IIRC, Worf also posited that “perhaps today is a good day to die” immediately before issuing that order.
USS Borie vs. U-405
Highlights include an actual thrown knife.
As part of a raid on a french harbour in WW2, a ship rammed a harbour.
If everything went according to plan, Campbeltown would ram the huge dry dock gates, smash her way through and come to rest deep within the dock itself. There she would be scuttled, and there, with luck, she would explode and finish the Normandie Dock for the war’s duration.
You want ramming speed? You have a starship?
Take that sucker up to .999c and hit something with it. Anything. Ship, planet, star. The result will be…most spectacular. And there’s no defense. Even if you managed to blow up the ship, the debris is still moving at near-light speed.
If it’s done right it should work pretty well. The bow of a ship should be very strong, while it’s sides will be considerably weaker. Ram a ship nose on into the side of another and it should do some considerable damage. I don’t mean modern heavy steel warships, they ought to have other means besides ramming for battle, but prior to cannons ships couldn’t engage in battle without contact, and if you ram your opponent you should gain an immediate advantage.
At first I thought that you were joking. But I guess not! Amazing story!
It worked for the MS Stockholm when it took on the Andrea Doria in 1956. However the Stockholm also lost about 30 feet of it’s bow, although it was able to make it back to port on it’s own.
The RMS Titanic had little luck taking on a nondescript iceberg. I’ve often wondered if it would have survived had it been a direct hit rather than the glancing blow.
This is fiction, but C.S. Forester has a memorable ramming scene in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower:
“The galley turned a little, getting exactly into line, and then her oars’ beat quickened. She was coming down to ram, like the Greeks at Salamis.”
I am slightly annoyed you are dismissing hundreds of years of classical warfare ;).
There were a number of incidents in WWII* of destroyers deliberately ramming subs.
It usually turned out badly for the subs.
*The captain of the sub that sank three British cruisers in WWI was commanding another sub, U-29 later in the war when he failed to notice he was surfacing in the path of HMS Dreadnought, which rammed and cut his vessel in two.
The U.S. Army (!) had a group of rams on Western waters during the Civil War:
Later fictionalized for comic effect in the Alec Guinness film Kind Hearts and Coronets.
“The Battle of Lissa (sometimes called Battle of Vis) took place on 20 July 1866 in the Adriatic Sea near the Dalmatian island of Lissa (“Vis” in Croatian) and was a decisive victory for an outnumbered Austrian Empire force over a numerically superior Italian force. It was the first major sea battle between ironclads and one of the last to involve deliberate ramming.”
And just a lot of battles mentioned and stuff; Roman Naval Warfare - World History Encyclopedia
Mentions the largest: Battle of Cape Ecnomus - Wikipedia
Romans: About 330 ships; Approx. 140,000 rowers and marines
Carthaginians: About 350 ships; In excess of 150,000 rowers and marines
Icebergs count?
Surprisingly
Aside from the Titanic, there has been very few Iceberg collisions resulting in loss of life