I'm sure there was a whole technique to it, and I believe you beers or no.

Historically, getting the ram stuck was a serious problem. I have a vague memory of reading that proper tactics dictated back-rowing (i.e. tapping the breaks) just before impact, with the goal being more to deliver a shock that pops every joint in the target, rather than busting through and getting your ram deeply embedded in the target.

However, I've had a few beers since I read that, and so it might be worth checking with a better source.

Do you know a book on Ramses II? I have recently been enamored by ancient Egypt, and I want to dive in.

I just read Tutankamen's Trumpet, and I had no idea how much I loved Ancient Egypt.

I tried finding a book on Ramses II and I can't find anything. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'd love to find something.

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I went to grad school with him! He's okay.

Went to highschool with this guy! He is good dude!

That probably depends on how skilled the ship’s helmsman is /s

So, what strategy was employed with naval rams? Was it used as a boarding aid, or to destroy an enemy ship entirely? If it’s the former, it seems it would be better if it got stuck in the enemy ship, but the latter would require the attacker to be able to quickly detach so as not to get dragged down with it.

Empire of the Summer Moon was a fantastic read. As someone who was born and raised in Texas it was amazing to me how relatively recent all of that was as well.

Thanks for the New Year resolution info, really interesting. I knew that the calendar (January 1) starts the day the new Roman Consoles were sworn in, but had no idea about New Year resolutions.

Its unlikely the ship would sink from this alone and if you hit at a shallow angle its not hard to imagine ships getting stuck and the more intact ship would aid in the buoyancy of the rammed ship.

Ships can float with water in them, and the water doesn't like to fill the ship when the pressure difference on either side of the hole is equal. This tends the happen when the water level reaches the top of the hole. If the weight of that isn't enough to overcome the boyancy of said ship / ships in tandem then it stops sinking.

It was still very hard to sink ships in the age of sail with cannons, even when within boarding distance and cannons were angled to shoot down through the bottom of the opposing ship.

I can see it now-

"The front fell off".

How they attached it is a bit question.

Was it meant to stay attached after ramming? Was it a one time use and acceptable to come off after impact? Was it meant to stay on but acceptable if it broke off?

Well, as for the obvious first one: "how do we attach this to the bow of a ship so that it doesnt fall off when a wave hits it?"

Probably attached with large nails. They don't look like they'd get "stuck" - no barbs or protrusions. The other hull would cave in and be too fragmented to bind the ramming vessel.

This right here is the future of VR. VR tourism will be a billion dollar industry for „environmental friendly“ visits to historic places, without destroying anything (as visitors tend to do). When the cost of access gets low enough, we‘re gonna have thousands of real world virtual experiences, and I‘m looking forward to that very much.

https://stephendecasien.com/ancient-naval-ram-casting-project/

Looks like he built the front of a warship!

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The specific design of the wooden parts obviously

What unexplained questions? It seems pretty self explanatory to me

Well ideally the other ship would sink and the wood would just break

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How exactly were these attached to the ships? If the ram got stuck in the target ship, was there any way to detach the ram??

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Some things never change historically/culturally. A "city" or a "nation" can exist where an administration has the ability to provide services in exchange for fealty. The chief service first sought by a population tends to be common defense, which allows everyone to live their quotidien lives in peace. And the more ready the natural defense, the more likely a nation can be created and preserved.

The best and most obvious example of this throughout history is of course islands. The vast majority of islands today are the homes of a single nation (yes, there are notable exceptions, such as Haiti/Dominican Republic ("Hispaniola") and Cyprus). Islands have an often formidable natural boundary which makes defense a reasonably easy task. Being situated between large rivers, or mountain ranges is another example.

Beyond the role of defense, internal services such as health, education, housing, commerce, etc., tend to be facilitated when a nation shares a common climate, via longitude, elevation, proximity, etc., so here again geography can play a major role. A nation like Chile is a great example of the difficulties faced in adminstration of a nation situated in a relatively finite space with spectacular variants in geography. Thus the geographic features within a nation are counter-productive to nation building, and problems with administration ensue. A classic recent example is the Soviet Union, for which administration ultimately produced bankruptcy. Likewise, we can witness within several hundred years the difficulties of administration of larger nations within Europe during the past 1500 years, such as France and Germany, whose mutual border remains somewhat murky, while internal geographic features tend to make provision of services far more expensive than in a smaller nation such as Luxembourg or Belgium.