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.

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

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.

 

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.

 

Pinguin 

 

Question answered i guess.

 

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/nelson/viewCategory.cfm/Category/90328 - http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/nelson/viewCategory.cfm/Category/90328

 

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.

 

Throughout the period the only setback was to loose a few single ship actions and some minor Lake actions in America.

 

Ships were often at sea along time -- for instance just finished reading the 'Billy Ruffian' the life story of HMS Bellerophon a 74 Shipe of the Line (how many of those did America the 'superior navy have I wonder-- nice round number I believe?) -- and she goes from the fastest ship in the fleet to  one of the slowest thanks to the weed that accumulates on the hull over time-- she then puts in to port for an overhaul and becomes fast again.

 

The tiny number of American ships can have more time  spent on them, they've got very little to do.

 

I have never read any accounts where the RN is accused of being poorly trained (a big fleet so of course it varied HMS Shannon for instance was rather good) in fact the opposite, .

 

Napoleon comments on the difference between RN and French ships when a prisoner on the 'Billy Ruffian', he is astounded that there are no shouted commands but every thing seems organised and efficient.

 

The 'Billy Ruffian' at Trafalgar ends up fighting no less than 4 enemy ships all either the same size or bigger than her-- she doesn't defeat them of course but when she drifts clear they are in almost as bad a state as she is and in no condition to face fresh RN ships. You can not do that with poorly trained ,or motivated, crew.

 

 Gunnery was practiced regularly.

 

Disease killed more sailors than enemy action in almost all navies of the time-- the British even start making their crews drink Lime juice-- madness well the Americans found it funny and gave the RN a nickname.

 

 

That’s because conditions were not as harsh as they are often portrayed, work on a warship was easier—much bigger crews and while their life seems hard to us conditions on merchant ships were not easy either. Officers and discipline were generally fair. In the context of the time conditions were not as poor as thought, in peace time for instance there was no need for 'impress'.

 

Sodomy was a capital offence, Rum was loved and the the lash well avoid it.

 

During the Mutinees of the Nore etc the sailors themselves flogged their own.

 

I remember reading one account and the shocked 'liberal' watches a man being flogged-- a horrible site-- and turns to the 'Jack Tar' next to him and asks him what can be done to stop such a thing

"Well 'e can stop being a bloody thief for a start, serves 'im rite'

This Cat has knots at the end of each tail, but sometimes these were fitted with metal hooks or weights to cause more pain