Largest naval battle?

[YotoKiller]

I don't think we should count the transport ships involved in Lyete Gulf cause that's like stacking the deck. By counting them you could say Canada has the largest navy in the world cause we have so many fishing boats

Well, the transports were U.S. Navy ships and they were part of the U.S. 7th fleet at Leyte. Fishing boats are not part of the Canadian Navy are they?

And technically they were part of battle of Leyte (Which was as much an air battle as it was a sea battle) because their AA guns were used against the Japanese carrier fighters and bombers.

But I guess it depends of wether the air battle should be included or not. But the thread is about the biggest NAVAL battle so I think it shouldn't be.

So with out transports the US Navy, Australia and Japanese had 244 (minus the aircraft carriers) warships together with 39 Pt Boats and several hundred thousand sailors. Which was bigger than Jutland.
BATTLE SUMMERY

I think the same should be said about ancient Pesion and Greek fleets aswell. Because most of their fleets were ships used to transport soldiers weren't they? Only a few were actually warships, like Triremes.

 

[Evie]

You can't really separate the air fight from the ship fight - you had ships attacking planes, planes attacking ships, ships attacking ships and planes attacking planes to protect ships all over the place, and all of those were essential to Leyte.

If you start saying "air part don't count", then Midway despite being *all about* the fleets was no naval battle, neither was the Coral Sea, etc. Which of course is ridiculous.

That, plus if you start discounting all the ships that were only engaged by enemy planes during Leyte et al, then I see no reason to count the majority of ships involved in ancient battles, since those battles were more often than not won by *boarding*, which is essentialy a battle between soldiers which happen to take place on the deck of a ship, not a battle between ships.

If battle between planes trying to attack and planes trying to defend a ship are not to be counted as part of a "naval" battle, then there is no valid reason whatsoever to count battle between soldiers trying to attack and soldiers trying to defend a ship.

Which, once again, is what a large number of naval battles boiled down to until the canon really became a dominating weapon (late 16th cent.).

 

[Vietcong]

if u cont them number of men lost at see, it whold be one of the punic wars *forgot witch one* but more men died at see then all deaths at see of ww1 and ww2 combined

 

[Bugfatty300]

if u cont them number of men lost at see, it whold be one of the punic wars *forgot witch one* but more men died at see then all deaths at see of ww1 and ww2 combined

I find that extremely hard to believe. There were nearly 70,000 Americans killed at sea in WWII. Japan lost twice that many on the Tokyo Express alone. Along with the tens of thousands of Britain's merchant sailors and Germany's U-Boat sailors. It must have been well into 300,000 men lost at sea. And this is Just WWII

 

[Bizon77]

if u cont them number of men lost at see, it whold be one of the punic wars *forgot witch one* but more men died at see then all deaths at see of ww1 and ww2 combined

That would have been ALOT of people. But don't think it was that many though.

 

[The Ram]

Counting Ships engaged(actually faught) Lade: 953 ships, Artemisium: 833-ish ships, Salamis: 600 ish ships, Sybota: 270 ships, Actium 400ish? ships, Jutland: 249 ships, Leyte: 357 ships.

Right now, according to my sources, the largest naval battle (counting ships) is Lade at 953 ships. The listed battles above are all the battles I could find involving more than 200 ships (not including the ships and subs and transports and such that just showed up like 10 miles away from the battlefield and didn't do anything) I haven't found the numbers for Midway yet but I'm certain it is less than Leyte.

 

[The Ram]

Some of my ship counts for anicent battle might be off but for modern ones it's pretty acurate- of course I'm not counting all the subs, landing crafts, supply, fishing boats, and other ships that's just there and didn't do anything in the NAVAL confilict - Leyte and Midway were, to some degree, both land and naval. Otherwise all major modern naval engagements would range at 500+ ships. This also wouldn't be fair for the ancient naval engagements because they were all ships in and almost no supports.

PS: the Persians in their second invasion of Greece did have 1200 ships at the start of their campaign. But about 400 was transports. Then, 200 were lost by battle and storm at Artemisim, and then at Salamis, they divided their fleet so only 300ish engaged.

