Naval Tactics in the Age of Sail (1650-1815)
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» SOURCES & LINKS «
Hughes, Wayne: Fleet Tactics. Theory and Practice
Tracy, Nicholas: Naval Tactics in the Age of Sail, in: Stilwell, Alexander: The Trafalgar Companion.
Slantchev ,Branislav L.: Warfare at Sea: The Evolution of Naval Power
Konstam, Angus: British Napoleonic Ship-of-the-Line
Tritten, James: Doctrine and Fleet Tactics in the Royal Navy
» CREDITS & SPECIAL THX «
Song: Ethan Meixsell - Demilitarized Zone
The Counter-Design is heavily inspired by Black ICE Mod for the game Hearts of Iron 3 by Paradox Interactive
forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...
For an analysis on the chances of Napoleon invading Britain see this video: th-cam.com/video/NYuCPTkO-B4/w-d-xo.html
You probably won't see this - but man, your videos are really, really good. Cheers
Try Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail
Please enable Persian subtitles for all your programs
"the German part of me finds this extremely irritating because it's not complex enough" lost it there.
Keep rocking it, mate, you're great! 👌
This is why I like Russian WW2 Tanks, they are just as good and are so simple mechanically sometimes.
Doppelschiffeinschließe
@@TheLastPhoen1x Doppelseitiger Kanonendauerbeschuss
@@Chrischi3TutorialLPs Verstärkung der Schusswirkung durch den gleichzeitigen Beschuss von beiden Seiten des zu treffenden Zieles.
Sailing(I mean proper sailing not just sailing) is complicated enough now back then it would be very difficult for the commissioned officers and very though on the sailors.
"No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy." - Horatio Nelson
I suspect Nelson was referring to fighting at close quarters, rather than laying off and firing broadsides. Nelson generally seems to have avoided parallel broadsides and preferred to cross the T.
@@thethirdman225 Nelson wanted to break the Franco-Spanish line like Rodney had done at Saintes' Passage. As it was. Victory was alongside the very worst possible ship - L'Redoutable.
@@thethirdman225he meant literally alongside.
At Trafalgar he didn’t try to cross the T, in fact the Franco-Spanish force crossed his T, but that was his plan, to pierce the enemy line so they couldn’t simply turn downwind to escape.
@@jeremypnet Are you sure? The battle plan I have literally shows two columns crossing the T.
@@thethirdman225 crossing the T is when you are the horizontal bar. You can bring your entire broadside of your whole fleet to bear on the enemy and they can only answer with their bow chasers. Nelson deliberately became the vertical bar (twice) so that he could cut through the enemy formation and attack from leeward. This was very risky since the enemy broadside could be focused on him and Collingwood for a long time before he could answer back.
Brb, gonna go play Empire: Total War and try to actually win a naval action this time.
glob speed!
The line astern formation group setting helped me out so much!
Impossibru!
I found that the best way to win was to have better and more ships. Still your first ship is always utterly fucked.
I've never lost a naval action?
The line abreast formation was almost never used except as a means to close with the enemy fleet since only the outer pair of ships could fire effectively at the enemy. When the range closed to within a few hundred yards the admiral would order a "battle turn" to port or starboard depending on the wind, which would transform the line abreast into a line ahead. A battle turn required each ship to execute the turn simultaneously, a very difficult thing to do in sailing ships. A ship that turned too early could crash into a friendly ship. Turning too late could cause a ship to become isolated within the enemy's formation. Because of these problems line ahead formations were the rule, sometimes in two or more columns, as at Trafalgar.
Maneuvering and command while in line ahead formation presented problems. One was signaling. If the admiral was in the lead ship, i.e. the van, the captains in the trailing ships could not see the signal hoists because of the ships in front of them obscured the view. Consequently, the standard practice was to station a fourth or fifth rate ship, typically a frigate, several hundred yards to either port or starboard of the main column in a position to be seen clearly by all ships in the column. This ship had the duty to relay signals from the admiral's ship to the fleet. The vessel assigned to this duty was called the flagship.
Another problem was coordination of the column. Every ship was an individual with significantly different sailing properties. Some were faster, some slower. Some held a true course, others had too much leeway. Some had excellent crews, others had too many landsmen. Just organizing the order of ships in a column - which ship will be in the van, which behind - was an important and difficult task for the admiral. Get it wrong and your fleet might be other strung out so widely as to be ineffective or be hopelessly entangled in each other's rigging.
