Naval Tactics in The Age of Sail - Developments During The French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars

Developments During The French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars

By the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, technical innovations and the disorganization of the French Navy wrought by the revolution had combined to give British ships a distinct superiority over the ships of the French and Spanish navies. Britain had a far larger ocean trade than any of her principal enemies, and a much bigger reserve of professional seamen from which to man her warships. 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.

British ships not only had a higher proportion of seamen in the first place, but the long months at sea on blockade or convoy escort gave British captains plenty of opportunities to train their crews. British gun crews seem to have achieved a much higher rate of fire than French or Spanish gun crews, contributing to the much higher casualties suffered by ships from those fleets. The better seamanship, faster gunnery and higher morale of British crews was a decisive advantage that could not be compensated for by any amount of bravery on the part of their opponents.

The leading British admirals like Howe devoted their thoughts to how to break the enemy’s line in order to bring on the kind of pell mell battle that would bring decisive results. At the Battle of the First of June in 1794, Lord Howe ordered his fleet to steer through the enemy, and then to engage the French ships from the leeward, so as to cut off their usual retreat. This had the effect of bringing his fleet into a melee in which the individual superiority of his ships would have free play.

Throughout the wars, which lasted, with a brief interval of peace, from 1793 to 1815, British admirals like Jervis, Duncan and particularly Nelson grew constantly 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. The most radical tactic was the head-on approach in column used by Nelson at Trafalgar, which invited a raking fire to which his own ships could not reply as they approached, but then produced a devastating raking fire as the British ships passed through the Franco-Spanish line.

It has sometimes been argued that the tactics of these British admirals were rash and would have proved disastrous if tried against more skilful opponents. But this is one of those criticisms which are of value only against those who think that there can be a magic efficacy in any particular attack, which makes its success infallible. That the tactics of British admirals of the great wars of 1793–1815 had in themselves no such virtue was amply demonstrated at the Battle of Lissa in 1811. They were justified because the reliance of admirals on the quality of their fleets was well founded. It should be borne in mind that a vessel, while bearing down on an enemy’s line, could not be exposed to the fire of three enemies at once when at a distance less than 950 yards, because the guns could not be trained to converge on a nearer point. The whole range of effective fire was only a thousand yards or a very little over. The chance that a ship would be dismasted and stopped before reaching the enemy’s line was small.

In any event, such criticisms are of limited utility. Knowing the capabilities of one's opponent and devising tactics that take those into account is the primary focus of any battlefield commander. The notion, therefore, that the outcome of a particular battle could have been different if the opponent had changed ignores the role of tactical decision-making on both sides.