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Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

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warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is used for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as b ...

s of the 16th and 17th century used during the internecine Japanese wars for political control and unity of all Japan.

History

Japan undertook major naval building efforts in the mid to late 16th century, during the Sengoku period, when feudal rulers vying for supremacy built vast coastal navies of several hundreds of ships. The largest (and generally most dangerous) of these ships were called atakebune. These vessels may be regarded as floating fortresses rather than true warships, and were only used in coastal actions. They used oars for propulsion, as their full iron cladding, if it existed, as well as their bulk (i.e. the armament and people they were carrying) likely impeded wind propulsion via sails. Around that time, the

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daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

had made, according to the diary of the Abbot of the Tamon-I, six large iron-covered atakebune in 1578. These ships were called "Tekkōsen" ( 鉄甲船), literally meaning "iron ships", which is not to imply they were of iron, but that their superstructure may have been reinforced with iron plates against cannon and fire arrows. No iron covering was mentioned in the account of the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionary Luís Fróis, who had also seen and described the ships.Stephen Turnbull, "Samurai Warfare" (London, 1996), Cassell & Co , p.102 However, in the letter from João Rodrigues to Luís Fróis in 1593, full iron-covered atakebune built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi were mentioned. Hideyoshi made those ships to invade Korea and their superstructure was fully covered by iron plates. The atakebune were armed with four at most (six if there were two smaller breech-loading swivel guns)

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s and numerous large-caliber arquebuses because it lacked the strength to withstand the recoil of cannon. The Oda defeated the Mori's navy with them at the mouth of the Kizu River,

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

in 1578 in a successful naval blockade. These ships, the best of the atakebune, were used somewhat in contrast to Japanese naval tactics of the time, which viewed naval combat as a battle between the crews of ships, rather than between the ships themselves (which contributed to the primary Japanese naval tactic of drawing near and boarding opposing ships, as the Japanese crews excelled at hand-to-hand combat). In the Japanese invasion of Korea the shortcomings of these ships became pronounced, as they proved to be no match for the superior build and firepower of the Korean navy's Panokseon ships, which could accommodate a far greater number of cannons due to their sturdier structure. The Koreans used this advantage to great effect, engaging the Japanese ships at long range with their numerous guns, thereby rendering ineffective the grappling tactics of the atakebune-based Japanese navy. "Atakemaru" ( 安宅丸), the large atakebune made by Mukai Shōgen Tadakatsu for Tokugawa Hidetada and Tokugawa Iemitsu was fully covered by copper plates. Arai Hakuseki,「安宅御船仕様帖」「安宅御船諸色注文帖」,1711

References

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External links

Naval ships of Japan 16th-century ships Tall ships Ship types

History

See also

References

External links