Fire ship A fire ship , used in the days of wooden rowed or sailing ships , was a ship filled with combustibles , deliberately set on fire and steered ( or , where possible , allowed to drift ) into an enemy fleet , in order to destroy ships , or to create panic and make the enemy break formation . Ships used as fire ships were usually old and worn out or purpose - built inexpensive vessels . An explosion ship or " hellburner " was a variation on the fire ship , intended to cause damage by blowing up in proximity to enemy ships . Fireships were famously used to great effect by the English against the Spanish Armada during the Battle of Gravelines . History . Ancient era , first uses . Possibly the oldest account of the military use of a fire ship is recorded by the Greek historian Thucydides on the occasion of the failed Athenian Sicilian Expedition ( 415 – 413 BC ) . In the episode , the Athenian expeditionary force successfully repels an attack by the Syracusans : The rest [ of the Athenian force ] the enemy tried to burn by means of an old merchantman which they filled with faggots and pine - wood , set on fire and let drift down the wind which blew full on the Athenians . The Athenians , however , alarmed for their ships , contrived means for stopping it and putting it out , and checking the flames and the nearer approach of the merchantman , thus escaped the danger . A fire ship was used in the Battle of Red Cliffs ( 208 ) on the Yangtze River when Huang Gai assaulted the enemy naval force with a fire ship filled with bundles of kindling , dry reeds , and fatty oil . Fire ships were also employed by the Vandals in 468 against the armada sent by the Eastern Roman Empire . The invention of Greek fire in 673 increased the use of fire ships , at first by the Greeks and afterward by other nations as they came into possession of the secret of manufacturing this compound . In 951 and again in 953 Russia n fleets narrowly escaped destruction by fire ships . Age of Fighting Sail , refinement . While fire ships were used in the Medieval period , notably during the Crusades , these were typically ships that were set up with combustibles on an adhoc basis . The career of the modern fire ship , as a naval vessel type designed for this particular function and made a permanent addition to a fleet , roughly parallels the era of cannon - armed sailing ships , beginning with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and lasting until the English victory over the Turks at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 . The first modern fireships were put to use in early 17th century Dutch and Spanish fleet actions during the Thirty Years War . Their use increased throughout that century , with purpose - built fireships a permanent part of many naval fleets , ready to be deployed whenever necessary . While only used sparingly during the Napoleonic Wars , fire ships as a distinct class were part of the British Royal Navy until 1808 , at which point the use of permanently designated fire ships attached to British squadrons disappeared . Fire ships continued to be used , sometimes to great effect such as by the U . S . Navy at the Battle of Tripoli Harbor in 1804 and by the British Navy ' s Thomas Cochrane at the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809 , but for the most part they were considered an obsolete weapon by the early 19th century . Warships of the age of sail were highly vulnerable to fire . Made of wood , with seams caulked with tar , ropes greased with fat , and stores of gunpowder , there was little that would not burn . Accidental fires destroyed many ships , so fire ships presented a terrifying threat . With the wind in exactly the right direction a fire ship could be cast loose and allowed to drift onto its target , but in most battles fire ships were equipped with skeleton crews to steer the ship to the target ( the crew were expected to abandon ship at the last moment and escape in the ship ' s boat ) . Fire ships were most devastating against fleets which were at anchor or otherwise restricted in movement . At sea , a well - handled ship could evade a fire ship and disable it with cannon fire . Other tactics were to fire at the ship ' s boats and other vessels in the vicinity , so that the crew could not escape and therefore might decide not to ignite the ship , or to wait until the fire ship had been abandoned and then tow it aside with small maneuverable vessels such as galley s . The role of incendiary vessels changed throughout the age of the modern fire ship . The systematic use of fire ships as part of naval actions peaked around the Third Anglo - Dutch War . Whereas just twenty years before a naval fleet might have six to seven fire ships , by the Battle of Solebay in 1672 both