing sources

Morrison, Coates & Rankov (2000) on the Athenian trireme; Guilmartin (1974) on gunpowder and galleys; Rodger (2004) on the British navy, 1649-1815.

Gaps

Non-Western navies (Chola, Song-Ming, Indian Ocean, Southeast Asian maritime) are not covered: no sources were verified this pass. Zheng He voyages and Song naval battles remain open items.

Citations

• morrison2000-athenian-trireme [formal] J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, N. B. Rankov (2000). The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL119125W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
• guilmartin1974-gunpowder-galleys [formal] John F. Guilmartin Jr. (1974). Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2919403W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
• rodger2004-command-of-the-ocean [formal] N. A. M. Rodger (2004). The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815. Allen Lane / Penguin. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL933928W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).

Review status

SOFT draft; not Official. Claims are definitional or tied to a cited source; page-level locators not verified.