> Compensation: In addition to huge prizes—capturing a merchant vessel could make a captain wealthy for life—there was a wage system where officers were oversupplied and naval officers that weren’t at sea were kept at half pay. The unemployment pool that resulted from this efficiency wage made it easier to discipline officers by moving them back to the captains list. (Allen argues that a fixed-wage system would have led to adverse selection since captains on half pay weren’t permanently employees of the navy but would reject commissions that weren’t remunerative.)
I reread this three times and I can’t make heads or tails of what it’s supposed to mean. There is an oversupply of officers. They are kept at half pay. This affords opportunities to discipline officers. This is presumably because there are others willing to take his place, but all that is referenced is a captain’s list. Is this the list of officers on half-pay?
I genuinely can’t even understand the argument being made in brackets.
I may have some of the terminology wrong (but I think they are also using it sloppily?) but that's the basic idea yeah. The "captains list" is the officers eligible to be posted in the role of captain of a ship, which is not quite the same as the rank of captain.
Officers with the actual rank of captain would normally be permanently posted to a ship's command, and only large, prominent, or prestigious warships were captained by captain-rank officers. So it was highly desirable to at least attain that rank. You could get there by achievement on a temporary command which is part of why they were so sought after. Or simply through politics and patronage: the naval officer corps being intimately tied up with both the waning aristocratic and emerging modern nation-state systems.
Officers on the lists were necessarily "gentlemen" in a technical legal-social sense, and were mostly free to pursue their social, family and business interests when not posted to a command. Depending on their resources and connections outside the navy, they could have quite excellent alternatives to a command that was unlikely to make them much money. Or, like younger sons of small or declining holdings would take anything they could get.
Anyway this is what I remember from all the external reading I did trying to make sense of the politics of command in the aubrey-maturin books which is I think the normal way to learn it these days.
As is customary, I read only what you quoted before the article.
The way I understood it is that main incentive was to capture ships, that's on top of the pay; So, like a bonus structure in modern day and age. If you weren't assigned to a ship, you'd still get paid but half of what you'd get on a ship. Since there were eventually more officers than ships, this created a pool of officers eager for assignments and thus "if you won't, there's someone that will" management style.
Now, a bit more complicated what Allen argued about, also from what I understood, is if captains were on fixed wage they'd turn down assignments (which they could since they weren't permanently employed) since reward isn't following the risk and you'd probably get only the worst or desperate captains to accept the job instead of competent which have all the reasons to refuse.
I don't know, maybe I read it wrong, but it makes sense like that at least.
I think Allen is arguing that, if the beached officers were either on full pay and forced to accept postings by law, or no pay and forced by poverty, they would not be able to reject commissions. They would thus be forced to accept adverse postings that were bad for the navy as a whole.
They were able to reject commissions because they weren't technically employed by the navy while unassigned. Officers could turn down a posting and still draw half pay, and in fact they kept their half pay during retirement.
Upside: He's a professional British naval historian, and knows this subject extremely well.
Downside: That I recall, he's never produced a video that concentrates on answering the "why was the Royal Navy so dominant..." question. Instead, he's covered the subject in bit and pieces across a huge number of videos.
Which leads to the theory of why the USS Constitution was so superior to British ships.
The Americans drilled daily with live cannon, while the British drilled less often, and without live fire (presumably to conserve powder and balls).
As an unsurprising result, American crews were more experienced at reloading under the duress of cannonade. The sound on the gun decks was so great it would burst eardrums. The smoke made it too hard to see anything a few feet from the portals.
If you've never been near a gunpowder cannon fire, it's hard to comprehend the surreal rupture of reality it causes in your perception. I was to the side, but in front, of one. My world went black, then lightening values of gray. Sound returned. Then people appeared in the fog, moving with their arms out trying to get away blindly from the threat they perceived (that was already over).
Without proper training, new sailors will stumble badly in their first firefight, and each man on the gundeck is crucial to a team. The officers were outside the deck, so they could receive orders. If you can't load your cannon while blind and deaf, your cannon sits quiet a long time.
This may have been a contributing factor, but the reason the American frigates were successful in the War of 1812 was because they were significantly larger and more powerful ships, with more powerful cannons. They had material advantages in size (100% heavier), crew (50% more numerous), and firepower (30-50% more weight of shot). The crews were well trained (and included many former British navy able seamen, pressed from American merchantmen) but it was the material advantages that swayed these combats.
It was curious how effectively the American naval establishment gamed the European 'honor' system of naval warfare - they knew that if they kept these warships technically rated as 'frigates' (even though they were the largest and most powerful frigates ever built, similar in size to smaller ships of the line), the British would still try to fight them one on one with their frigates.
