Portugal's Early Colonial Naval Strategy King Manuel's, Vasco Da Gama and Afonso de Albuquerque's philosophy was to 'conquer and control' as opposed to the prior philosophy of other traders of 'buy and sell'. Their ships were heavily armed and the canons far superior to the weapons in Europe, Africa or Asia. Military force was the key tactic in their maritime expansion. As their ships carried relatively small number of crews; they tended to shoot-first-and-talk-later, using surprise and brutality for the disadvantage in numbers. The natives in Africa (along the west and east coasts), Mid-East, South Asia, Southeast Asia considered the Portuguese as pirates rather than merchants. In the big picture, the Portuguese approach and accomplishments on the sea was similar to Alexander the Great's, Genghis Khan's or Adolph Hitler's feats, accomplishment and tactics on land (all of whom also forged global empires). In all cases, the viciousness of their attack and rapid success was aimed to set an example of the episode; and send a message to and an example for the next ruler who would dare contest their power. Naval warfare cannot be directly compared to land-battles fought on a battlefield in the open distant country-side. Naval strategy is 'sink or be sunk' which amounts to 'kill or be killed'. Air Power is 'drop the pay load and be dammed with 'collateral damage'. In displaying naval or air power, there is no room to stall, negotiate, take or house POW (prisoners of war). Thus a land army has the luxury to stall, psyche the enemy, test the defenses and undertake a lot of side-maneuvers before the real battle at an opportune time.
A naval ship is a 'sitting duck' with its crew always under-fed and the whole military operation at the mercy of nature, change in weather, various unforeseen calamities, including illness of their crew. A naval commander cannot see what is beyond the horizon. The confrontation is always far away from their main communication center and command-and-control base. A captain of the ship is responsible for the safety of his crew and his ship. Without either of them he is at great peril. Yet, captains of the 16th and 17th century long distance sailing lost more men to starvation and illness than to enemy fire. Tactics, decisions and actions of Albuquerque and Vasco Da Gama and Columbus should be compared to similar traits of other out-of-the-box' strategically successful naval commanders like Isoroku Yamamoto (Pearl Harbor) and Karl Donitz (German submarine warfare) in World War II. Likely, British and American naval commanders as victors wrote their own success story while leaving out the gory acts of their 'gun boat diplomacy'. When the next naval power (Spain, Holland, France, England) came along with superior technology in faster and more maneuverable ships with powerful cannons, Portuguese supremacy ended. Also by then, the internal decay of the Portuguese royalty; along with corruption and inefficiency of the bourgeoisie found the once powerful European power long lost the discipline, desire, resources, will and capabiliy to fight and win on the international stage. Regards, GL