In every historical naval book I have read (fiction and non-fiction) the "flagship" referred to the ship that had the Admiral commanding a unit (Fleet, squadron, etc) and was termed such since the Admiral would be flying his command flag from that ship.
Also it was larboard and starboard not port and starboard. Port was only a thing from 1844
That icon for capturing a ship. Absolutely brilliant.
Finding Nemo reference?
***** I wouldn't know, I've never seen it. I just got a good laugh at all the "mines" popping up like that.
I thought the mine wasn't an exploding mine, but mine as in it's all mine, it belongs to me. Oh, well.
@@mojojim6458 You were right
@@MaxRavenclaw th-cam.com/video/p-3e0EkvIEM/w-d-xo.html
I'm here because i suck at naval battles in Napoleon Total War and Empire.
DJSbros Best way to win is to produce lots of first rates. The only thing that nails them are the rocket ships.
Did this help
5th rates are my bread and butter
@@Bruce-qb3vu Fond of Galleons, myself (pity only Spain gets them in-game). They aren't as good as a first rate- but they're good against anything in early game, and they can also act as trade ships, so its like getting a trade ship and a (weak) ship of the line in one. But yeah, for battles, just build as many as possible of the biggest ship you can. Unless you've got rocket ships, then build those.
I'm here because I couldn't even figure out Empire Total War lol.
Wait what is this am i enjoying......... LEARNING
yes, welcome to military history visualized
yeah, you ve got germanised.
+David Weber HAIL HYDRA! what... wait...
Telsion hail dagon, hail hydra, hail cuthulu
David Weber s
This will come in handy next time I am involved in a sailing ship battle.
2:40 The reason that tall ships preferred (and prefer) gybing, i.e. turning with the wind, to tacking, i.e. turning through the wind, is not so much that it puts stress on the rigging. The point is that the ship needs to have enough speed to carry it through the course change and through the wind in the time the sails provide no power, i.e. the time it goes against the wind. Tall ships are not that maneuverable and you simply cannot steer a vessel which has no speed through the water. Additionally, the square rigging provides considerable wind resistance compared to the typical fore and aft rigging of a modern yacht, which makes tacking even more difficult. A gybe is much easier to do with such ships.
Techically, this is not gybeing (which is were a fore-and-aft sail moves across the ship centerline) but "wearing". Gybeing as also more a downwind sailing manouver, but wearing can be completely from one tack to the other, when the ship was sailing upwind (as much as it could!). While there are fore-and-aft sails on a fully rigged ship, the main motive power comes from the square sails.
Not necessarily. A crew could backwind the square sails on the foremast to bring the bow around, as is done by sailing crews in light weather today. There were also other manoeuvres like boxhauling and making a sternboard. In modern yachts there is a manoeuvre for getting out of trouble, known as a granny tack or chicken gybe (it’s the same thing). That’s when the boat is pointed up to windward and tacked instead of allowing the boom to swing across the cockpit. It’s not normally used but I suspect it has its equivalent in the 18th century.
@@markdurre2667 Tacking is done into the wind and gybeing is done ahead of the wind.
"The german part of me." Dude, you're so german I smell the sauerkraut through the intertubes. BTW, I love sauerkraut so I'm not complaining.
Love the channel!
You might have gotten the joke only halfways. Since he is an austrian, living in germany, and there was a nice discussion about the austro-german relationships in the comments of last weeks vid. But anyway, it was a great easteregg. :)
Austrian living in Germany talking about war,... omylord
austrians are germans. only after ww2 did people act offended and insisted on nationality rather than ethnicity.
austro hugarian empire......look it up.
The idea of a country called Germany is relatively new - roughly 150 years ago there was no "Germany." Before that German speaking territories were fragmented into many different political units of many different kinds.
Arguably, the British Royal Navy in terms of ''Nelson's Navy'' achieved the absolute pinnacle of what it meant to master sailing and naval battles in the entire age of sail.
