Silently, with mute prayers to St Nicholas and the Virgin Mary, during the Greek War of Independence, Greek islanders from the small islands of Hydra, Spetses, and Psara piloted their floating bombs toward Turkish frigates.
The bomb, an old aging ship stripped of its fittings and filled with gunpowder and pitch with tangling sticks and rags only await a spark.
These were the fireships of the Greek War of Independence. In early, modern naval warfare fireships had been used in many naval encounters, as a way for more nimble, better-skilled fleets to counter the large, traditional warships with their rows of cannons.
The technology is simple and fire as a naval weapon is as old as warfare itself. Certainly, by 1921, most navies had countermeasures and the fireship was obsolete.
It was a weapon of necessity, which although technically obsolete was still used by skilled sailors of the Greek Navy to a devastating, asymmetric effect.
Fireships tended to be smaller vessels, which were refurbished with combustibles such as gunpowder and pitch, to basically become floating bombs.
Greek fireships, time and again sunk Turkish naval assets like ships, etc causing Turkey's panic.
They prevented the Turkish attempts to defeat the Greeks who were renowned for their dash, courage, and faith, and the Battle of the Egyptian Fleet which they sunk. The Egyptians were allies of the Turks,
So both the Greek navy and army defeated the Turks in the Greek War of Independence.
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