[HN Gopher] British naval dominance during the age of sail
___________________________________________________________________
British naval dominance during the age of sail
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 87 points
Date : 2025-05-16 13:14 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lesswrong.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lesswrong.com)
| neonnoodle wrote:
| APRIL 1805
|
| NAPOLEON IS MASTER OF EUROPE.
|
| ONLY THE BRITISH FLEET STANDS BEFORE HIM.
|
| OCEANS ARE NOW BATTLEFIELDS.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| 1) God damn that movie is so good.
|
| 2) I think part of why it stands out so much is that there are
| incredibly few excellently-made age of sail war films. A few of
| the black & white and early color era ones are pretty good (
| _The Sea Hawk_ and such) but those are pretty different in
| tone. _Master and Commander_ is very nearly unique. You have to
| switch over to sci fi (Star Trek, maybe _Forbidden Planet_ ) to
| scratch a similar itch. If you want specifically age of sail,
| with that structure and tone (war, edge-of-civilization
| exploration with a ship), your options are _very_ limited.
|
| 3) I have discovered only very-belatedly that Peter Weir is one
| of my favorite directors. I had no idea for the longest time
| that the same guy did _The Mosquito Coast_ , _Master and
| Commander_ , _The Year of Living Dangerously_ , _Dead Poet 's
| Society_, _Witness_ , and _The Truman Show_. Dude just knocked
| out one quietly-great movie after another, across multiple
| genres. I 've gone back and picked up some others ( _Gallipoli_
| , _The Cars that Ate Paris_ ) and have yet to be disappointed.
| The remainder of his all-too-short catalogue is high up my to-
| watch list. I've seen zero duds from him so far.
| rienbdj wrote:
| If you like the exploration type stuff, maybe try the Van
| Rijn series. It's loosely based on Dutch merchants but in a
| sci fi setting. Some interesting discussion of capitalism,
| trade and exploitation too. It is also very much of its time.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Don't forget _Picnic at Hanging Rock_!
|
| I really love Peter Weir -- I don't think all of his movies
| are amazing, but many of them are, and they're all really
| ambitious and unique. He never rests on his laurels. (Reminds
| me in that respect of George Miller, director of _Babe_ and
| _Mad Max_ )
| alabastervlog wrote:
| That one and _The Last Wave_ are the ones from his
| remaining ~7 movies I 've not seen, that I fully expect to
| be good. I know less of the reputation of the other five,
| but even if all of them are bad that'll leave him with an
| excellent batting average.
|
| [EDIT] To expand on my late-discovered love of the guy's
| work, the key figures in my slowly drifting toward being a
| bit of an actual _film fan_ were all people I knew by name:
| Spielberg ( _Empire of the Sun_ , plus all his usual
| biggies), Don Bluth (Learning so young that a movie can
| _hurt_... and that can be a really good thing!), and George
| Lucas (first by hooking me on Star Wars, which got me into
| making-ofs and the craft of film-making and editing, the
| idea of the pastiche film which sent me chasing down
| influences, and then with the prequels with wanting, owing
| to my prior high levels of engagement with the franchise,
| to dig deeper into "... but _why_ , exactly, are they so
| bad?" which was its own kind of education); but then, some
| time in the back half of my 30s, I discovered that a bunch
| of other films that'd been key on that journey were all by
| this one other dude whose name had previously failed to
| register. He was this fourth major figure in the early and
| middle parts of this journey, for me, and I didn't even
| know it!
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| I have always desperately wanted a Star Wars movie that is
| essentially nothing more than Master and Commander.
|
| No magical beings, no one-in-a-trillion mega-celebrities.
| Just professionals doing their jobs within the Navy and the
| adventures they had as mortal, skilled, men.
|
| What are the TIE Pilots talking about off-shift, how does the
| Captain feel about the new mission priorities?
|
| Andor is closest we've had to seeing this POV.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Yeah, kind of what _Lower Decks_ (the show, and for that
| matter also the episode "Lower Decks") is to Star Trek,
| but not comedy. _Andor_ is indeed the closest I know of to
| that, though you see little touches of similar things in
| some episodes of _The Mandalorian_ and the _Clone Wars_
| cartoon (though of course that one 's also full of the
| "magical beings")
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > Just professionals doing their jobs
|
| This is one of the reasons I love Rogue One. There is a
| desperation that permeates the film that culminates into
| the titanic final scene
| xeonmc wrote:
| If Peter Jackson had followed through with Temeraire I
| think it'd be right up your alley.