It was said of the Royal Navy admirals, aging and crusty in the late 19th century, spluttering and disgruntled about the then new fangled all-iron/steel warships replacing wooden warships for good, resentful of the steam and ''dirty coal'' using ships, that,
''When the ships were made of wood, the men were made of iron; but now the ships are made of iron, the men are made of wood''
It was a rather unfair and derisory saying which got peddled around a bit in the mid-late Victorian times, when old sea dogs and admirals from the time of Nelson, lamented the loss of sails as the primary propulsion.
It was said, ''You can't be a sailor unless you can use sails!".
This led to a range of bizarre transition period ships in the Royal Navy, with old guard naval officers and lords in the Admiralty, making sure that sails, masts and rigging were still covering all-metal warships. After 1860 and the introduction of the historic HMS Warrior, the first all iron battleship of its kind, twice the size and 1.5 x the firepower of the French ironclad La Gloire, launched earlier in the year (the British were infuriated by the French developing that, and so answered back in kind with a ship so powerful that the French gave up on their plans to get into a naval arms race with Britain, pretty much immediately; HMS Warrior never fired a shot in anger, not needing to for very good reasons - as in, it'd crush anything it came up against and changed the game; it was basically the British going fuck you France we are in charge, in a supremely competitive fashion)
ships still had sails and rigging. HMS Warrior did. But that was in fairness much closer to the classic wooden warships.
But even up to the pre-dreadnaught battleship designs coming out from the global naval arms race going on in the days of heavy industrialism in major western powers, there were still British ships festooned with sails, rigging and masts, like hybrids.
The situation started to get ridiculous with the old guard still clinging on desperately to the age of sail, not accepting the truth that steam, turbines and electricity etc was the future. This awkward situation in the British Royal Navy of the Victorian Era, was paradoxical to the forward thinking industrialists who pressed ahead until the British Admiral Jackie Fisher invented the Dreadnaught in 1900. There are many examples of British warships in the Victorian era which had no practical need for sails and rigging, but their captains and the admiralty enforced their use until they couldn't keep the facade going any longer.
It was argued it was instilling discipline and skills in the sailors and ratings; but it was counter-argued that it wasted time, energy and effort, and taught them skills which were now redundant in almost every way. Traditions upheld, though, I can sympathise with. But even so, the British were at odds over the issue, quite rightly. I can totally understand why the new generations coming through wanted rid of the sails; though from a romanticist point of view, there is beauty and intrigue in keeping the sails. They do kind of look a bit weird though. Some even kept the sails and rigging around the steam funnels, the sails having next to no influence on the movement of the heavy ships. I'm sure Isambard Kingdom Brunel would have shook his head at the old world being plastered all over the new steam, paddle and propeller bladed ships he was pioneering and improving.
Nelson's navy of the age of sail was the zenith of wooden warship sailing mastery and gunnery. Far in advance of anything the French had to offer (the 2nd best around, themselves) Trafalgar tells it all, with many other victories.
The level of discipline, the sheer grit and hardiness of those men. Tough, brutal lives.
When these men had shore leave, they often looked to walk funny - having rolling gaits, used to the rocking and rolling movements of the pitching and yawing vessels they were on, used to being in close harmony and rhythm with the swells and waves. They had subconsciously developed a compensating method of walking to stay steady on their feet, and had been put through some of the worst conditions at sea imaginable. The British naval squadrons would chase enemy fleets across oceans, and go on missions around the world in all weathers and conditions, from the Baltic Sea to the Caribbean, from the eastern seaboard of the USA to the far east itself. They saw many things and experienced storms, hurricanes/typhoons and being on station for months on end.
The British had mastered naval resupply, meaning that they could stay anchored blockading somewhere - like Brest, Le Havre, Calais, etc. It was I think first successfully achieved during the Seven Years War, denying the French from sending forces to aid their struggling outposts in Canada/then New France, which helped blockade France and defeat the French in the colonial wars. The example of Admiral Byng being executed by court martial and firing squad on the quarterdeck of his own flagship, for hesitating to go into battle with the enemies of the British at Minorca in the Mediterranean, inspired British officers and admirals to be very aggressive. Byng paid for his mistake with his life, after Minorca was surrounded by the Franco-Spanish and fell to assault while Byng arrived at Gibraltar. He was sent back to England to his fate. Everyone was expected to lay their ship alongside a French or Spanish, and after Byng paid the price for inaction and hesitation, the trait for British naval aggression became much more prominent. Nelson is perhaps the perfection of this mentality, with him saying, things like;
*''England expects that every man will do his duty''
''No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.''
''Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.''
''Our country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking an enemy than for letting it alone.''*
Admiral of the Fleet Edward Hawke, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hawke,_1st_Baron_Hawke was responsible for being a major British driving force in the Royal Navy, and innovating strategies of resupplying the fleets blockading France in the Seven Years War, as well as being the victor of great battles before and during the Seven Years War, such as the impressive Battle of Quiberon Bay en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Quiberon_Bay
Such a striking example would be followed up by Nelson during the Napoleonic Wars, with the British blockading France yet again. Admiral Hawke had effectively mounted a unilateral blockade of the French coast from Dunkirk to Marseille. Nelson mounted an even more intense blockade on France after this.
The British Royal Navy really did rule the waves overall, in the height of the age of sail.
Congratulations for the longest TH-cam comment I've ever seen. I feel like it would be appreciated better on some other site.
"It was argued it was instilling discipline and skills in the sailors and ratings; but it was counter-argued that it wasted time, energy and effort, and taught them skills which were now redundant in almost every way."
I can sympathize with that, sounds like the armies of today (or at least the Finnish Defence Forces and the infamous pinkka, "pile" arabuusimiehet.com/rexx/army/pics/pinkat.jpg).
Another factor is that fuel was expensive and in the case of coal It had to be manually loaded at strategically placed ports, It was often prudent to keep using sails or even have slower ships, than to have to take more stops or even have to stop doing naval maneuvers/training entirely by keeping the ships in ordinary to save on fuel. Maintaining traditions were more of a happy coincidence, and they only stopped when ships got too big for sails to provide a meaningful amount of movement/got in the way of anti-aircraft guns.
OLDCONTEMPTABLE Yet the sails were in the ships I'm referring to, in no way moving them. They'd become too heavy for that, effectively.
You are missing the point; it was totally pointless in a practical sense.
I enjoyed your discourse. But then, I am just finishing reading the Hornblower series again.
ThePalaeontologist You made the fucking donald trump WALL !!!
One of the few legitimately good channels on youtube.
I would have expected some discussion of how wind direction ("having the wind") dramatically impacted how fleets could approach each other and influenced success.
But thank you for the videos. I know the best depth is a judgement call.
yeah, wind was just too much at that point.
Different navies also had different doctrines, such as whether it was advantageous to be upwind or downwind of the enemy. This affected your shot placement, as being upwind meant the ship would heel towards the target, allowing your gunners to aim for hull shots, while the downwind ship was heeled away, and her gunners would be aiming for rigging and masts.
Now I can win Napoleon total war.
And also do the japanese-russian naval war.
I was going to play NTW a minute before i watch this video.
Kelvin Z what game
Damn now I have to install total war empire again and maybe now I am able to sink at least one of the enemy ships.
you can fight against me, I spent 34 hours according to steam and I never played a naval battle in it :D
I prefer Fall of the Samurai. Nothing beats out-teching your enemy and attacking their wooden ships with HE Ironclads :P
Shaved Alpaca I heard Naval Action wasn't that great... was that the MMO plagued by pirates?
"plagued by pirates" only really applied if you played as the British (like myself). its gotten a lot better.
I love the English Battleship that thing can take on an entire fleet of wooden ships. Add a few of the long range one gun in the front little ironclads and some other armored ships and nothing can damage that fleet. The ramming French Ironclads were also OP.
I didn't like the naval warfare in Empires total war unless it was just a few lighter/faster ships (or one big ship). Having a battle with many larger ships was slow, un-fun, and required too much micromanaging.
I don't like how Rome and Attila can have "fleets" of land troops and I wish they would have kept land and sea mostly separate with more realistic crew sizes and battles.
It would be cool to have some naval warfare like Fall of Samuri or even Shogun II again.
I am new to your channel, but would like you to know that I find your content incredibly fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to research and present this information.
First video of this channel I found, in the recommended section on youtube, finally it seems to perform as it says, subscribed!
I'm using this for a tabletop rpg I'm setting up.
+Tl2aV Avalon Hills "Wooden Ships and Iron Men". Great game.
