| Ships in 1650~1850 |
Established by the mid-seventeenth century as the most
powerful type of sailing battleship, the ship of the line remained
supreme until the coming of steam and armor plate in the late 1850s.
Ships of the line were heavy warships considered, by the number of
their guns, strong enough to join the line of battle: the fighting
fleet formation in which the biggest number of heavy guns could be
brought to bear on the ships of the enemy fleet.
By the middle eighteenth century, ships of the line were rated by
their gun totals. A three-decked First Rate carried 100 guns or more,
The biggest ever built was Spain's Santissima Trinidad of 136 guns,
sunk after Trafalgar in 1805. Then came second Rates (84-100 guns),
Third Rates (70-84 guns) and Fourth Rates (50-70 guns). By the French
wars of 1792-1815 , the standard ship of the line was the two-decked
Third Rate of 74 gun, with a crew of about 450 men. In battle, a ship
of the line's rate of fire and crew's fighting spirit were always
more important than ship size or number of guns. At Cape St. Vincent
(February 14, 1797), Nelson's 74-gun Captain, though badly damaged,
took both the Spanish San Nicolas and San Josefby running alongside
and boarding.
To prevent the weight of the upper gun decks from making the ship
top-heavy, the ship was built with a sharp "tumble-home",
or inward sloping of the sides. In Victory the heaviest guns were
carried on the lower gun deck (32-pounders), with 24-pounders on the
middle gun deck and 12-pounders on the upper gun deck.
It was rare for wooden battleships to sink each other in battle. They
tried to batter enemy ships into wrecks for capture by boarding. Apart
from solid roundshot, the guns could fire whirling "disabling
shot" for slicing enemy rigging, and "grapeshot" for
cutting down large numbers of men. |
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 Breaking
the enemy line broke up the enemy fleet into small units for easier
destruction in bottle. |
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Sea power enabled armies to be shipped to wherever they were needed.
Here horses are swung aboard a troopship. |
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Officers:
a captain (left) and a lieutenant. A seaman's "dinner":
hard biscuit, cheese, boiled salt meat, and a ration of water.
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A midshipman,
with speaking trumpet and a boy "powder monkey" who supplied
the guns. |
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Loading. After the powder charge had been rammed in and held by a
felt "wad", the shop followed and was also fixed with a
wad before the gun was fired. |
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Section through the British 100-gun First Rate HMS victory during
a battle. For safety, stacked gunpowder barrels were stored well below
the waterline. Section through the British 100-gun First Rate HMS
victory during a battle. |
The ship's toilets, up in the bows, were kept clean by the sea. |