PS again: Someone think of a catchy slogan for me. I've had my nickname for years but still haven't thought of a slogan yet.

 

[ellie]

I think its a bit tricky just comparing numbers though. Perhaps tonnage would be a
more accurate picture?. To avoid smaller craft being involved.

Also, with trafalgar, manufacturing methods were vastly different in those days. So while the numbers may seem low in todays world at the time it was a massive battle

 

[The Ram]

OK, here's something new. What is the most DECISIVE naval engagement in history. Numbers are way too hard to count and the Decisiveness of the battle is much more important.

PS: anyone thought of a slogan yet?

 

[Gelion]

nevermind

 

[rilnator]

I find that extremely hard to believe. There were nearly 70,000 Americans killed at sea in WWII. Japan lost twice that many on the Tokyo Express alone. Along with the tens of thousands of Britain's merchant sailors and Germany's U-Boat sailors. It must have been well into 300,000 men lost at sea. And this is Just WWII

Don't forget the Wihelm Gustloff, thats another 7000 alone.

As far as decisive battles go I reckon it would have top be Leyete Gulf.the Japanese lost 45% of their ships committed, the Americans just 4%. You can't get much more of a decisive victory than that. The Japanese lost 10,500 men!

 

[The Ram]

Ya I guess that's pretty decisive. Wasn't the battle a bit unfair though? According to my research it was 291 ships vs 66 ships.

 

[Steph]

Lepanto (200 christian ships against 300 ottomans ships) in 1571 is worth mentionning to

 

[rilnator]

Ya I guess that's pretty decisive. Wasn't the battle a bit unfair though? According to my research it was 291 ships vs 66 ships.

True, it shows how dominate the USN was though. The Americans had it all over them from start to finish. And the Japanese had the advantage of shore based aircraft.

Japanese losses:
4 carriers
3 battleships
10 heavy and light cruisers
11 destroyers.

At that time of the war the Japanese couldn't afford this.

 

[PHSikes]

The largest has to be Leyte from area, personnel, tonnage, maybe even casualties.

Also was the last fight Battleship Vs Battleship.

BTW I would usually group ships as:
Carriers
Battleships/Battlecruisers
Heavy Cruisers
Light Cruisers/Destroyers
Destroyer Escorts/Frigates
Submarines
Support(Landing craft, supply ships, Oilers etc.)

Putting everything into CV/BB/other doesn't tell the true story.

Most decisive? I would say Midway, turning point of the Pacific War and all that.

 

[steviejay]

I "believe" that the largest Naval battle in history was the Battle of Ecnomus during the First Punic War. Roman strength is estimated (notice the magic word there) at 140,000 whilst the Carthagians was more than 150,000

 

[Provolution]

The largest viking battle in history pitted the Norwegian King Olaf Trygvasson against Denmarks King Swein and Swedens King Erik. The Norwegian fleet of 100 ships fell to the numerically Danish/Swedish/Germanic superior fleet of some 400 ships. Like Horatio Nelson, the Norwegian King died, but with an arrow through his eye. The battle included some 15-20000 men, all midsized and larger longships, and the Norwegian defeat made Norway a part of Denmark, which already had made England a colony.

This is the largest naval battle in Scandinavian history.

Battle of Svolder , 1000 AD.

 

[Evie]

Those estimates for Economus would assume that all 330 of the Roman ships present were the largest class of ships Rome had, ie their Quinqueremes (420 men roughly, and dividing 140000 by 330 gives 425 men per ship), and much the same for Carthage, with no smaller ships whatsoever being present.

I don't know how likely that would be. Xen, would an all-Quinquereme fleet of 330 be in line with Roman military thinking?

(Of course, if you start cutting the 120 soldiers each Quinquereme had - which have about as much place being counted as the planes) - then the number of men on the Roman side drops by about a third anyway).

 

[steviejay]

the book I got it from was "The Punic Wars" by Adrian Goldsworthy if anyone's interested

 

[pawpaw]

the book I got it from was "The Punic Wars" by Adrian Goldsworthy if anyone's interested

have it, read it, good book