The USS Constitution and her sister ships were “super frigates” armed with ~50 guns of 24lb cannons and 36lb carronades. Most British frigates they went up against had fewer guns and used 18 lb cannons. The USS Constitution also had thicker hulls.
The British had to start using cut down ships of the line against them.
In WW2 terms, they were battle cruisers taking on heavy and light cruisers.
The battle cruiser example is especially apt because a 24lb cannon could pierce any ship of the line’s hull.
When I visited Oslo we went to Akershus festning, where we heard this enormous blast that sounded like a bomb going off, it really startled us as we weren't expecting it. After recovering, we realized they were firing off some cannons there, I don't know if it's a regular thing or not. I was expecting some massive cannon based on the blast, but it really didn't seem all that large. I can't even imagine what it must have been like on the gun deck of a large warship with 30 or more cannons.
I shoot .308, and have noticed that the position where you were (to the side, but ahead), receives far more noise than when you're behind the barrel shooting. Like phenomenally more.
The rest is history podcast have a three parter on the battle of Trafalgar, they cover a lot of the lead up and essentially it sounds like the Royal Navy professionalised in a way that the the French and Spanish didn’t. Portsmouth was very industrialised to constantly develop and churn out naval assets and improvements. Coupled with the kings use of new financial methods and that 25% of the country’s GDP was spent on the navy you had basically an unbeatable force by the time Trafalgar happened.
It was well-known during that period that French shipwrights could built better ships - the problem was that the Royal Navy had better seamanship and would win most naval actions, and commandeer the better-built french ships and integrate them into the Royal Navy. So the british had the advantage of their own ships, and many of the better-built french ships.
After the French revolution, their government executed or dismissed many of their best officers. They often came from the aristocracy or had royalist loyalties and were thus politically suspect. Replacement officers were often appointed purely based on revolutionary ideology with little attention paid to experience or competence. At times the government was also just short of cash and supplies needed to keep the navy running.
That seems like a significant technological advantage that the British Navy had over their adversaries, probably not specific to battle, but definitely for reliability and length of service, reduced maintenance, etc.
While the "weather gage" and heeling does have an effect on cannon range, the more important issue is that the upwind ships (that have the weather gage)
thus have more maneuverability, and can more easily pursue a ship trying
to flee downwind. Of course, one could always:
"Never mind manoeuvres, go straight at 'em”
The article is a massive oversimplification of the importance of the weather gage, to the point it's not accurate at all.
A ship with the weather gage can choose when and how to engage.
> This was technically inferior since the lower gun ports could often be underwater (see image) and because the downwind (leeward) position made it easier to flee if needed.
This is reductive to the point of error. The ports of the lower gun deck MAY be unable to be fired in very heavy seas, but that doesn't affect frigates, or the upper deck of a ship of the line.
Additionally, if a leeward ship attempts to flee from the windward ship, the leeward ship would risk exposing its stern to the windward ship's raking fire. The stern of a ship is the least armored, least armed and also contains the essential steering elements of a ship. A stern raking fire could pierce the hull and fly the entire length of the ship, causing tremendous damage, in addition to potentially crippling a ship's ability to steer.
Finally, the encouragement to engage with the enemy has an advantage the article omits - massive career incentives - it's a chance for British Navy lieutenants and commanders to earn promotion. Many a commander was made post after a successful engagement with the enemy and many a lieutenant was promoted to commander after a successful battle. Beyond glory, a lieutenants would make roughly half what a commander made, and a post captain could rely on additional pay based on seniority and ship. Since promotion to admiral was almost solely due to seniority on the post captains list, naval officers felt urgency to win promotion and to get on the list as soon as possible. An admiral took a share of any prizes won by vessels under his command and was the true way to gain wealth in the Navy.
Finally, Byng's case is an extreme outlier and relying on it to make arguments is dicey at best.
Britain only became a thing after union in 1707. They had a good ~200 years, what with a great empire and industrialization and then an added bonus with America speaking English and britain being less damaged by WW2 than the rest of europe.
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I reread this three times and I can’t make heads or tails of what it’s supposed to mean. There is an oversupply of officers. They are kept at half pay. This affords opportunities to discipline officers. This is presumably because there are others willing to take his place, but all that is referenced is a captain’s list. Is this the list of officers on half-pay?
I genuinely can’t even understand the argument being made in brackets.
Officers with the actual rank of captain would normally be permanently posted to a ship's command, and only large, prominent, or prestigious warships were captained by captain-rank officers. So it was highly desirable to at least attain that rank. You could get there by achievement on a temporary command which is part of why they were so sought after. Or simply through politics and patronage: the naval officer corps being intimately tied up with both the waning aristocratic and emerging modern nation-state systems.
Officers on the lists were necessarily "gentlemen" in a technical legal-social sense, and were mostly free to pursue their social, family and business interests when not posted to a command. Depending on their resources and connections outside the navy, they could have quite excellent alternatives to a command that was unlikely to make them much money. Or, like younger sons of small or declining holdings would take anything they could get.