| Lio wrote:
| Master and Commander[1], I love that film and the series of
| books.
|
| A detail I loved from both is that the French are treated with
| respect as formidable adversaries.
|
| There's no love lost in battle but when either side are
| captured they generally treat each other well[2].
|
| The other detail is the amount that the protagonists get
| permanently injured; burned, amputated, broken or just lost
| overboard. That happened, a lot and people just got on with it.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_and_Commander
|
| 2. Maturin does get tortured in one of the books but we'll
| gloss over that.
| tclancy wrote:
| Well yes, but the torture is outsourced to a villainous
| Spainiard!
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| While the torture takes place in Spanish held Port Mahon in
| Mallorca, the torturers are unarguably French (Colonel
| Auger, Captain Dutourd, unnamed other Frenchmen).
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Maturin gets tortured because he is involved in
| "ungentlemanly or dishonorable" forms of warfare (phrased to
| avoid revealing a plotline).
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's funny now how the opening of a movie can be read as a
| prompt to an LLM. Given the heavy copyright infringement, it
| would not be surprising to get the actual plot line to this
| specific movie as a response as seen in previous examples
| posted here before.
| mncharity wrote:
| > Given the heavy copyright infringement,
|
| Hollywood: "We successfully created a societal archetype!
| Yay!" Also Hollywood: "Unqualified societal idiom now refers
| to our archetype! Dreadful infringement machine!"
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| Highly _highly_ recommend Patrick O'Brian's series of novels on
| which the movie is based. They are amazing: full of deeply-
| researched detail about life in the British navy during the
| napoleonic wars, with wonderful characters, and thrilling page-
| turners as well. Best historical novels ever written.
| OxfordOutlander wrote:
| +1
| idontwantthis wrote:
| And the Simon Vance recordings are delightful.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| Strongly seconded. For me, they were better than the
| Hornblower novels (which are excellent in their own right).
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Patrick O'Brian's series of novels_
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey-Maturin_series
| gadders wrote:
| The Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books are good as well, if
| you'd like to see Napoleon's armies defeated on land instead
| of sea.
| rout39574 wrote:
| And Allan Mallinson's series about Matthew Hervey adds
| another branch of the military. Post-napoleonic, but a
| fascinating trip through colonialism.
| burntalmonds wrote:
| After seeing the movie I devoured the entire series. Great
| stuff.
| Khaine wrote:
| Don't forget the Hornblower book (and tv movie) series by C.
| S. Forester.
| sklargh wrote:
| Assemble the dads for the dad film!
|
| (Incredible movie and very enjoyable novels, recommend Master
| and Commander and Aubrey Maturin to all HN users)
| roter wrote:
| There is also the theory that the British just had more practice
| at gunnery and sailhandling while blockading the French/Spanish
| in the various ports.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Which leads to the theory of why the USS Constitution was so
| superior to British ships.
|
| The Americans drilled daily with live cannon, while the British
| drilled less often, and without live fire (presumably to
| conserve powder and balls).
|
| As an unsurprising result, American crews were more experienced
| at reloading under the duress of cannonade. The sound on the
| gun decks was so great it would burst eardrums. The smoke made
| it too hard to see anything a few feet from the portals.
|
| If you've never been near a gunpowder cannon fire, it's hard to
| comprehend the surreal rupture of reality it causes in your
| perception. I was to the side, but in front, of one. My world
| went black, then lightening values of gray. Sound returned.
| Then people appeared in the fog, moving with their arms out
| trying to get away blindly from the threat they perceived (that
| was already over).
|
| Without proper training, new sailors will stumble badly in
| their first firefight, and each man on the gundeck is crucial
| to a team. The officers were outside the deck, so they could
| receive orders. If you can't load your cannon while blind and
| deaf, your cannon sits quiet a long time.
