Oil sheens, wreckage, and empty sea lanes offer a harsher ledger than hull counts. Five contests - Salamis, Trafalgar, Tsushima, Midway, and the Battle of the Atlantic - show that naval war is seldom settled at the gun muzzle. The apparent winner may lose ships; the real victor keeps fuel moving, messages read, repairs flowing, and crews fed.Salamis exposes the oldest trick in sea power: force bec...More