Sailing ship tactics

Since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much as on land: with melee weapons and bows and arrows, but on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields.

The first guns on ships were small wrought-iron pieces mounted on the open decks and in the fighting tops, often requiring only one or two men to handle them.

[1] As guns were made more durable to withstand stronger gunpowder charges, they increased their potential to inflict critical damage to the vessel rather than just its crew.

[2] The development of propulsion during the 15th century from single-masted, square-rigged cogs to three-masted carracks with a mix of square and lateen sails made ships nimbler and easier to manoeuvre.

According to tradition the inventor was a Breton shipwright called Descharges, but it is just as likely to have been a gradual adaptation of loading ports in the stern of merchant vessels that had already been in use for centuries.

Both solutions were problematic since they created a blind spot dead ahead and made it especially difficult to hit low-lying targets, like galleys.

Difficulties in achieving standardization in metallurgy meant that all guns allowed for considerable "windage", meaning that bore diameters were about 10 percent larger than their ammunition.

Combined with inefficient gunpowder and the difficulties inherent in firing accurately from moving platforms meant that naval tactics for sailing ships throughout the 16th century remained focused on boarding as a means of decisive victory.

The 16th century saw the development of the man-of-war, a truly ocean-going warship, carrying square-rigged sails that permitted tacking into the wind, and heavily armed with cannons.

The adoption of heavy guns necessitated their being mounted lower down than on top of the fore and after castles as previously where anti-personnel weapons had been positioned through the later Middle Ages, due to the possibility of capsizing.

Prior to his leadership, a warship was typically run by a committee of the sailing master, navigator, master-gunner, and captain of marines presided over by an aristocrat.

Drake saw no purpose in having a member of the aristocracy without specialist knowledge and established the principle that the captain of the ship would be in sole command based upon his skill and experience rather than social position.

The Revolutionary French Navy made an opposite mistake in promoting seamen without sufficient experience or training, which worked well in the army, but not at sea.

Portuguese fleets overseas deployed in line ahead, firing one broadside and then putting about in order to return and discharge the other, resolving battles by gunnery alone.

[10] One of the earliest recorded deliberate uses is also documented in the First Battle of Cannanore between the Third Portuguese India Armada under João da Nova and the naval forces of Calicut, earlier in the same year.

The evolution of naval cannons during the first half of the 17th century soon led to the conclusion that the fleet had to fight in a single line to make the maximum use of its firepower without one ship's getting in the way of another.

The line of battle was traditionally attributed to the navy of the Commonwealth of England and especially to General at Sea Robert Blake who wrote the Sailing and Fighting Instructions of 1653.

The admiral holding the weather gage held the tactical initiative, able to accept battle by bearing down on his opponent or to refuse it by remaining upwind.

This was compounded by the French tendency to fight from the leeward gage, causing the guns to point high as the ships heeled with the wind.

The French, who had fewer ships than the British throughout the century, were anxious to fight at the least possible cost, lest their fleet should be worn out by severe action, leaving Britain with an unreachable numerical superiority.

[7] The wars of the 18th century produced a series of tactically indecisive naval battles between evenly matched fleets in line ahead, such as Málaga (1704), Rügen (1715), Toulon (1744), Minorca (1756), Negapatam (1758), Cuddalore (1758), Pondicherry (1759), Ushant (1778), Dogger Bank (1781), the Chesapeake (1781), Hogland (1788) and Öland (1789).

It was clear that the only way to produce decisive results was to concentrate the attack on part of the enemy's line, preferably the rear since the centre would have to turn to its support.

The successful result of this departure from the old practice of keeping the line intact throughout the battle ruined the moral authority of the orthodox system of tactics.

[citation needed] The hypothesis which governed all of Clerk's demonstrations was that as the British navy was superior in gunnery and seamanship to their enemy, it was in their interest to produce a mêlée.

He advanced various ingenious suggestions for concentrating superior forces on parts of the enemy's line – by preference on the rear, since the centre must lose time in turning to its support.

Throughout the 18th century the French and, particularly, the Spanish navy suffered from serious manning difficulties and were often forced to complete the ships' crews with soldiers or landsmen.

At the Battle of the First of June in 1794, Lord Howe ordered his fleet to steer through the enemy, and then engage the French ships from the leeward, so as to cut off their usual retreat.

Throughout the wars, which lasted, with a brief interval of peace, from 1793 to 1815, British admirals like Jervis, Duncan and particularly Nelson grew bolder in the method they adopted for producing the desired mêlée or pell-mell action at the battles of Cape St. Vincent, Camperdown and Trafalgar.

It has been argued both that the tactics of these British admirals were too risky, and would have proved disastrous if tried against more skillful opponents; and also that this was an acceptable risk given the lack of a better alternative.

If close to a naval establishment (such as at the Battle of Copenhagen), they could rely on boats from the shore to bring extra ammunition or replacements for casualties and if in range the defending ships could be aided by coastal gun batteries.