If you got access to an university library, check out Churches & Hainsworth's 'The Anglo-Dutch Naval Wars'. It is an accessible history book that should give you more than enough inspiration for a setting in and around the start of the age of sail.
Awesome so am I, right now trying to set up ship vs ship combat but do far players are enjoying it alot
I once watched a tutorial about how to skateboard so i dont sound like a total idiot in a fanfic im writing so you do you sir.
@Aggressive Tubesock Only just today got a notification for this thread (thanks TH-cam). I had to shelve it since the group I planned on playing with is no longer together and my current group is fixated on 5e DnD.
I was taking the themes from 7th Sea and adding ship to ship elements to make it more interesting than stock. It's heavily homebrew and probably unbalanced, but I won't know until I get to playtest it.
I love your videos. U teach more in these than I learned reading several books. Keep up the excellent work!
Great video! Thanks for sharing. These naval battles sound like they were incredibly brutal.
This channel is amazing. I'm so glad I happened across it!
Thank you very much for this awesome video essay!
It is so great that you properly name your sources.
This is an excellent video. Your voice is very clear and there is no background noise. The simple usage of clippart imagery on counters makes things clear and enjoyable, and you used historical quotes.
Just found your channel and it's great! Keep up the great work, and I'm sure it'll grow even more! I hope you don't run out of things to talk about.
thank you, I don't think I will run out, even on this topic I could do a video on gunnery, boarding tactics/combat, etc.
+Military History Visualized Please do!
with that said I actually really like how 'erratic', if you will, the content is. Every week it's a new and unrelated topic and sometimes, like today, we get surprised with a different era.
The flag signals were also hard to use for giving orders from the flagship to the other ships in the line because sails and smoke blocked the vision, so when they could, they set frigates on the not engaged side of the line to copy the flagships' signals, so the whole line could see it.
I have seen all your videos and I plan to watch them all from now on.
Interesting video as always. Good to see other parts of history being featured here. Almost to 70k subs!
This has been a very helpful presentation. Thanks for the work you put into it, as it's prompted me now to look into many aspects of those times, including metallurgy and the history of naval warfare. It's actually useful information for me, because I can use this information, as well as the other subjects you cover, in a fun hobby of mine! =D
Jack Aubrey approves.
safe and sound at home again
I should like it of all things ..
RandomNameHere Capital tactics!
Hornblower too
mortaché de muerte If you read Patrick O'Brian, CS Forrester, Alexander Kent and the rest, you realize that there are strong similarities to many of the naval actions they incorporate in their story. All these authors used the same original historical sources as a starting point. It's too bad that British naval fiction enthusiasts don't write fan-fiction like romance or vampire fans. I wouldn't mind a story where Aubrey, Hornblower, and Bolitho meet in a bar, share a pint, and get together and form their own mini-fleet.
Your channel is having huge growth. I first found your videos a couple weeks ago and in that same time span, you've quadrupled the views per video. Great work, you always see, to think of just the right topic that nobody has really covered. There are so many you cover, it's almost unlimited to what you'll do. Bronze age army tactics? Fighter tactics of the Vietnam era? I'm sure you have an informed opinion of both.
I thoroughly enjoy this channel, and would donate if i wan't broke. Thank you for producing these videos, they've taught me, and by extension my friends and family, much about history and tactics.
There was also what was being fired to consider, ball, chain, shot or bar and the different doctrines of each nations navies came into play. The French (generally) had smaller calibre cannon but had more soldiers or Marines aboard, there was more small arms fire on enemy ships (as Nelson found out to his cost) and the French preferred to ''board in the smoke'' after smashing down the sails and rigging with chain and bar shot, leaving the enemy drifting in the water. The British had (generally) larger calibre cannon, less Marines and (ideally) would change where they fired (rigging/sails, hull or shot to kill crew members) to suit the situation. Another (huge) factor was the skill of the crew. How long had they been commissioned and how well did that crew sail the ship? How much battle experience did they have? Did the captain value gunnery practice (or was the captain even competent?). Later, the British Navy had problems against American hand picked, volunteer crews as opposed to their pressed sailors.
"The German part of me finds this term really irritating because clearly it's not complicated enough". ->subscribed.
