Battle of Calicut (1502)

Battle of Calicut
Part of Portuguese battles in the Indian Ocean
Date 5–6 January 1502 Location Calicut, India Result Portuguese victory
Belligerents
Portuguese Empire	Calicut Arab privateers
Commanders and leaders
Vasco da Gama	Khoja Kassein Cojambar
Strength
10 carracks 6 caravels	20 large ships 40 gun-mounted sambuks Hundreds of smaller ships
Casualties and losses
Low	Very heavy

The naval Battle of Calicut was a military encounter between the 16 ships (10 carracks and six caravels) of the 4th Portuguese Armada and a fleet led by two Arabic corsairs formed under the orders of the Zamorin of Calicut.

After the fleet of Vasco da Gama reunited with 6 caravels of the patrol fleet of Vicente Sodré, the Portuguese inflicted a heavy defeat on Calicut. In one of the first recorded instances of a naval line of battle, Gama's spice naus and escort caravels sailed in a line end-to-end, concentrating all their immense firepower as they passed against the twenty large Arab ships of Cojambar, before they could get organized, sinking a number of them and doing immense damage to the remainder. After the battle, the Portuguese returned to Cannanore.