| sklargh wrote:
| My first time hearing 5.56 fire when I incidentally had ear
| pro off was shocking. Cannot imagine what a gun deck was like
| in the age of sail.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Gunfire is _insanely_ loud. Even a little .22 is louder
| than the apparent volume of heavier rounds in most film and
| TV. It 's one of those things people can have entirely the
| wrong idea about if their only exposure to it is media. You
| see things like people firing rifles from _inside a car_
| and it 's like... nobody in that car should be able to hear
| a damn thing for a full minute, and with repeated fire
| their ears might ring badly through the next day.
|
| _Archer_ kinda gets this more-right than most things, LOL.
| "MAWP! MAWP!"
| bee_rider wrote:
| Comedies often are more accurate because dumb things are
| allowed to happen and real life doesn't follow the rule-
| of-cool. See also, Monty Python Holy Grail, and Veep.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Gunfire is insanely loud. Even a little .22 is louder
| than the apparent volume of heavier rounds in most film
| and TV. It 's one of those things people can have
| entirely the wrong idea about if their only exposure to
| it is media._
|
| Part of that is because the sound volume is just _so_
| drastically different compared to normally talking;
| microphones have trouble with it, audio amplifiers end up
| clipping [0], and most speakers would blow out if the amp
| didn 't clip (especially for the larger guns). And,
| assuming none of that happened then, just as you would
| have on a gun deck, your listeners' ears would be
| damaged. So the sound of gunfire in media is quieted.
|
| Most people simply aren't around guns in the first place,
| let alone firing guns (eg, going to a gun range with
| friends/family/etc even if you don't own a gun), to
| understand just how much media misrepresents it.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio)
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Dude was using a shotgun in an indoor range next to me and
| the air pressure was so bad I had to move. Pressure against
| my whole body.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Seems rude.
|
| Is it typical to use a shotgun in an indoor range? I
| thought shotguns were for killing clay pigeons.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are indoor clay pigeon ranges. Though I'm guessing
| it was a shotgun shooting a slug which acts like any
| other gun (as opposed to shot which spreads and so
| wouldn't be useful at most ranges since you would hit
| your neighbor's target as well)
| potato3732842 wrote:
| First off, most indoor ranges don't allow shotgun target
| loads and slugs are $$$ so people don't typically shoot
| them indoors.
|
| It's not explicitly rude but depending on the exact
| circumstances it's kind of pushing it to shoot 12ga and
| full power rifle rounds at indoor recreational ranges.
| Like don't do it on Saturday morning when it's busy and
| everyone is their with their wife or kids or whatever.
| Anything with enough concussion to be obnoxious to other
| shooters is sus.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Local range only allows shotguns for 1 w/y (to sight in
| hunting sabots). That's why. Those things are _big_.
|
| But even a .270 /30-06 puts out a lot more noise than you
| think it will. You jump right out of your skin the first
| shot.
| ggreer wrote:
| I've noticed that even with good hearing protection
| (foamies + earmuffs), being next to loud guns (like .50BMG
| outdoors or most rifle calibers indoors) disorients me and
| causes me to feel a little strange for hours afterwards. I
| think that anyone who spends a lot of time near such
| explosions risks brain injury.
|
| I'm pretty sure the effect comes from the sound and not
| something like toxic gasses because I never get the feeling
| shooting smaller calibers, nor do I get it when shooting
| with a silencer. It's too bad silencers are so restricted
| in the US. I think a lot of shooters would be in better
| health if they were more common.
| fatbird wrote:
| In the army I had the opportunity to fire the Carl Gustaf
| 84mm recoilless rifle, which is normally a two person job
| (one to hold, aim and fire, the other to load and check
| the backblast area).
|
| We're instructed to exhale before firing because the
| concussion of the round leaving the front while its
| propellent leaves the back of the tube creates a brief
| vacuum. If you don't exhale, the air is forced out of
| your lungs so violently you feel like you got punched in
| the chest.
|
| The noise is undoubtedly part of it, but the atmospheric
| effect is not insignificant, I think.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >The noise is undoubtedly part of it, but the atmospheric
| effect is not insignificant, I think.
|
| Yeah that's exactly why indoor ranges kind of suck for
| any serious rifle caliber.
