WHAT COULD BE BETTER WITH PLAYMOBIL

[Pyrrhus]

Hehehe, yes, of course, the Spanish naval hegemony ended by the times of the defeat of the invincible Armada, near the end of the XVI century.

[Pyrrhus]

Hi Playmofire (sorry all the uninterested), your last remark on XVI century naval dominance put me to read: I had the opinion I expressed in my last message, but I now read at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada) that although defeated the plans of attacking England by Spain with the Armada, the Spanish prevalence on the seas did not stopped until the Battle of Donws in 1639, where they were defeated by the Dutch United Provinces, which began a Dutch marine hegemony (Dutch prominence ending when most of the Dutch merchant elite immediately began to use London as a new operational base when Prince William III of Orange reached the English throne, then British naval pre-eminence begun).

Indeed, I am surprised to see Spanish hegemony survived the Armada failure, because, according to Wikipedia, at least in number of ships the English superated the Armada (indicating some naval strenght). One can think in the victories of the XVI century English corsairs you mentioned, but Wikipedia says they had a minor effect (surely, their attacks would be sparse and generally not involving fights between war fleets). Indeed, the Spanish galleon seems to be resilient but not good for fighting, and there are numerous accounts of fights in which Spaniards lose even when having superior forces (Battle of Downs). Perhaps at these times they just had many more ships than other nations...

[playmofire]

Well, Queen Elizabeth I was very cautious towards Spain because of the question of religion.  England under Elizabeth was Protestant and Spain was Catholic, but under Elizabeth's predecessor, her sister Mary who was married to Philip of Spain, England was Catholic.  Elizabeth therefore tried to avoid direct confrontation with Spain at sea or on land because she was afraid that any war with Spain might lead to a Catholic uprising in England. So she gave people like Drake permission to attack the Spanish treasure fleets and Spanish naval vessels but on an "if you get caught I don't know anything about it" basis.  They were acting privately and so were called privateers, in other words an official better class of corsair or pirate.

The question of Spanish fleets being defeated even when they were in greater numbers seems to have been the result of the large Spanish ships being unwieldy at sea and so slow to maneouvre, plus Spanish sailors were not well-trained or well-treated by their officers (there was, I believe, a lot of friction between the officers who were very rich and upper class and the sailors who were just the opposite, whereas the English officers though often rich and upper class did usually manage to be "one of the lads" when necessary.)

[Pyrrhus]

As far as I saw, Spanish at sea were quite unnefective (sorry Cachalote, hehe), I think they might have prevailed by sheer numbers, and by having the greatest sea merchant navy of these times. I heard they had the ol' Roman mind of fighting by abboarding other ships, or just plainly carrying troops to land them on land, while the British preferred to fight by gunning (at least at the fight with the Armada, these were the different strategies).

I am mainly in agreement with you, Playmofire, but however, I do not think religious inner war was the only reason by which England avoided entering in war with Spain. Spain had by these times a land army which was considered as "invincible" on continental wars (of course, they faced defeats, but all in all, did not lost major battles until the battle of Rocroi in 1643, according to Wikipedia), and they wanted to land it on England. They had also a population greater than that of England (later the English population doubled and Spanish reduced to the half, following economic crises), as well the naval hegemony. We have to remember that Spain also had the support of the other countries of the Holy Roman Empire (by being part of it), which made this latter the strongest state on Europe. Indeed, Spain (or the Holy Roman Empire) was the European potence of the times, I do not think any country can be much interested in declaring overt war on them at that time.

I am not trying to be "Hispano-nationalistic" in this: I acknowledge England (as Britain) later become the greatest power on the seas. But not in the XVI century, in spite of the accomplishments of its corsairs, at least according to Wikipedia.

[playmofire]

I agree with you Pyhruss entirely.  I didn't want to go into too much detail by, for example, mentioning the wars in the Low Countries where Elizabeth took a low profile, but was rather concentrating more on the naval side of things as this seemed more relevant.  And remember, I was expressing what I'm fairly sure was the view of people like Drake and his colleagues.

[Pyrrhus]

Well, I considered the land forces because the kind of war of the Spanish at the times of the "Invincible Armada" was to transport land troops across sea. And, whereas I said the Spanish armies were considered "invincible", they were not, as in the case of the Dutch United Provinces. However, even when defeated, they were probably the strongest land force in Europe, supported by German Landsknetches. I suppose one of the reasons for the defeat of the Spaniards in the Netherlands may be the difficulty of access, given that most of the countries surrounding the Netherlands were not friends of the Spaniards in the XVI century (France, England, and the protestant northern German regions).

[Timotheos]

Playmobil made of many XVIII century sets with soldiers, and I am happy with that. What I would like is a big non-pirate ship (I would tend to think the most powerful ships were owned by any nation's navy, and not by lawles pirates: I would prefer bigger ships for British soldiers and smaller for pirates -unlike the smaller old British clipper).

The definition of a pirate is so loose--

Some pirate fleets were national navies that preyed on their neighbors (think the Barbary Coast in the late 19th century or the English sending fleets against Spanish gold ships). 

But I see what you're saying:
You'd like PM to adopt a convention with big, heavy treasure ships and light, fleet pirate ships.

Or, heh, better still:
The modern pirates of Malaysia tend to be a handful of guys with a motorboat, a stash of AK-47s, and an infiltrator among the ship's crew.

(Actually, that's why it strikes me as a little pointless for Malaysia to purportedly have banned the pirate theme--PM's stuff doesn't remotely resemble modern pirates).

[Pyrrhus]

You seem to be right, Timotheos, that there is not necessity of pirate ships to be smaller than navies. Just some Hollywood stereotype nostalgia. However, it makes sense, lighter ships seem faster and more maneuvrable (necessary for pirates to attack and flee if necessary), in addition, Gold Galleons should accomodate their cargo in addition to its defenses.

I admit the English fleet was largely (if not entirely) formed and commanded by corsairs. But even in that case, and at least in the Invincible Armada, the English war ships were notably smaller than the Spanish, as to afford greater velocity and maneuvrability.

Well with respect to Malaysia today, I am not interested in such a line (and obviously not talking about it) although I would not oppose to it being made (though I do not think it ever to be made, because of Playmobil avoiding XX century military).
But now that you talk about it, it would be nice to see some oriental, southeast Asian pirates, Sandokan-style!!!!

And I think that it is logical for Malaysia to dislike Playmobil pirates, because even when they are not the same than the pirates by which they are attacked today, they represent the same behaviour and interests that make them suffer today.

[cachalote]

As far as I saw, Spanish at sea were quite unnefective (sorry Cachalote, hehe)

no problem there pyrrhus, i am portuguese and not spanish.
in the period you were talking about, betwen 1581 and 1640, portugal had 3 spanish kings (the 3 felipes) but got independent again (and still is).

after being the first to round south africa by sea, arrive to brazil, india, japan, etc., the portuguese navy decayed and was even worse than the spanish one.

[Pyrrhus]

Oops, thank you Cachalote, it seems that I commited this error twice: I had formerly assumed Bogro was Spanish too!! (cachalote means also sperm whale in portuguese?).

And you are right about what I think one can call "the naval hegemonies". I think that before the Portuguese explorations, the Venetian Republic had the naval hegemony in Europe, which by means of naval commerce made of it a very rich state. The, the Portuguese naval trips and prowesses made of them the leading naval nation in Europe, similar to the Phoenicians in the Ancient times. I suppose that the union with Spain with Phillip II, as well as the discovery and expansion of the Spanish colonial empire led to a pre-eminence of the Spanish navy. Then, the Dutch dominated world sea traffic, even conquering some Portuguese and Spanish colonies...