Thank you for posting.
hope we will see more naval stuff m8 good work
Awesome vid. Good information. You've got yourself a new subscriber!
Another great video, I'm very glad I subscribed to your channel & my best friend who also war games w/me has subscribed as well. I was happy to see you doing this video on the age of sail rather than modern warfare ( not that I have anything against the videos you do on that subject as they are very interesting ). Keep up the good work & Thank You for the wonderful & Informative videos you've created
Great channel man
This video was very helpful, thank you.
Im using your videos to enhance my DnD sessions. Thankyou for the information!
Very interesting channel you have. Subscribed!
Thank you so much for posting such an unbiased, apolitical analysis of history. Oh, for more!
these are really well made. many kudos to you
Loved the video!
what a brilliant video, subscribed!
Good video. This answered a couple questions I needed answered. Also your English is very good for someone with that thick of an accent.
Dude this is geat! Brilliant job!
Excellent video, particularly because you provided references for future reading
Great video, thank you!
Another excellent video and explanation.
Two items not discussed, and possibly worthy of inclusion in a future video on this subject:
1) "Weather Guage": In the age of sailing ships, the fleet or ship that was UPWIND had the tactical advantage. Because square-rigged sailing ships cannot sail into the wind, the commander of the upwind fleet had the choice of deciding when and if battle should be joined. Much of the history of naval combat in this era revolves around captains and admirals attempting to gain this critical advantage.
2) Sinking in battle was rare. Given the construction (and general buoyancy characteristics) of wooden sailing ships and the (relatively) limited destructive power of solid iron cannon balls, it was quite rare for an enemy ship to be sunk in battle. Total destruction of an enemy vessel would most likely be accomplished via boarding: Positioning the ship adjacent to the enemy vessel and sending a force of sailors and marines over the side onto the enemy ship, to overpower its crew, who had presumably been killed or weakened by exposure to cannon fire.
thank you!
1) yeah, I want to cover that in the future. To copy paste myself on that issue: "The wind / weather stuff was covered in my sources, but I didn't reach an understanding sufficient enough, also all their figures used the wind, but there was not one maneuver that was shown with a different wind angle. So basically everything was more complicated with the wind, because without a comparison it makes little difference, which means: if you leave the wind out the maneuvers are easier, but also correct. Once I find better sources or gain a better understanding I will probably do an upgraded version.
2) I think I covered that, but maybe not expressed properly. (it should be around the MINE MINE stuff).
well done. your focus is spot on, nice to have some metrics to gol with my imaginings.
Thank you for being an exceptional teacher. In einem Fremdsprache!
Thanks, awesome presentation.
Very well explained, thank you
"Now the German part of me finds this term really irritating because it's clearly not complicated enough." LOL
This was great. This must have been really a lot of work. All the best.
Brilliant. Thanks for sharing.
You are extremely good at this. You should market your graphical explanations to companies for training videos etc. You could make money.
You could also "double" the enemy by crossing the T at some/any location along the enemy line (preferably near the back) and then turn 90 degree into the wind, thus cutting a part of his formation from the leading element. Once you cut them off the rest of your line will turn 90 degree into the wind before the crossing point, effectively doubling his rear element.
Very informative. Thank you.
Can you do a video on the condition of the Greek and Yugoslav armies during WWII? I think that would be an interesting episode.
Agreed!
Josip Tito fucked
There was another "tactic" but rather on the design level which was used specially by Spain (due to not having enough shipbuilding capacity to equal the numbers of the British fleet): building heavier ships with more guns and thicker hulls. Most Spanish ships of the line had 100 guns or above, against the 70 to 90 used by the British or French navies. Those 100+ guns were usually of a higher caliber and firepower than their British counterparts (30 to 35 pounders guns against 18 to 24 pounders guns). The Spanish pride of the fleet in Trafalgar, the "Santísima Trinidad" (Holy Trinity) had 140 guns in four decks, and was the biggest ship of the line ever built. It was destroyed in Trafalgar when it had to face 4 British ships (2 of which were sunk by this beast of a ship, the other were damaged). In a rough sea it's an unadvantage, but with good weather a line of three-deckers can be a powerful tool, specially when even doubling doesn't give the enemy a firepower advantage over your ships.
