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QuoteReplyTopic: Question regarding Royal Navy Posted: 30-Oct-2006 at 01:00
Royal Navy is Britain's weapon of choice. Such ensured Britain's commercial empire and protected Britain from Napoleon's Grand Empire to the Hitler's Nazi Germany. My question is... how and why Royal Navy was so effective that its might went unchallenged for centuries?
There are some reasons that I know.
Many countries, including Grand Empire, Japan under leadership of Hideyoshi and Roman Empire, failed to achieve the great navy due to the fact that they were not familiar with sea battles. France, busy fighting a European conflicts (Balance of Power) and could not prepare a proper sea battles. Japan, confident that they would be victorious over Chosen (Korean) navy, was heavily crushed by Yi Sun-shin's brilliant modernized navy warfare. Rome, having constant conflict with neighbor powers and barbarians, were not experienced in sea battles until they became powerful enough to wage wars against Carthage.
This is because such countries named before relied heavily on "Grappling hook" tactic - that is, a strategy in which armed forces on the ships would land on enemy ships and eliminate the enemies. Rome was able to win over Carthage because Romans invented a giant ladder that would be dropped and hook on the enemy ship. Roman soldiers, well-trained in land battle, would travel to enemy ships by the ladder and changing the sea battle to land battle.
Napoleon, though used the same strategy, failed thanks to Nelson's tactic quite similar to Yi Sun-shin's method of destorying the enemy ships by powerful cannons and well-trained archors to keep the enemy ships away from their ships.
Well, Britain had more ships than other country and British crews fought for king and country and also for the prize. Greed somtimes gives more courage than any other type of motivation.
"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche
The amount of ship? Well, that's not until Britain became a world power. When the Battle of Trafalgar commenced, British fleet of 22 ships achieved perfect victory over French and Spanish fleet, which was about 33. (My number may be wrong, but British fleet was outnumbered) Furthermore, all other nations fought for reward as well. Among the method of paying soldiers is to let them plunder the land they conquered. Napoleon was very good at this, though he should have avoided such crime in Russian invasion... which slowed them down. This greed forced Napoleon's Grand Army to slow down even further and trap the army in Russian winter. Soldiers, other than pirates, did not really fight for greed. It's the leaders of the army or the government that were greedy. Europe is a war-torn nation. They want peace and stable economy, not greed for more land. And what could Nelson's army plunder in the sea, anyway? Fish? I like to collect sea shells, and do like some sea food... but I will not be encouraged to fight for that. Soldiers back then were not paid as well as we think. People joined army because they then were provided with food and shelter. Their wage was saved until their retirement, or was sent to support their families. Reward mostly went to soldiers' generals and commanders. This is the reason why Napoleon was so successful. He rewarded anyone according to their ability, regardless of rank.
Sorry, I am just being picky. Mind my grammar and spelling errors. My number of ships mentioned before may not be accurate.
The reason Britains navy went unchllenged was because Britain is an island so unlike other European countries didn't have invest in the army to prevent invasion and in arms build ups against European powers the navy was a priority. Britain als had a global empire so had a priority of protecting its merchant trade.
The Japanese had a 20th century naval tradition as good as Britain thanks to thanks to the Russo-Japanese war. So the Yamamoto entered wwii with an illustrious tradition.
Trafalgar, from memory, was 27 British ships and 33 Franco-Spanish, the French ships were better built than the British ones and the Spanish much better built than the French ships. However the Spanish had completely green crews and the British veterans. Britain's disdvantage at Trafalgar wasn't so much numbers but quality of shipbuilding and its advatage quality of crews.
Trafalgar, from memory, was 27 British ships and 33 Franco-Spanish, the French ships were better built than the British ones and the Spanish much better built than the French ships. However the Spanish had completely green crews and the British veterans. Britain's disdvantage at Trafalgar wasn't so much numbers but quality of shipbuilding and its advatage quality of crews.
That's sounds very honest to me.
By the way, you should not forget that by the Trafalgar sea battle Spain wasn't a free country but it was occupied by France.
