Captain Jean-Luc Picard Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Been looking at bit more closely into the polish navy of old what with what's coming and it has been a bit harder to find something than usually, mainly due to the fleet being inactive for a while, and most links being dead. Mostly i want a list of ships, from there i can look further. Books are all heavily criticized for their many errors. Nevertheless the following dead link, in polish, has proven useful, listing polish ships of interest for the period. It is regularly referenced in historical forums and ( was ) considered a reliable website. Just need to google translate the page if you need, and use the internet archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20080410144448/http://www.polskieokrety.republika.pl:80/spis okretow.htm The latest ships were Mars, 1650, 54 guns, and Postillon, in 1700. Then there is something of a black hole for the polish navy, with some exceptions later ( you can scroll down this one for other languages ). Here is a reliable polish article for context http://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Rocznik_Bezpieczenstwa_Miedzynarodowego/Rocznik_Bezpieczenstwa_Miedzynarodowego-r2011_2012-t6/Rocznik_Bezpieczenstwa_Miedzynarodowego-r2011_2012-t6-s155-169/Rocznik_Bezpieczenstwa_Miedzynarodowego-r2011_2012-t6-s155-169.pdf If anyone has a good live website on the subject, preferably in english, please share. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Fishy Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 (edited) I imagine part of the problem is their main force was pretty full of galleys and half galleys which tend to be built in large numbers and not recorded in as much detail as larger ships, although doesn't help that from the later half of the 18th century they become landlocked. It's seems to be a general issue with most nations where they simply don't record their smaller naval assets particularly well and as far as I am aware there aren't any bigger ships, similarly to Prussia they know they can't keep up with Sweden and Russia at sea so they work more towards coastal defences, gunboats and floating batteries. Edited October 12, 2017 by Fluffy Fishy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bart Smith Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Main problem after was overall expansion direction to the east. Polish lords were not interested in colonies far away with nearly blocked passage by Denmark from Baltic Sea. They wanted and partially conquer large amount of todays Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Russia. Not many ever conquered Moscow - Poles done it in 1610. Check this map: There were few influential people who noticed we as a one of biggest players in Europe those days should focus on colonization because this may bring a lot income. But they were over-voted by rest who wanted conquer as many eastern land as we can hold. They didn`t belive colonies may be profitable. Crown treasury depend of those rich lords and that was one of main reasons we never build stronger fleet instead invest most money and people in infantry and cavalry (Hussars). Add to this Baltic Sea topography and huge swedish, danish and russian fleets not help at all. Polish fleet was mainly privateers fleet and acting as situation allow. We got few moments of glory but at the end was only symbolic matter. Who know how this could look like if we decide conquer some colonies and invest in fleets - we can do it now in Naval Action thanks to developers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georg Fromm Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 (edited) 22 minutes ago, Bart Smith said: ... Even Napoleon or Hitler never conquered Moscow - Poles done it in 1610. Check this map: ... Is this the new polish historiography? Napoeleon conquers Moscow 14.09.1812. This could be interesting as the Poles rewrite the "new" history of the Caribbean. Edited October 12, 2017 by Dominique Youx 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bart Smith Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Just now, Dominique Youx said: Is this the new polish historiography? Napoeleon conquers Moscow 14.09.1812. This could be interesting as the Poles describe the "new" history of the Caribbean. Oh he did it. But this guy was first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisław_Żółkiewski 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Jean-Luc Picard Posted October 12, 2017 Author Share Posted October 12, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, Dominique Youx said: Is this the new polish historiography? when you think you're joking but you have no idea how right you are https://www.ft.com/content/67532c78-e62d-11e5-a09b-1f8b0d268c39 ( an old and imperfect article but at least it's in english ) I remember some russian history teacher who said once that he couldn't teach history because it was changing too often, then he showed some history books for his class from different years XD Pretty sure the poles in moscow is presented as a defensive act in poland and as an aggression in russia XD Edited October 12, 2017 by Captain Jean-Luc Picard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuva85 Posted October 15, 2017 Share Posted October 15, 2017 There were plans of creating naval force that would be Polish rather than using what Danzing had or privateer ships. They were never acepted by parliment bcs it would mean strongering kings power and that was a big no no. + most important expansion or defence fronts were inland so why even bother building fleet if you could fight sweeds on land too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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