"building heavier ships with more guns and thicker hulls. Most Spanish ships of the line had 100 guns or above...". That was true, only at some extent, for the 2nd half of the 18th century and the first years of the 19th century. But, for the 1st half of the 18th century, aproximately until the Seven Years War, the situation was the opposite.
The Spanish Armada built a lot of ships-of-the-line rated 60 guns or less, making the Spanish ships normally smaller and downgunned than their British and French counterparts. A lot of criticism was made on this point by the very Spanish admirals until they got that trend reversed.
During the reign of Charles III (Carlos III), 1761-?, the priority was no longer to comision so many ships, since Spain had already achieved a position among the top 3 world naval powers (together with Britain, 1st, and France, 2nd), therefore the Spanish priority in shipbuilding switched to build the best possible ships in every case. That lead to increase dramatically the number of three-deckers and the number of two-deckers rated 74-80 guns in the Spanish Armada.
Yes, I'm talking about that time.
That was brilliant, thank you!
Great video, once again.
Great video, very insightful!!! :)
Brilliant video
I love your acent!
Thank you for taking the time to learn my language!
The interesting part about the short range of the cannons is that when doubling there is minimal risk of friendly fire. A lot of formations that would sink friendly ships in a modern context could work as long as the ships were well spaced. Although before 1815 I suspect an array of mobile guns with a range of more than 270 meters was considered awesome. Compared to musket range or trying move horse drawn cannons a few kilometers away while firing a ship must have seemed amazing.
very well done - i really like the naval warfare videos
Great videos! One suggestion if I may: switch your sans serif typeface to one with larger apertures and/or increase the tracking. This seems especially important given the low contrast to the background and the fact that many are probably watching on phones.
Also, your serif face tends to seem like a solid block.
Another great one. thank-you
@6:50 made me literally burst a gut. My Chinese boss said, go to Canada and the road sign for Maple St. Is hidden behind the biggest bush in the city. Go to Germany and you can’t miss a road sign if you tried
Great video
Good info!! Thanks!!
gotta love the touch of metal at the end
I like your new outro... it flows better. ;)
:D
This channel is fucking great, I could watch your channel all day, every day.
A very important tatical aspect left out in this video is the significance of being in the windward position, as the enemy would a) expose more of the ships bottom to be struck and b) would be in a passive position when it comes to battle initiative. Having the wind on your side was a huge advantage, unless the wind is exceptionally strong, in which case the windward ship would run into the danger of not being able to use its lower guns due to the ship leaning to the leeward side.
In addition, it is also worth pointing out that cannon fire would not only be important for damaging the ship, but just as much for decimating the crew, as most enemy sailors/gunners did not die from the gunfire itself but from the massive amount of wood splinters flying through the ship when hit.
amazing observasing, man! that why i sub you
Best explanation. Thanks, sub.
No mention of the weather gage?
I like the subject but I don't think this video does it justice.
Also, the doubling only works if you can catch up with a fleet from the rear. If you advance towards them it is a stupid tactic, as a single ship can take on two other as long as she is still moving. Thus a single line advancing can actually bring more firepower than a double line.
Please do more in this topic
grand video !!!
Great video: Concepts perfectly summarized and schematized. I'd say Breaking the T was quite a risky maneuver, but probably the most effective one. On the other hand, i.m.h.o., one shot per minute is quite exaggerated: One shot every three to five minutes would be more realistic, and that just at the battle's beggining, with all the crew ready and fresh, and before the smoke, battle deafness, tired and injured crewmen, etc.
The Echelon formation was also used and breaking the line was a useful tactic due to loss of cohesion
Found your next topic/era
In order to gain a firepower advantage, doubling worked very well - *if* you could get into position. Not easy when both fleets were under way. That's why the favoured tactics were massing and breaking the enemy line. Crossing the T as depicted here only really worked with long range guns and wider fire arcs.
I had to stop the video I was laughing so hard. "Doubling" not being complicated enough, hilarious. I am of German descent, however, I talk with a Texas accent, but I still understand. Good video. The Age of Fighting Sail has always been interesting to me. I believe you did very well. So much more you could have talked about and shown, but this is very good as a primer.
