Ship of the line

A ship of the line was a type of sailing warship used by the world's great naval powers during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The ships received their name from the type of naval warfare practiced during the period. Heavily-armed ships entered combat in a single column and exchanged fire with enemy ships sailing in a similar formation. Ships with more powerful weapons were considered highly valuable in this type of warfare. Those with the most guns received higher ratings, qualifying them to be named a ship of the line. By the end of the nineteenth century, naval tactics had changed, and the ship of the line was replaced with the armored battleship.

Background

Archaeologists believe the first fleets used in naval warfare were built by the ancient Minoans, a powerful trading culture that ruled the Mediterranean region from the island of Crete about 3,500 to 4,000 years ago. These early warships were called galleys and were powered by a combination of sails and oars. The first galleys were rowed by groups of men and primarily carried troops into battle.

About 700 BCE, the Phoenicians, a seagoing civilization from the eastern Mediterranean, are believed to have invented the bireme, a galley with two lines of rowers on either side of the ship. About two hundred year later, the Greeks introduced the trireme, a galley with three banks of oarsmen. The Greeks were also the first to weaponize the galley with the addition of a ram, an armored point designed to shatter an enemy hull. Ancient naval tactics typically entailed columns of galleys entering battle several abreast to protect one another's sides. Sails were lowered to increase maneuverability as the rowers tried to steer the galley's metal ram into the enemy ship. Soldiers could also fire projectiles at the enemy or board enemy ships and engage in close combat.

Technological improvements in the ensuing centuries allowed galleys to become more efficient, but the primary battle tactic of ramming and boarding an enemy ship remained. Because of the manpower needed, war galleys required larger crews and were more expensive to operate. Their superior maneuverability compared to sailing vessels made them more deadly in warfare. Viking longships of the ninth to thirteenth centuries were small, fast vessels built for hit-and-run warfare. The ships required up to twenty oarsmen and could hold about fifty to sixty warriors.

Overview

Cannons were first used in sea battles in the fourteenth century. Near the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese were among the first navies to cut gun ports in their ships for use by mounted cannons. As the century progressed, naval tactics began to change as battle on the high seas valued firepower and sailing ability over the use of oarsmen. War galleys developed into galleons, large ships with three or more masts and several rows of cannons on multiple decks. The bulky galleons proved difficult to maneuver at times. By the seventeenth century, they had evolved into streamlined versions about 120 to 200 feet (37 to 61 meters) long with three masts. These warships had crews of about six hundred to eight hundred men and carried between 40 and 130 guns arranged along two or three decks.

In the mid-seventeenth century, navies from England and the Netherlands began to adapt their battle formations to suit the new class of warship. Ships sailed in a single column, each ship following the one before it at a distance of about 100 yards (91 meters) or more. The line of ships maneuvered to engage the enemy by firing broadside, or engaging its full complement of cannons all at once. Ships had to be sufficiently armed to damage enemy ships. They also had to have enough wooden planking to survive a broadside hit themselves. A vessel that met these criteria was considered strong enough to enter the line of battle and was known as a ship of the line.

England's Royal Navy created a rating system to categorize its warships by the number of guns it carried. First-rate ships were the largest vessels in the fleet. They carried an armament of more than one hundred cannons along three decks. First-rate ships sailed in the center of the line of battle and usually held a crew of about 850 men, including the fleet's commanding officer. Second-rate ships had an armament of between ninety and ninety-eight guns also arranged over three decks.

Third-rate ships were the most numerous of the fleet and held a complement of between sixty-four and eighty cannons. The most common third-rate ship had an armament of seventy-four guns. These ships had two decks and were faster than their larger counterparts yet still wielded enough firepower to be effective in battle. In the British Royal Navy, only first-, second-, and third-rate ships were considered ships of the line.

Fourth-rate ships with between forty-eight and sixty guns were originally considered ships of the line but had been removed from that capacity by the eighteenth century. They were used for minor military operations and convoy escorts or to carry troops. Fifth- and sixth-rate ships, or frigates, had between thirty-two and forty guns or twenty-two and twenty-eight guns, respectively, and were used as scout vessels. Unrated ships such as sloops, brigs, or cutters had fewer than sixteen guns.

One of the largest ships of the line was the Spanish vessel Santísima Trinidad, a 130-gun warship that served as the flagship of the Spanish fleet in the late eighteenth century. The most renowned British ship of the line was the HMS Victory, which first sailed in 1765. Victory was the flagship of Admiral Horatio Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar in which British forces defeated the French and Spanish off the coast of Spain in1805.

By the end of the nineteenth century, advancements in steam technology and the development of metal armor plating shifted naval strategies away from ships of the line. In the 1850s, the French navy began developing ironclad warships, and the British Navy soon followed suit. The last first-rate ship of the line commissioned by the British was the 121-gun HMS Victoria in 1859.

Bibliography

Cooke, Tim. A Timeline of Warships. Capstone Press, 2018.

Dull, Jonathan R. The Age of the Ship of the Line: The British and French Navies, 1650–1815. Seaforth, 2009.

Hayes, David. "The Rating System." Historical Naval Fiction, www.historicnavalfiction.com/general-hnf-info/naval-facts/the-rating-system. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.

Knighton, Andrew. "Galleys: The First Great Warships—They Dominated the Seas for Centuries." War History Online, 4 July 2017, www.warhistoryonline.com/ancient-history/galleys-first-great-warships-m.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.

"121-Gun Ship of the Line HMS 'Victoria' 1859." Royal Museums Greenwich, collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66867.html. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.

Potts, J. R. "HMS Victory 100-Gun First Ship-of-the-Line." Military Factory, 14 Aug. 2017, www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship‗id=HMS-Victory. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.

"Rated Royal Navy Vessels." Royal Museums Greenwich, www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/rated-navy-ships-17th-19th-centuries. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.