You sure? Because The Peninsular War (France fighting against Britain, Spain and Portugal) started after Napoleon lost in the Battle of Trafalgar. If I am wrong, it's just a small genocide against my brain cells.
Prophet Malachi,
Future IB Revolutionist and eternal fan of Lord High Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the greatest navy admiral in history of mankind.
The reason Britains navy went unchllenged was because Britain is an island so unlike other European countries didn't have invest in the army to prevent invasion and in arms build ups against European powers the navy was a priority. Britain als had a global empire so had a priority of protecting its merchant trade.
The Japanese had a 20th century naval tradition as good as Britain thanks to thanks to the Russo-Japanese war. So the Yamamoto entered wwii with an illustrious tradition.
Trafalgar, from memory, was 27 British ships and 33 Franco-Spanish, the French ships were better built than the British ones and the Spanish much better built than the French ships. However the Spanish had completely green crews and the British veterans. Britain's disdvantage at Trafalgar wasn't so much numbers but quality of shipbuilding and its advatage quality of crews.
Another reason is Britains mass of forests. Countries with lots of forest and coastline are able to build many ships.
Also Britain depended entirely on maritime trade for assets other had. A such there was great economic interest in shipbuilding which allowed Britain veteran crews and much experience.
Old thread but interesting question, British naval dominamnce starts in the later half of the 18th century roughly but really comes to the fore during the Napoleonic wars.
Firstly its simple the British are willing to resource a large fleet, the army is usually small but the Royal Navy is big.
As an island a fleet is basic to defence (or attack) and with a large trading fleet its also needed to protect that.
Royal Navy ships are not more advanced than her enemies-- much the same captured French ships would often be taken into the Royal Navy.
Second big advantage are the officers, its hard to understand but in that world promotion was not on merit-- aristocratic backgrounds, connections and influence are what gained office and even command of ships, even in post-revolution France political correctness was important. In the Royal Navy promotion was on merit (of course influence and conections helped) a boy would go to sea as a midshipman in his early teen or younger and over years trained to be an officer.
When his Captain deemed it was time he would sit an examination before a board of other Captains where he had to answer questions, it considered good enough he passed a a lieutenant. In theory you could go from common seaman to lieutenant in reality a common seaman would not have the education to pass the examination but officers from modest backgrounds ,such as Bligh and Cook, did advance.
As a Lieutenant now influence was needed as there was usually more officers than posts ,especially in peacetime. Even so all officers would have been competent.
The Revoluion in France weakened the Navy but also the Royal Navy was more agressive in nature a French ship may have been happy disable an enemy and then escape to fight another day a RN ship went in for the kill.
The Royal Navy won a sring of victories and started to believe themselves to be the 'best' and so did their enemies. The French allowed themselves to be blockaded, they sat in port 'getting rusty' while the RN was at sea waiting to fight and training, getting better.
On an individual basis GB's navy was lesser than somr nations like America. Due to its resources being stretched quite a few of its ships were in bad repair, had badly trained crews, and weren't very accurate plus were overconfident. In the War of 1812 numerous British ships were under or poorly manned and in bad repair. The qualitively better American ships usually won single ship engagements but were hugely outnumbered. By that time it seems Britain was going for numbers over quality. In the war of American independence the sides seemed quite equal.
Strange that this poorly trained and undermanned badly repaired fleet managed to defeat every major Navy in the world win major fleet actions often against the odds and dominate the worlds oceans.
Throughout the period the only setback was to loose a few single ship actions and some minor Lake actions in America.
Because they were overstretched. Quite a few ships were converted merchantmen or captured prizes in bad repair. The Gueriere was in bad repair and short on crew. The fact is with so many obligations Britains fleet was suffering quality wise. She routinely impressed foreign sailors or landsmen and recruited men from even jails like the army. Most of the fleets were indeed quite good but a minority 1/4 or more were bad or not well manned and some ships were in disrepair. Gunnery practice and such weren't priorities either.
If we look at the French and Spanish navy we find even worse quality manpower wise but technically better ships. The French and Spanish crews seemed to be routinely killed by disease and the number of defeats deprived them of remaining officers and seamen.
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