History Main / EpicShipOnShipAction

Since the introduction of the aircraft carrier, this trope has become less and less common in RealLife. See OldSchoolDogfighting for the air to air equivalent, EpicTankOnTankAction for the ground equivalent, and HotSubOnSubAction for the submarine version of this trope. Any tale about WoodenShipsAndIronMen will feature this almost by definition. Video game examples often take the form of {{Waterfront Boss Battle}}s.

!!Examples

[[folder:Video Games]]
* [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Personifying]] these sorts of battles is pretty much the entire point of ''VideoGame/KantaiCollection''.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'' flat out runs on this trope. Players are able to command a wide variety of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII warships. Nations included include the United States, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, Germany, Great Britain, Commonwealth Nations such as Australia, Poland, France, Italy, and both the Republic of China and People's Republic of China.
* ''VideoGame/WarGamesDefcon1'' have plenty of levels featuring battles between the NORAD and WOPR navies, in missions set in the Bering Sea, the Russian Coast, Hong Kong, and various locations close to the sea.
* ''VideoGame/WarThunder'' has this as one of the game modes, which works similarly to ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships''. Torpedo boats and gunboats will duke it out in fast-paced close-to-medium range battles (i.e. from point-blank to about 4 km), while destroyers, cruisers and battleships will require a more patient playstyle and skill in long range gunnery (it's possible to hit opponents well beyond 10 km).
* ''Battlestations Midway'' brings in more UsefulNotes/WorldWarII naval combat action, with the single-player story focusing mostly on battles fought after Pearl Harbor, all the way to the Battle of Midway.
** It's sequel, ''VideoGame/BattleStationsPacific'', focuses on the subsequent naval battles from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, of which more than half involve surface actions between warships of different sizes. It even includes a Japanese campaign with AlternateHistory versions of the same battles, plus several new ones entirely.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': The opening cinematic of ''Mists of Pandaria'' has an Alliance and a Horde ship fighting and sinking each other with two survivors washing up on shore.
* ''VideoGame/FromTheDepths'': One of the first things players do is design a boat and fight other boats. The game is filled with surface naval combat action. Designs run the gamut from tiny dinghys with a single cannon, to double-masted broadsiding brigantines, to shielded [[BeamSpam laser-spamming]] [[MilitaryMashupMachine submersible battleships]], and everything in between.
* The ''VideoGame/NavalOps'' series is generally set on an alternate Earth circa 1940, with a starting tech level to match. The player starts with a single destroyer of the era and may eventually design UFO-launching carriers, catamaran battleships with decks full of 60cm guns, laser frigates, or whatever their heart desires to sink fleet upon fleet of enemy vessels.
* ''VideoGame/TreasurePlanetBattleAtProcyon'' is late 18th to mid 19th century naval combat only [[{{Recycled in Space}} IN SPACE!]] The game also allows for very large naval battles, especially in certain open maps.
* ''VideoGame/PacificFleet'' and ''Atlantic Fleet'' are turn-based games that allow players to pit different UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo warships against one another. ''Pacific Fleet'' allows you to see how an ''Iowa'' would fare against the ''Yamato'', while ''Atlantic Fleet'' allows you to replay the Battle of the Denmark Strait and sink the ''Bismarck'' with the HMS ''Hood''. ''Atlantic Fleet'' even includes two battleship classes that were never completed in RealLife (''Lion'' for the Brits and H-39 for the Germans).
* ''VideoGame/EmpireTotalWar'' and ''VideoGame/NapoleonTotalWar'' allow you to engage in large-scale battles between sailing ships, while the ''Fall of the Samurai'' DLC for ''VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2'' moves the action to the late 19th century, with first wooden and then ironclad steamships duking it out (''Napoleon'' also has steamships and ironclads, but those appear so late in the game they don't really matter).
* The appropriately named ''Rule the Waves'' simulates the naval arms races of the pre-dreadnought and later dreadnought era. As the head of a Great Power navy, the player has to design all the ships in their fleet, trying to stay on the cutting edge of naval technology, while also balancing tensions with other Great Powers. Eventually you'll be forced into war, in which you fight all kinds of naval battles, from single ship raiding to gigantic fleet battles.
* ''VideoGame/UltimateAdmiralAgeOfSail'' is a strategy game [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin set during the age of sail]] where you control a fleet of sailing ships and take, sink, or burn the enemy's fleet of sailing ships.