| vintagedave wrote:
| > Then people appeared in the fog, moving with their arms out
| trying to get away blindly from the threat they perceived
| (that was already over).
|
| With an actual threat, it sounds like it was a genuine cannon
| firefight -- though surely not these days. May I ask what
| this was?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The USS Constitution and her sister ships were "super
| frigates" armed with ~50 guns of 24lb cannons and 36lb
| carronades. Most British frigates they went up against had
| fewer guns and used 18 lb cannons. The USS Constitution also
| had thicker hulls.
|
| The British had to start using cut down ships of the line
| against them.
|
| In WW2 terms, they were battle cruisers taking on heavy and
| light cruisers.
|
| The battle cruiser example is especially apt because a 24lb
| cannon could pierce any ship of the line's hull.
| OxfordOutlander wrote:
| This may have been a contributing factor, but the reason the
| American frigates were successful in the War of 1812 was
| because they were significantly larger and more powerful
| ships, with more powerful cannons. They had material
| advantages in size (100% heavier), crew (50% more numerous),
| and firepower (30-50% more weight of shot). The crews were
| well trained (and included many former British navy able
| seamen, pressed from American merchantmen) but it was the
| material advantages that swayed these combats.
|
| It was curious how effectively the American naval
| establishment gamed the European 'honor' system of naval
| warfare - they knew that if they kept these warships
| technically rated as 'frigates' (even though they were the
| largest and most powerful frigates ever built, similar in
| size to smaller ships of the line), the British would still
| try to fight them one on one with their frigates.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| Also the oak used in the construction was much better.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I was surprised, because of your user name, that you have
| made comments not directly referring to timber.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| >"comments not directly referring to timber."
|
| Sometimes it is good to go against the grain.
| christkv wrote:
| UK was also busy with the Napoleonic war which caused
| attrition of skilled crew men and ships. 1812 was a secondary
| campaign.
| blibble wrote:
| same is true of the US rebellion in 1776
|
| at most a minor skirmish within the larger ongoing wars
| with France
| nkrisc wrote:
| When I visited Oslo we went to Akershus festning, where we
| heard this enormous blast that sounded like a bomb going off,
| it really startled us as we weren't expecting it. After
| recovering, we realized they were firing off some cannons
| there, I don't know if it's a regular thing or not. I was
| expecting some massive cannon based on the blast, but it
| really didn't seem all that large. I can't even imagine what
| it must have been like on the gun deck of a large warship
| with 30 or more cannons.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I shoot .308, and have noticed that the position where you
| were (to the side, but ahead), receives far more noise than
| when you're behind the barrel shooting. Like phenomenally
| more.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| The rest is history podcast have a three parter on the battle
| of Trafalgar, they cover a lot of the lead up and essentially
| it sounds like the Royal Navy professionalised in a way that
| the the French and Spanish didn't. Portsmouth was very
| industrialised to constantly develop and churn out naval assets
| and improvements. Coupled with the kings use of new financial
| methods and that 25% of the country's GDP was spent on the navy
| you had basically an unbeatable force by the time Trafalgar
| happened.
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| 25%!
|
| If the modern US did that, we'd have Gundams and Super Star
| Destroyers.
| techterrier wrote:
| no, just a squillion LCS
| stnmtn wrote:
| It was well-known during that period that French shipwrights
| could built better ships - the problem was that the Royal
| Navy had better seamanship and would win most naval actions,
| and commandeer the better-built french ships and integrate
| them into the Royal Navy. So the british had the advantage of
| their own ships, and many of the better-built french ships.
| wagwangbosy wrote:
| The french navy had been super formidable throughout the 17th
| and 18th centuries. I don't really get how they folded so
| quickly to the UK.
| bell-cot wrote:
| France ditched most of its senior naval officers late in the
| 18th century, for the "crime" of being loyal to the prior
| regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
| zardo wrote:
| The French army purged old loyalists and replaced them with
| young officers, but wound up more capable, not less.
| mncharity wrote:
| Copilot contrasts the army's extensive battlefield
| promotions, broad and rapid, versus the navy's leadership
| funnel narrowed and slowed by specialized skills and more
| limited opportunities to develop and demonstrate them.