the Dutch and English fleets employed typically between 20 and 30 fire ships , and sometimes more . By this time , however , admirals and captains had become very experienced with the limitations of fire ship attacks and had learned how to avoid them during battle . Great numbers of fire ships were expended during the Third Dutch War without destroying enemy men - of - war , and fire ships had become a way to harass and annoy the enemy , rather than destroy him . The successful use of fire ships at the Battle of La Hogue and Cherbourg in 1692 marked both the greatest achievement of a fire ship attack since the Spanish Armada , and also the last significant success for fire ships . Though fire ships as a specified class sailed with the British Royal Navy for another century , they would never have a significant impact on a naval victory . Once the most feared weapons in naval arsenals , fire ships had declined in both importance and numbers , so that by the mid - 18th century only five to six British fire ships would be at sea at a time , and the Royal Navy attempted only four attacks using modern fire ships between 1697 and 1800 . Hastily outfitted ad hoc fire ships continued to be used in naval warfare ; for example , a large number of fire rafts were used in mostly ineffective attacks on the British fleet by American forces during the American Revolution at Philadelphia , on the Hudson River , and elsewhere . The end of the modern fire ship came in the early 19th century , when the British began to use hastily outfitted fire ships at engagements such as Boulogne and Dunkirk despite the presence of purpose - built fire ships in the fleet . The last modern fire ship in the British Royal Navy was " Thais " , the only designated fire ship out of the entire navy of 638 warships when she was converted to a ship sloop in 1808 . Use in the Greek War of Independence . In the Greek War of Independence , 1821 - 1832 , the extensive use of fire ships by the Greeks allowed them to counterbalance the Turkish naval superiority in terms of ship size and artillery power . As the small fire ships were much more maneuverable than enemy ships of the line , especially in the coasts of the Aegean Sea where the islands , islets , reefs , gulfs and straits restrained big ships from being easily moved , they were a serious danger for the ships of the Turkish fleet . Many naval battles of the Greek war of independence were won by the use of fire ships . The successful use of fireships required the use of the element of surprise ( a visible similarity with modern day naval special operations ) . It is considered an important landmark in . 19th and 20th centuries , obsolescence . From the beginning of the 19th century , steam propulsion and the use of iron , rather than wood , in shipbuilding gradually came into use , making fire ships less of a threat . During World War II in September 1940 , there was a British sortie codenamed Operation Lucid to send old oil tankers into French ports to destroy barges intended for the planned invasion of Britain ; it was abandoned when both tankers broke down . Ships or boats packed with explosives could still be effective . Such a case was Operation Chariot of 1942 , in which the old destroyer HMS " Campbeltown " was packed with explosives and rammed into the dry dock at Saint - Nazaire , France , to deny its use to the battleship " Tirpitz " , which could not drydock anywhere else on the French west coast . In the Mediterranean , the Italian Navy made good use of high - speed boats filled with explosives , mostly against moored targets . Each boat , called by the Italians MTM ( " Motoscafo da Turismo Modificato " ) , carried of explosive charge inside their bow . Their best - known action was the 1941 assault on Souda Bay , which resulted in the destruction of cruiser HMS " York " and the Norwegian tanker " Pericles " , of 8 , 300 tons . In 1946 , as part of Operation Crossroads , the American landing ship demonstrated the potential of explosives ships containing nuclear weapons . Eight vessels were sunk in the test in addition to " LSM - 60 " , including the aircraft carrier . The successful attack by Yemeni terrorists in a speedboat packed with explosives on the guided missile destroyer USS " Cole " in 2000 is another extension of the idea . Another terrorist attack took place in April 2004 , during the Iraq War , when three motor craft laden with explosives attempted the bombing of Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal in the Persian Gulf . In an apparent suicide bombing , one blew up and sank a rigid inflatable boat from USS " Firebolt " as it pulled up alongside , killing two US Navy personnel and one member of the US Coast Guard . Notable uses . Notable fire ship attacks include :