How to approach a Galleon

[Indreams]

I played a CP against a galleon today, feels like there is no good way to close the distance with the galleon.

Can't approach its sides. Medium guns will disable everything.
Can approach the front, but we're detected immediately.
Can't approach the aft, I've been mined, flamed, and harpoon/moonshine-rammed before, and I'd rather not repeat the experience.
(harpoon/moonshine is cheesy, but I think it's an instakill)

So, experienced players and competitive pros, how do you approach a galleon?

[Zirilfer]

I find approaching above works well, especially with high speed ships as you can ram the balloon out. additionally, a lot of approaches work with disabling ships. The galleon can keep you away while it has guns and engines, so remove those.

[TeddyBearMafia]

Aight, the first thing to know when approaching a Galleon is what its weapons are. Realistically, unless you're in a squid or a very well flown goldfish, you're not going to be able to stay out of it's gun arcs, especially if you're flying directly towards it.

Once you know that information, you can decide what is best to do in terms of approaching, i.e. perhaps approaching from the right side which is carro/carro is safer than charging into flak/hades/hwacha. In general, though, most combat approaches are going to be contextual - i.e. what is your opponent currently moving towards? What is your ally doing? Is the galleon occupied with attacking your ally? Galleons are extremely prone to being double-teamed - if they are distracted, and you can get up close and disable them, they take a while to get back into working order.

My advice, if you hate galleons, is either fly a hwacha goldfish and disable them first, use an artemis with burst to shoot out its guns while charging, or fly a squid and sit above the galleon where none of its gun arcs can hit you (Grr, height ceiling. D: )

[Ruairi]

The Galleon can be a very powerful ship when it is flown and positioned well. However it also has its weaknesses, these include:

Blind spots: Above, below, front, behind.

Ship Design: Heavy weapons don't have the best arcs. Easily disabled. Long rebuild time. 2/4 have arming times so when you're close they become ineffective. Balloon is very large, along with the hull. Lastly ship components are fairly spread out and can make it difficult to keep operational under fire. 

With approaching a galleon, there are two mindsets. a. Do I want to use close range to kill it? Or b. Do I want to out range it?

If a. Observe the map and see what clouds/terrain you can use to get close. Next pick a blind spot, this will force the pilot to move his ship accordingly. Most of the time you'll be able to manipulate the galleon into doing what you want if you try and stick to the blind spots. E.g. If dealing with a galleon sitting at the height ceiling I'll try to remain hidden on the approach. Once close I'll attack from underneath most likely at the rear where the turning engines are. This will force the galleon to turn/move because he wants to kill me. From here I readjust my ship position to stay in the blind spots, this can be done in various ways. The most important part is you must apply pressure. E.g. Shooting out turning engines then pounding away, popping the balloon repeatedly.

If b. There are many ships that can effectively engage a galleon from long range and either kill it or disable it effectively. Having said that this can take some time but it's generally the safest option. Just make sure to maintain a high situational awareness for his team mate, in case you need to change targets. 

In your context of a CP match, I assume it was Labyrinth you were playing on. In which case you may be able to use a height advantage to approach. Or perhaps with your ally bait him into changing his gun arcs then focus him down from different angles, forcing him to reposition constantly. (Just make sure these angles aren't broadsides. )

[IvKir]

One more thing. Galleons is slow in term's of turning speed. Even with claw, so you can keep behind him, kill hes engines and, eventually, kill him.
Flamer\carro build also effective, because you can disable this big ship and leave him, to help your ally with other ships, or wait for your ally.

[Battle Toads]

I always thought the galleons to be the easiest ship to approach, considering its slow movements and large blind spots. If you are having trouble just approach from the front or back and by the time they can get guns on you, they should be significantly damaged or disabled. If you are forced to attack a galleon from the broadsides, fly either above or below it using a buffed balloon or helm tool and don't get your guns in an arc to fire until the galleon is either below your or above you.

Also if a galleon has a long range side and you are using a close range ship, exploit it by only getting in the sniping gun's arcs after you are closer than their minimum range.

Also for obvious reasons, never ram a galleons hull (also some people don't know this but there is a glitch that can make a ship get stuck inside the galleon's bottom deck, causing the ship to bounce forever inside the galleon until one of the ships die, which is usually not the galleon) If you do ram a galleon, use a stronger ship like a pyramidion, develop a high speed with moonshine, and hope that you can pin the galleon on the floor or a wall

[HamsterIV]

Rule of thumb, never approach a galleon at the same height as its gun deck. I prefer to be approach underneath a galleon then as the galleon drops altitude to engage me I rise up either on its front or rear. The best way to fight a galleon is right next to its balloon with carronades. It is very hard to limit a galleon's ability to target your ship laterally, but even minor damage to the balloon makes it next to impossible for a galleon to gain altitude fast enough to catch an enemy ship in its gun arcs.

Most galleon victims are flown by captains who do not properly utilize vertical movement.

[Subarco]

Artemis and Mercury do a fantastic job of disabling the Galleon's gun at a distance. A tactic could be that you keep the galleon's guns and engines on lockdown while giving your ally the time to deal with the galleon's ally. Once the galleon's ally is dealt with, your ally can then help finish the galleon off if you haven;t done so yourself already.