The Invincible Navy?

Mostly yes, but it lost the most important battle of the American Revolution, the Battle of the Chesapeake.

it was superior, but of course not invincible.

It did indeed appear very strong, but had invincibility been the case the British should have had the ability to block the French from assisting the American rebels.

Although they sound like ships, the number of guns makes me think they were rafts.

So if three cannons somehow got lost it was not anything, and it WAS a raft?

It was pretty much undefeated from the Seven Years War until the dreadnought races at the beginning of WWI, and they did pretty well at those, too. The English navy was always strong, since Alfred, but the 18th and 19th centuries were its high point. As for its loss in the American war, that was only because it was more bothered with France to care about the colonies Had they been unencumbered with European wars, there is no doubt they would have crushed the American independence movement just as heartlessly as the Ottomans crushed Greece


Edited by Timotheus - 18-Aug-2006 at 01:15

The reason a two ecker was preferred was since it was cheaper than building a 100 gun ship. Also In a three decker the bottom deck would often be uselss in rough or even slighty turbulent seas.

Maybe because 74 is the correct number for two decks and frontside cannons? If they had frontside cannons, which some had I think?

Originally posted by gcle2003 Originally posted by Sparten The reason a two ecker was preferred was since it was cheaper than building a 100 gun ship. Also In a three decker the bottom deck would often be uselss in rough or even slighty turbulent seas. Agreed. However, I don't know why 74 guns were common and as far as I know 72-gun and 76-gun ships never existed.   I guess it has something to do with them all being built to the same plan, but why the original plan had 74 guns I can't guess. Just coincidence?

Originally posted by gcle2003 Rider, sorry, but I only just realised your comment was probably responding to my statement that, properly speaking, Jones' two smaller vessels may not have been 'ships'.   'Ship' properly refers to a three-masted square-rigged vessel. With only 12 guns each it seems likely that Vengeance and Le Cerf were probably 'brigs' - i.e. two-masted.   (There are other kinds of two-masted vessels apart from brigs but I won't go into all of them.)

Oh, very well. A brig then.

Were such things as 'sloops' too use in warfare? If the English language uses the word sloop. Or yachts then?