| nradov wrote:
| After the French revolution, their government executed or
| dismissed many of their best officers. They often came from
| the aristocracy or had royalist loyalties and were thus
| politically suspect. Replacement officers were often
| appointed purely based on revolutionary ideology with little
| attention paid to experience or competence. At times the
| government was also just short of cash and supplies needed to
| keep the navy running.
| _joel wrote:
| Relevant, also the original meaning of "Copper Bottomed Promise".
| https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/copper-bottomed.html
| nradov wrote:
| There was also just a basic matter of competence among the
| commissioned officers. The British Royal Navy was at least
| somewhat more of a meritocracy than most of their adversaries.
| While there was a certain level of nepotism and corruption, even
| aristocrats and sons of admirals generally needed some level of
| experience and seamanship in order to earn a promotion to
| lieutenant. And it was totally possible for a talented enlisted
| sailor to earn an officer's commission (although there was some
| luck involved).
| bell-cot wrote:
| If you're seriously interested in this topic, I'd suggest
| https://www.youtube.com/user/Drachinifel
|
| Upside: He's a professional British naval historian, and knows
| this subject extremely well.
|
| Downside: That I recall, he's never produced a video that
| concentrates on answering the "why was the Royal Navy so
| dominant..." question. Instead, he's covered the subject in bit
| and pieces across a huge number of videos.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The more history I read the more I think the British have an
| unreasonable amount of plot armor
| dsjoerg wrote:
| Yeah it was a good run.
|
| Britain only became a thing after union in 1707. They had a
| good ~200 years, what with a great empire and industrialization
| and then an added bonus with America speaking English and
| britain being less damaged by WW2 than the rest of europe.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Compensation: In addition to huge prizes--capturing a merchant
| vessel could make a captain wealthy for life--there was a wage
| system where officers were oversupplied and naval officers that
| weren't at sea were kept at half pay. The unemployment pool that
| resulted from this efficiency wage made it easier to discipline
| officers by moving them back to the captains list. (Allen argues
| that a fixed-wage system would have led to adverse selection
| since captains on half pay weren't permanently employees of the
| navy but would reject commissions that weren't remunerative.)
|
| I reread this three times and I can't make heads or tails of what
| it's supposed to mean. There is an oversupply of officers. They
| are kept at half pay. This affords opportunities to discipline
| officers. This is presumably because there are others willing to
| take his place, but all that is referenced is a captain's list.
| Is this the list of officers on half-pay?
|
| I genuinely can't even understand the argument being made in
| brackets.
| unholyguy001 wrote:
| There was an oversupply of officers. At any particular point in
| time many of the officers were "on the bench" at half pay.
|
| This made it easy to replace underperforming officers with
| those on the bench
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Now do the part in brackets that appears to contradict it.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I may have some of the terminology wrong (but I think they are
| also using it sloppily?) but that's the basic idea yeah. The
| "captains list" is the officers eligible to be posted in the
| role of captain of a ship, which is not quite the same as the
| rank of captain.
|
| Officers with the actual rank of captain would normally be
| permanently posted to a ship's command, and only large,
| prominent, or prestigious warships were captained by captain-
| rank officers. So it was highly desirable to at least attain
| that rank. You could get there by achievement on a temporary
| command which is part of why they were so sought after. Or
| simply through politics and patronage: the naval officer corps
| being intimately tied up with both the waning aristocratic and
| emerging modern nation-state systems.
|
| Officers on the lists were necessarily "gentlemen" in a
| technical legal-social sense, and were mostly free to pursue
| their social, family and business interests when not posted to
| a command. Depending on their resources and connections outside
| the navy, they could have quite excellent alternatives to a
| command that was unlikely to make them much money. Or, like
| younger sons of small or declining holdings would take anything
| they could get.
|
| Anyway this is what I remember from all the external reading I
| did trying to make sense of the politics of command in the
| aubrey-maturin books which is I think the normal way to learn
| it these days.
| Keyframe wrote:
| As is customary, I read only what you quoted before the
| article.