* ''VideoGame/UltimateAdmiralDreadnoughts'' is a strategy/ship design game that allows you to build your own steam-era warships and then pit them against the enemy's proceduralally generated ship designs. The ship designer is flexible enough for you to faithfully recreate many real-life ships or create something completely unique, and then watch them do battle in glorious 3D real-time battle.
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[[folder:Real Life]]
* Let's just say there's a reason why the [[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars Battle of Trafalgar]] is often cited as the most important naval battle of all time. But Trafalgar was merely Nelson's final and crowning moment of badassery, a fitting end to a career for which 'epic ship on ship action' just happened to be the best description (most badass of all being his action at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, when the outnumbered British squadron overcame a much larger Spanish fleet, rounded off by Nelson, only a captain at the time, boarding and capturing one battleship, only to use it as a means of boarding and capturing another, giving rise to the expression "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding enemy vessels").
* Another similarly decisive battle was the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Fought between the [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Imperial Japanese Navy]] and the [[UsefulNotes/RussiansWithRifles Imperial Russian Navy]], it was the only decisive battle between steel-hulled battleships and the first and only large-scale battle between pre-dreadnought battleships.
** 4 Japanese and 8 Russian first-class battleships, as well as 38 cruisers, 28 destroyers, and numerous other vessels, were involved in the battle. After having sailed halfway across the world, the Russian fleet were [[CurbStompBattle completely annihilated]] by the technologically superior and more skilled Japanese fleet, let by Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō from [[CoolBoat the battleship Mikasa]]. In some of the most EpicShipOnShipAction of the 20th Century, Tōgō (himself inspired by Nelson) managed to get his fleet to perform a U-turn and 'cross the T' of the Russian battle line, so that he was able to split up the Russian formation. Russia lost nearly their entire fleet, including all 8 of their battleships and all 3 coastal battleships. Japanese losses were just three torpedo boats.
** The battle effectively won the Russo-Japanese War, making Japan the chief naval power in East Asia, allowing the expansion of the Japanese Empire, as well as leading to [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI World War One]] by encouraging the design of dreadnoughts. It also formed Japan's doctrine of ''Kantai Kessen'', or victory through a single decisive battle, which guided their World War Two strategies. Surviving ships include the Japanese flagship ''Mikasa'' as well as the Russian protected cruiser ''Aurora''.
* Despite the dominance of the aircraft carrier in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, there were still plenty of engagements during the war that involved primarily surface ships. Some of the more important ones included:
** The Battle of the Denmark Strait -- British battleships HMS ''Hood'' and ''Prince of Wales'' vs. German battleship KMS ''Bismarck'' and heavy cruiser ''Prinz Eugen''.
** The final fight of the ''Bismarck'', in which she[[note]]Contrary to popular belief the Germans consider(ed) ships female like in most other European languages (despite being gender neutral, a named ship is still referred to as 'she' in German), instead it was Bismarck's captain, Lindemann, who insisted on referring to Bismarck as male, under the belief nothing female merited being given that name.[[/note]] stood alone against the British battleships ''Rodney'' and ''King George V'', as well as a substantial force of cruisers, destroyers, and the carrier group centered around ''Victorious''.
** Several battles in the Mediterranean between the Royal Navy and the Italian Navy, the largest of which were the battles of Cape Sparviento and Cape Matapan (including one of the longest ranged intentional hits from naval artillery during the Battle of Calabria when ''HMS Warspite'' hit Italian battleship ''Giulio Cesare'' at roughly 25km, something only roughly equalled by ''Scharnhorst'' on ''HMS Glorious'').
** The Battle of the Java Sea, in which a force of Japanese cruisers and destroyers wiped out an Allied cruiser force while taking little or no damage in return.
** The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, which consisted of two major engagements on separate nights. The second of these, on 15 November 1942, featured one of only two fights between American and Japanese battleships, when USS ''Washington'' engaged and fatally damaged HIJMS ''Kirishima''.
** The Battle of the North Cape, between the British battleship ''Duke of York'' (plus several cruisers and destroyers, including the plucky Norwegian ''Stord'') and the German battlecruiser ''Scharnhorst''.