Thanks sir
bro, love your videos and visuals, just a suggestion can you do germany war tactics and weapons before the 20th century, i think you would be great at providing great material and content concerning the war of German unification and the pre-Napoleonic wars.
thx, at some point for sure, I am working on my basic knowledge on the other eras, e.g., this was the second Napoleonic era video.
yeah bro totally do your thing its great work cant wait to see future videos about Napoleonic era, that time was just intense and crazy, i wanna know how officers acted during battles or firefights, if their was sieges how were they planned out and how did soldiers conduct assaults.
About halfway through the video I realised that I was listening about naval warfare from an Austrian, and that Austria is a landlocked country. weird
funny facts, 1) we (Austrians) actually have won at least naval battle in History, 2) it included deliberate ramming...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lissa_(1866)
It is now but it long had a a big coastline on the adriatic.
+Zacharias W. *for a long time
+Zacharias W. That was Hungarian coast, wasn't it?
+Zacharias W. checked some old european maps and I see it now
Forgotten was the critical choice of firing on the upward roll or downward roll of the ship after closing for battle. Upwards took away rigging, sails and masts disabling the ship and the downward targeted the hull and armament. The French preferred the former and the English the latter.
An evaluation of the points made herein explains why at the height of the Age of Sail (the period between the 7 Years War and the Napoleanic Wars) almost all Major FLEET actions which resulted in tactical or strategic victory were the result of one fleet catching the opposing fleet in a position or strategic situation which restricted the losing fleet's capability of maneuver. During the American Revolution the most compelling example of a LOST opportunity was probably the Battle of the Chesapeake where the British fleet caught the French Fleet in restricted waters but failed to successfully close with and maintain combat. During the Napoleanic Wars the most devastating battles were 1) The Battle of the Nile, wherein the British fleet took the French fleet at Aboukir Bay while the latter was at anchor in relatively shoal waters; Copenhagen, wherein the British fleet found the Danish fleet at anchor and essentially unable to maneuver, and most famously, 3) Trafalgar, where the Franco-Spanish fleet was sailing along the coastline and was restricted in movement in that it had little sea room to starboard as the Spanish coast was fairly near, did not have the wind advantage possessed by the British and so were seriously limited in their ability to turn to port. This most famous battle of the three did have both fleets at sea, but the tactical situation severely limited the Franco-Spanish fleets options, whereas the British could break off the action if it became untenable or (as they did historically) take advantage of their superior training and tactical position. The Franco-Spanish fleet had only two options; continue onward (which they did, allowing Nelson's fleet to carry out his intentions) or attempt to return to Cadiz, which would have resulted in their being blockaded by the British fleet and essentially losing on a strategic level, even if not a shot had been fired.
This is not to say there were no major fleet actions on the high seas. "The Glorious First of June" against the French and Camperdown against the Dutch were examples. However both situations were somewhat odd in that the British knew the aims and intent of the opposing fleets. In the first example the French were desperately trying to get supplies to known ports in France. Indeed, both the French and the British were able to claim at least partial victory as the French did manage to get the majority of the supplies being convoyed to the French coast, but lost more warships in the battle than did the British. In the case of Camperdown, the Dutch were returning from a limited raid in the North Sea which was only possible because the British fleet had to break their blockade of the Dutch coastline in order to refit and resupply. The Dutch were able to sortie but the return of the British Fleet to the Channel threatened to cut the Dutch off from their ports. They were were sailing to an obvious destination and the British knew essentially where the Dutch were; the British fleet simply interposed themselves on the only real path the Dutch could take to reach home.
Thanks.
During that time "Crossing the T" was actually only effective ship to ship and not fleet to fleet. The limited angle in which the cannon could fire would only allow one or two ships in the line to discharge their broadside in to the leading enemy ship, while the rest would have no angle to fire. At the same time there was a high risk of the enemy fleet breaking through your formation and unloading their broadsides in to the bow and stern of more than just one of your ships.
Also most ships actually had cannon facing forward and aft. You just only had room for two or three of them compared to the broadside. Those cannon were of the longer variant for the most time because they were meant to chase the enemy where you could not bring your broadside to bear without letting them escape.
An extensive firefight was not needed to disable a ship. The Hyder Ally was able to disable the General Monk in only 28 minutes for example despite being smaller and less heavily armed. Excellent gunnery was the answer for how to do that.