ABSTRACT
The typical ship of the time was the carrack or high-built ship, very short in proportion to herbeamandwith a pronounced tumblehome above the waterline to carry the huge forecastles and poops, several stories high, which provided the accommodation for her fighting crew. For naval actions continued to be based on the tactics of laying-to and boarding; each ship carried a considerable number of soldiers who did the actual fighting once the sailors-
inferior creatures that they were-had transported them to the scene of action. Assaults of this sort profited from high towers which enabled archers and handgun-men to fire down upon the enemy. Until Henry VIII's reforms, ships' artillery consisted of very many (200-300) small calibre guns which fired chain and canister to sweep the opposing decks; there was no attempt to sink the enemy, and before the reign of Elizabeth the Tudor navy lost only one capital ship at sea-the Mary Rose which sank turning into the wind and not because of enemy action. Henry is credited with the invention of the heavy-calibre broadside. It is true that he believed in big guns placed in the castles and the waist of these high-charged ships, but there is in fact no sign that naval tactics had yet changed. In home waters, close to ports and supplies, the carrack with her very large complement could serve a purpose; but she was unfit to take to the oceans where her clumsy build, topheaviness, and problems of provisioning were shown up. The Spaniards had already abandoned her in favour of the more seaworthy galleon-longer in proportion to her beam, with a low poop and no raised forecastle-but until the IS70S English naval construction, based on Mediterranean models, generally lagged behind that of Spain and France.