** The Battle of Surigao Strait, one part of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, included the second meeting of American and Japanese battleships, and the last fight ever between battleships. The Japanese Southern Force, centered around the battleships ''Yamashiro'' and ''Fuso'', ran headlong into an expertly laid American trap. The Japanese force was demolished while inflicting almost no losses on their American foes. American naval historians have always considered it poetic justice that five of the six battleships in Surigao Strait that night - ''Maryland'', ''Pennsylvania'', ''Tennessee'', ''California'', and ''West Virginia'' -- were at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and were damaged to various degrees during the Japanese attack that day. At Surigao Strait, they got their revenge.
** The Battle off Samar, another phase of Leyte Gulf, [[DavidVersusGoliath in which a small US task group known as Taffy 3, with no surface warship larger than a destroyer, faced off against the Japanese Center Force]], which contained the battleship ''Yamato'', [[TheDreaded the largest battleship ever built]] and which alone outweighed all of Taffy 3 put together. Against all odds, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Taffy 3 forced Center Force to retreat]].
* One of the first battles, if not the first battle, between ironclad warships occurred on March 9th, 1862 between the ''USS Monitor'' and the ''CSS Virginia''. The slug fest ultimately ended in a draw between the two ironclads as neither ship was able to defeat the other's armor (interestingly, both should have been able to penetrate the other's armor, but errors on both sides prevented this - USS ''Monitor''[='s=] cannon wasn't fully tested and thus used charges that turned out to be much less than what they could actually handle, while CSS ''Virginia'' was intended to use armor-piercing shells that would have been able to defeat ''Monitor''[='s=] armor, but the ship hadn't actually brought any as the odds of fighting an armored warship like ''Monitor'' were seen as negligible), but it was clear from that moment on: Wooden Warships were a thing of the past.
* The largest engagement between big gun battleships was the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland Battle of Jutland]] during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, when the Royal Grand Fleet and German High Seas Fleet embarked on a campaign to either destroy the other or drive them away from their own shipping lines. The Germans ended up claiming a tactical victory as they sank more ships and lost fewer men, but overall it was a strategic victory for the British, as the German fleet would never be in a position to threaten the British like that again.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lissa_(1866) Battle of Lissa]] in 1866, fought between Austria and Italy, notable as one of the only fleet battles between ironclads, as well as the only instance of a wooden ship of the line engaging ironclads in combat, as the ''SMS Kaiser'' engaged three ironclad warships at once, damaged two of them, and escaped with heavy damage, but still afloat.
* Many of the battles from the Second Anglo-Dutch War, in particular [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lowestoft Lowestoft,]] make Trafalgar look like a skirmish. 212 ships in miles-long battle lines slugging away at each other, including one sequence where flagships Royal Charles and Eendracht got in a one-on-one duel.
* This is, of course, {{Older Than Feudalism}}, as the Persians found out at [[UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars the Battle of Salamis]]. Ramming and boarding was the order of the day then.
* Some of the biggest naval battles in history (at least as far as numbers of active ships and personnel in combat are concerned) took place during the First Punic War, including the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Ecnomus Battle of Cape Ecnomus]] during which seven hundred polyremes carrying almost a third of a million sailors and marines clashed.
* One of the most decisive naval battles in the ancient world was the Battle of Actium. Which saw future Emperor Octavian defeat the his rivals, Mark Antony and Cleopatra. As his 400 ships were able to defeat his opponents fewer but larger 250 ships.
* Russians had plenty of experience with naval combat against the Ottoman navy in the Black Sea. One of their greatest admirals, Fyodor Ushakov, pioneered some of the tactics later used by other great naval commanders. Only politics prevented him from being known internationally. In particular, he eschewed the traditional line-of-battle for close engagements and precision maneuvering and firing, often concentrating the fire of several ships on a single target.
* In the Modern World its not entirely non-existent. While larger ships use long range missiles they are useless against smaller and faster boats which inevitably lead to gun battles.
** The two incidents between North and South Koreas known as Battle of Yeongpyeong in 1999 and 2002 involved almost entirely guns and 1999 incident even included ramming.
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* ''Literature/HistoryOfUsNavalOperationsInWorldWarII'' is chock full of these. Notable examples include the Battles of Guadalcanal and Leyte Gulf, both of which were some of the last battleship-on-battleship engagements of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