Anyway this is what I remember from all the external reading I did trying to make sense of the politics of command in the aubrey-maturin books which is I think the normal way to learn it these days.
This made it easy to replace underperforming officers with those on the bench
The way I understood it is that main incentive was to capture ships, that's on top of the pay; So, like a bonus structure in modern day and age. If you weren't assigned to a ship, you'd still get paid but half of what you'd get on a ship. Since there were eventually more officers than ships, this created a pool of officers eager for assignments and thus "if you won't, there's someone that will" management style.
Now, a bit more complicated what Allen argued about, also from what I understood, is if captains were on fixed wage they'd turn down assignments (which they could since they weren't permanently employed) since reward isn't following the risk and you'd probably get only the worst or desperate captains to accept the job instead of competent which have all the reasons to refuse.
I don't know, maybe I read it wrong, but it makes sense like that at least.
But if a head to head battle leads to a 50/50 chance of being sunk and dying, It seems far more attractive to be 'on the bench' at half pay...
They were able to reject commissions because they weren't technically employed by the navy while unassigned. Officers could turn down a posting and still draw half pay, and in fact they kept their half pay during retirement.
Upside: He's a professional British naval historian, and knows this subject extremely well.
Downside: That I recall, he's never produced a video that concentrates on answering the "why was the Royal Navy so dominant..." question. Instead, he's covered the subject in bit and pieces across a huge number of videos.
The Americans drilled daily with live cannon, while the British drilled less often, and without live fire (presumably to conserve powder and balls).
As an unsurprising result, American crews were more experienced at reloading under the duress of cannonade. The sound on the gun decks was so great it would burst eardrums. The smoke made it too hard to see anything a few feet from the portals.
If you've never been near a gunpowder cannon fire, it's hard to comprehend the surreal rupture of reality it causes in your perception. I was to the side, but in front, of one. My world went black, then lightening values of gray. Sound returned. Then people appeared in the fog, moving with their arms out trying to get away blindly from the threat they perceived (that was already over).
Without proper training, new sailors will stumble badly in their first firefight, and each man on the gundeck is crucial to a team. The officers were outside the deck, so they could receive orders. If you can't load your cannon while blind and deaf, your cannon sits quiet a long time.
It was curious how effectively the American naval establishment gamed the European 'honor' system of naval warfare - they knew that if they kept these warships technically rated as 'frigates' (even though they were the largest and most powerful frigates ever built, similar in size to smaller ships of the line), the British would still try to fight them one on one with their frigates.
The British had to start using cut down ships of the line against them.
In WW2 terms, they were battle cruisers taking on heavy and light cruisers.
The battle cruiser example is especially apt because a 24lb cannon could pierce any ship of the line’s hull.
With an actual threat, it sounds like it was a genuine cannon firefight -- though surely not these days. May I ask what this was?
If the modern US did that, we'd have Gundams and Super Star Destroyers.
Deleted Comment
That seems like a significant technological advantage that the British Navy had over their adversaries, probably not specific to battle, but definitely for reliability and length of service, reduced maintenance, etc.
A ship with the weather gage can choose when and how to engage.
> This was technically inferior since the lower gun ports could often be underwater (see image) and because the downwind (leeward) position made it easier to flee if needed.
This is reductive to the point of error. The ports of the lower gun deck MAY be unable to be fired in very heavy seas, but that doesn't affect frigates, or the upper deck of a ship of the line.
Additionally, if a leeward ship attempts to flee from the windward ship, the leeward ship would risk exposing its stern to the windward ship's raking fire. The stern of a ship is the least armored, least armed and also contains the essential steering elements of a ship. A stern raking fire could pierce the hull and fly the entire length of the ship, causing tremendous damage, in addition to potentially crippling a ship's ability to steer.
Finally, the encouragement to engage with the enemy has an advantage the article omits - massive career incentives - it's a chance for British Navy lieutenants and commanders to earn promotion. Many a commander was made post after a successful engagement with the enemy and many a lieutenant was promoted to commander after a successful battle. Beyond glory, a lieutenants would make roughly half what a commander made, and a post captain could rely on additional pay based on seniority and ship. Since promotion to admiral was almost solely due to seniority on the post captains list, naval officers felt urgency to win promotion and to get on the list as soon as possible. An admiral took a share of any prizes won by vessels under his command and was the true way to gain wealth in the Navy.
Finally, Byng's case is an extreme outlier and relying on it to make arguments is dicey at best.
Britain only became a thing after union in 1707. They had a good ~200 years, what with a great empire and industrialization and then an added bonus with America speaking English and britain being less damaged by WW2 than the rest of europe.