Naval Warfare Across The Narrow Sea: A Prewar Outlook
Written by Maester Trystane
The Narrow Sea's importance in the history of Westeros and Essos is impossible to ignore, for it has been the staging place for trade and war between the landmasses ever since the advances in sailing made it possible for the Andals to land ships through the Fingers and the Vale of Arryn. Powers in the Narrow Sea grow through naval superiority, by controlling trade routes and denying movement to those they oppose.
However, naval superiority was limited by ship size for centuries, until the arrival of a new shipbuilding method from Yi Ti: The floating dock. A clever combination of wooden scaffolding and pulleys, floating docks allow for ships to be suspended above water during construction and thus permit shipwrights to construct heavier, sturdier designs that would otherwise be almost impossible to transport from anchorage to water. It's uncertain when exactly Essosi sailors were introduced to the concept, but the first recorded Volantene floating dock is noted to have been built 108 Before Conquest, though the Qartheen dispute this. This methodology of shipbuilding first spread to the Free Cities and then appropriated by the shipbuilding houses of Westeros, gave way to a new age of naval combat: The age of the Dromond.
Designs such as the longship, be it standard size or larger as the Ironborn employ, remain to this day oar-powered ships in combat that utilize sails as a way to keep their oarsmen ready for the bursts of speed their rams and archers require to be effective. Due to this, their size is limited by the weight that the oarsmen need to move. The dromond, by contrast, is a proper sailing ship that utilizes a combination of oarsmen and multiple masts with sails to achieve great speed while being significantly larger than a longship. The earliest dromond was made in 103BC, but it was not until 92BC that the current design was created by the Volantene. Powerful war-dromonds such as House Hightower's Honor of Oldtown, with its four masts and powerful oars, can match lighter galleys in speed while boasting near double the weight. A different school of thought also rose to prominence at the same time, emphasizing size over maneuverability. Ships such as the Tyroshi Herald of Trios exemplify this school, as it is a colossal war-dromond that can carry over 300 people and utilizes its size with a ram and six ballistae that make it a veritable sailing fortress.
To highlight the differences between the different vessels, the longship is capable of a maximum speed of fifteen knots, but more commonly sails around ten - with its main advantage being its ability to sail up deep enough rivers. A cog typically travels at six-to-eight knots, while a galley can travel at twelve knots (up to seventeen in bursts). Meanwhile, the common size dromond has a maximum speed of twelve knots, and the largest and heaviest of dromonds can reach a speed of ten knots. The smaller dromonds proved fast enough to catch up or at least match traders such as knarrs and older galley designs as long as they weren't employing their oars.
However, in 10BC, the Pirates of the Stepstones soon displayed the limitation of such a design with their capture of the pride of the Lysene fleet, the Lady of Lace, which then became the flagship for the Bloodstone Pirates. Through clever utilization of their galleys, which with all of their oarsmen employed could reach a speed of seventeen knots, the pirates managed to hide among the waves and close the distance to the Lady and the two merchant ships it was protecting. After boarding the warships, the Myrish pirates won the scuffle and seized the three ships for themselves.
The event proved what others had theorized: Larger but slower ships could be vulnerable to faster, smaller designs if outnumbered or placed in situations where they became unable to leverage their size as an advantage. To counter this, a new kind of dromond started construction: the frigatebuilt dromond. Designed in 5BC, it wasn't until 2AC that the Lyseni started to build them in earnest. Smaller than its larger counterparts, frigatebuilt vessels are usually about the size of an Ironborn longship and are built in a similar fashion to the Honor of Oldtown, utilizing their sails for cruising but achieving mind-boggling bursts of speed when their oars are employed. With crews ranging from seventy-five to a hundred, frigateships' most dangerous weapon is their ram – their reinforced bow which with enough speed will cripple even the largest of dromonds on direct impact. Their multiple masts and lower size gives frigateships a sailing speed of fourteen knots, equaling that of older galleys and outrunning even the fastest heavy dromonds, with their oars allowing them bursts of speed that can surpass seventeen knots.
The evolution of combat, thus, has led to ships often deploying in groups of four: one large dromond, which provides the sturdiness and offensive power; a medium-sized dromond, faster than the primary, which serves to cover the primary ship's vulnerable sides and focuses on taking down smaller galleys; and finally, two smaller frigateships that harass and attack the opponent, looking for openings to board or ram straggler or isolated opponents. The arrangement was pioneered by House Velaryon of Driftmark, but has arguably been mastered by the powerful Tyroshi fleet through its use of 'slave-ships': a single frigateship in the configuration with an all-slave crew trained specifically to take risks in order to board or ram a target without any intent of the dromond or the crew surviving. If the crew captures an enemy ship and thus survives the battle, they may be rewarded by their owners and, in special cases, even reassigned away from slave-ships.
Other slaver cities in Essos have since employed the practice, but the Tyroshi remain the masters.
However, it is worth noting that Braavos, the richest of the free cities, remains the lord of the seas without the use of slave ships. With slavery being anathema to the Braavosi, the Sealord's navy instead staked their claim on the seas due to their unique form of combat: the Water Dance.
Fighting on a ship requires agility, dexterity and freedom of movement, making it unsuitable for the heavier armours and broader, double-edged swords favoured outside of the Secret City. As such, seafarers from the Seven Kingdoms and the rest of Essos have had to develop and learn their own ways of fighting specifically for maritime boardings and pirate encounters. However, Braavosi swordsmanship emphasizes movement over armour and utilizes light, slim blades that are uniquely suited to fights at sea. As such, every Braavosi swordsman can be turned into an exceptional marine soldier with basic training in the duties of a deckhand and, in most cases, can outperform a trained seaman not knowledgeable about the Water Dance.
Additionally, Braavos gave birth to another strategy that revolutionized maritime combat: Deploying a large, but still, maneuverable dromond filled completely with warriors and working in tandem with one of the frigateships to corral and board multiple opposing vessels and take them over. The strategy requires a skilled crew, capable of maneuvering properly on choppy seas and with higher weight, but has proved devastating. Thanks to the efforts of Braavosi 'shackleships' (a name given to the ships by Braavos' enemies, referring to how they would 'enslave' opposing vessels. Naturally, the Braavosi despise the name), almost a third of the Braavosi fleet consists of captured vessels taken from slavers who drifted too close to the Titan.
After the Braavos-Pentos Wars, the final treaty between the two had major restrictions on the Pentoshi. Curiously, one restriction that was placed on Braavos was that the Braavosi flagship, (and their most famous shackleship) the Kiss of the Nightingale, was banned from ever sailing near Pentoshi waters, for the lives it took in the wars caused such dread in Pentoshi sailors that they would flee at the very sight of it. Such is the power and the dread that this particular Braavosi strategy can cause in an opposing navy.
The prewar period, the exact time period of which is constantly argued, but is either classified as the twenty years preceding the war to the ten years before the war, is characterized by a heavy focus on trade. The winter of 230AC sparked a famine in the more northern climates and saw a focus on the stockpiling of food as fear mounted that another long winter may follow.
It wasn't until the outbreak of the war that a new style of ship was introduced, a design that originated from the North but with influence from Braavos. The ships introduced were limited in number, but they were a significant advancement in design through the use of caravel-planking – that is, planks laid edge-to-edge and fastened to a frame - as opposed to older designs' clinker-built hulls with their overlapping planks. Although the ships deployed were primarily experimental, their performance and versatility already spoke of what would come with further refinement of the design.