* Let's just say there's a reason why the [[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars Battle of Trafalgar]] is often cited as the most important naval battle of all time.

** The final fight of the ''Bismarck'', in which he[[note]]the Germans considered their ships to be males, while just about everyone else considered ships to be females[[/note]] stood alone against the British battleships ''Rodney'' and ''King George V''.
** Several battles in the Mediterranean between the Royal Navy and the Italian Navy, the largest of which were the battles of Cape Sparviento and Cape Matapan.

** The Battle of the North Cape, between the British battleship ''Duke of York'' (plus several cruisers of various sizes) and the German battlecruiser ''Scharnhorst''.

What's better than [[EpicTankOnTankAction tanks slugging it out?]] How about a pair of warships duking it out. A tank can weigh up to about 70 tons at the most, but most warships can easily weigh 7000 tons, or more, and require many dozens of people to operate normally, let alone actually fight.

[[folder:Film]]

* Despite the dominance of the aircraft carrier in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, there were still plenty of gun-engagements during the war, such as the Battle of Guadalcanal (which is actually a series of naval engagements from the Battle of Savo Island in early August 1942 until the Battle of Tassafaronga in late November of the same year), the Battle of the Denmark Strait,[[note]]where KMS ''Bismarck'' sank HMS ''Hood''[[/note]] several shootouts between the British and Italians in the Mediterranean, the Battle of the North Cape between ''[[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Duke of York]]'' and ''[[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons Scharnhorst]]'', ''[[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks Washington]]'' sinking ''[[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Kirishima]]'', and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was actually two different engagements around the same time.[[note]]The first being the Battle of Surigao Strait, where the Japanese Southern Force, centered around the battleships ''Yamashiro'' and ''Fusou'', ran headlong into an expertly laid trap by Admiral Oldendorf's Seventh Fleet that saw the Japanese force badly damaged by multiple torpedo attacks before being subjected to overwhelming fire from the Seventh Fleet's six battleships, all arranged to block the exit of the strait and already crossing the T of Southern Force, with ''Fusou'' being sunk by the torpedo attacks and ''Yamashiro'' falling to naval gunfire in the last battle ever waged between battleships. The second being the Battle off Samar, [[DavidVersusGoliath in which a small task force known as Taffy 3 faced off against the Japanese Center Force]], which contained the battleship ''Yamato'', [[TheDreaded the largest battleship ever built]] and which alone outweighed all of Taffy 3 put together. Against all odds, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Taffy 3 forced Center Force to retreat]].[[/note]]

[[folder:{{Anime}}]]

[[folder:ComicBooks]]
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Capt. Storm's final battle against the Royal Navy is shown in a flashback, with his ship pulled up alongside a navy ship and each blasting away at each other with cannons until Storm's vessel starts to sink.

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

[[folder:{{Music}}]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]

[[folder:RealLife]]

[[/folder]]

* One of the first battles, if not the first battle, between ironclad warships occurred on March 9th, 1862 between the ''USS Monitor'' and the ''CSS Virginia''. The slug fest ultimately ended in a draw between the two ironclads as neither ship was able to defeat the other's armor (interestingly, both should have been able to penetrate the other's armor, but errors on both sides prevented this - USS ''Monitor''[='s=] crew had not been properly drilled on the new cannons the ship used and were under the impression that their guns couldn't handle the pressure of being fired with their intended full powder charge, and thus fired with half charges, while CSS ''Virginia'' was intended to use armor-piercing shells that would have been able to defeat ''Monitor''[='s=] armor, but the ship hadn't actually brought any as the odds of fighting an armored warship like ''Monitor'' were seen as negligible), but it was clear from that moment on: Wooden Warships were a thing of the past.

** 4 Japanese and 8 Russian first-class battleships, as well as 38 cruisers, 28 destroyers, and numerous other vessels, were involved in the battle. After having sailed halfway across the world, the Russian fleet were [[CurbStompBattle completely annihilated]] by the technologically superior and more skilled Japanese fleet, let by Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō from [[CoolBoat the battleship Mikasa]]. In some of the most EpicShipOnShipAction of the 20th Century, Tōgō (himself inspired by Nelson) managed to get his fleet to perform a U-turn and 'cross the T' of the Russian battle line, he was able to split up the Russian formation. Russia lost nearly their entire fleet, including all 8 of their battleships and all 3 coastal battleships. Japanese losses were just three torpedo boats.