|
| The way I understood it is that main incentive was to capture
| ships, that's on top of the pay; So, like a bonus structure in
| modern day and age. If you weren't assigned to a ship, you'd
| still get paid but half of what you'd get on a ship. Since
| there were eventually more officers than ships, this created a
| pool of officers eager for assignments and thus "if you won't,
| there's someone that will" management style.
|
| Now, a bit more complicated what Allen argued about, also from
| what I understood, is if captains were on fixed wage they'd
| turn down assignments (which they could since they weren't
| permanently employed) since reward isn't following the risk and
| you'd probably get only the worst or desperate captains to
| accept the job instead of competent which have all the reasons
| to refuse.
|
| I don't know, maybe I read it wrong, but it makes sense like
| that at least.
| strken wrote:
| I think Allen is arguing that, if the beached officers were
| either on full pay and forced to accept postings by law, or no
| pay and forced by poverty, they would not be able to reject
| commissions. They would thus be forced to accept adverse
| postings that were bad for the navy as a whole.
|
| They were able to reject commissions because they weren't
| technically employed by the navy while unassigned. Officers
| could turn down a posting and still draw half pay, and in fact
| they kept their half pay during retirement.
| dmckeon wrote:
| While the "weather gage" and heeling does have an effect on
| cannon range, the more important issue is that the upwind ships
| (that have the weather gage) thus have more maneuverability, and
| can more easily pursue a ship trying to flee downwind. Of course,
| one could always: "Never mind manoeuvres, go straight at 'em"
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| The article is a massive oversimplification of the importance
| of the weather gage, to the point it's not accurate at all.
|
| A ship with the weather gage can choose when and how to engage.
|
| > This was technically inferior since the lower gun ports could
| often be underwater (see image) and because the downwind
| (leeward) position made it easier to flee if needed.
|
| This is reductive to the point of error. The ports of the lower
| gun deck MAY be unable to be fired in very heavy seas, but that
| doesn't affect frigates, or the upper deck of a ship of the
| line.
|
| Additionally, if a leeward ship attempts to flee from the
| windward ship, the leeward ship would risk exposing its stern
| to the windward ship's raking fire. The stern of a ship is the
| least armored, least armed and also contains the essential
| steering elements of a ship. A stern raking fire could pierce
| the hull and fly the entire length of the ship, causing
| tremendous damage, in addition to potentially crippling a
| ship's ability to steer.
|
| Finally, the encouragement to engage with the enemy has an
| advantage the article omits - massive career incentives - it's
| a chance for British Navy lieutenants and commanders to earn
| promotion. Many a commander was made post after a successful
| engagement with the enemy and many a lieutenant was promoted to
| commander after a successful battle. Beyond glory, a
| lieutenants would make roughly half what a commander made, and
| a post captain could rely on additional pay based on seniority
| and ship. Since promotion to admiral was almost solely due to
| seniority on the post captains list, naval officers felt
| urgency to win promotion and to get on the list as soon as
| possible. An admiral took a share of any prizes won by vessels
| under his command and was the true way to gain wealth in the
| Navy.
|
| Finally, Byng's case is an extreme outlier and relying on it to
| make arguments is dicey at best.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| I'm currently reading a book about the American Revolution and it
| mentions the adoption of "coppering" -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing
|
| That seems like a significant technological advantage that the
| British Navy had over their adversaries, probably not specific to
| battle, but definitely for reliability and length of service,
| reduced maintenance, etc.
| plank wrote:
| What I missed in the piece is a description on how they did
| against the Dutch. Both Spanish and French were more 'land type'
| armies, as a Dutchmen I remember in the history we were taught
| that the Dutch punched above their weight on sea warefare.
|
| Indeed, if I had to wager, I would assume that the English
| against the Portuguese or the Dutch would do worse then against
| the Spanish or French, given the same firepower/size of ships
| etc. (For the record, did not check 'the mighty internet' whether
| my gut feelings are supported by facts) (Edit: but -> both)
| bgnn wrote:
| Weren't Dutch ships much smaller but more numerous than the
| English? What I remember is reading that this made Dutch ships
| more maneuverable and more capable of piracy. They were good at
| harassing ports too.
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| Substack link:
| https://arjunpanickssery.substack.com/p/explaining-british-n...
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