Where is the list of all the members of operation Odysseus? All I can see is the logos at the beginning and although I know of many of them there are some I don’t recognise.
This also puts into perspective how devastating it was when one of these behemoths sank. A sizable portion of the nations GDP, as well as enough artillery pieces to outfit an army, all lost below the waves where they could never be recovered.
justin beath They were built to be used in the same general role as ships-of-the-line (blast enemy naval vessels from long range while being too big to be sunk by anything but an equal opponent). They were supposed to be the superweapons that would determine everything Except that never happened. Only a handful of battleship engagements happened in WWI and WWII combined, and they weren’t engagements that turned the tide of battle like everyone on all sides was hoping for. In WWI everybody was too chicken to use battleships properly. In WWII aircraft carriers could do the job of maritime domination far better than a battleship, and battleships became relegated to doing things that could have been done much more cost-effectively with cruisers or even destroyers. So: it turns out every nation with them just ended up wasting money.
@@bkjeong4302 To be fair the British had good reason to be chicken with their battleships during WW1. Why risk your battleships when your navy is already starving the enemy? There was no need to have a decisive naval battle.
George A. If your strategy during a total war consists of “let’s build all these weapons that we’re never going to use and use them to threaten instead of actually causing enemy losses”, it’s a very cost-inefficient plan, even if it works. They could have disguised random ships as battleships and gotten the exact same result (since the German High Seas Fleet wouldn’t know the difference because they were equally afraid to fight). And it doesn’t excuse the fact everyone in WWII still built battleships even after it had become clear they were now pointless. The only major WWII power that didn’t waste billions on this obsolete weapons system was Soviet Russia, and not for lack of trying.
Yes and recreating them is a fantastic hobby. I can highly recommend Occre. The Albatros is a very good beginners ship and after 2-3 you can move on to Occre Montanes a stunning 74 gun third rate ship of the line. Or the Caldercraft HMS Victory. That is NOT a beginner kit.
You should read "civilisation " it starts with a comparison of the dragon figure head on a viking ship to a nuclear submarines periscope I like your thinking
@John Ashtone It's soo much more difficult to transport guns on land, you can't harness the wind and lay back, you have to push it yourself or with horses. Horses eat a lot and Humans are too weak to push large artillery pieces, It was and still is more efficent to move on the sea than on ground, even now the avarage ship carries goods and resources 2 times more fuel efficently than any train or rig.
@John Ashtone A first rate line of battle ship has more than 100 guns. The Spanish warship Santisima Trinidad was rated at 112 guns but carried 140 during the battle off Cape Trafalgar. Add that to the fact that most field armies carried 12 pounders as their biggest guns while the Santisima Trinidad carried 30 36 pounders on her lower deck.
Let me just point out that the guns on warships were recovered, when it was possible. The vasa for example, the majority of her guns were recovered by the use of diving bells after she sunk. Guns were so expensive that it was worth the massive effort.
The problem with these ships is they don't have enough guns. They should triple the number of guns and put ducks underneath them all, to counteract the weight problem. Because ducks float.
Blackbeard the USN of world war two built hundreds of fleet light and escort carriers. Today the USN has 11 fleet carriers and 10light carriers/assault ships, US Navy Burke class destroyers are the size of most navies flagships and there are dozens of them , same with USN submarines they are the battleships of today and the US has dozens of them. The USN is the royal navy of today following in their fathers footsteps.
@@duitk Hundreds?! I didn't know that it were that many. They weren't as powerful and costly as today's carriers, though. I also thought the US has 20 carriers today. And yeah, the USN is undoubtly the current ruler of the waves :)
The British navy during the Napoleonic war is a great comparison to the US navy during world war II. However I don't think you can compare those wartime navies to modern peacetime navies. Any navy downgrades during peace. Not smart to spend everything you got on a navy when others spend their money on trade.
+@@duitk A bit of an exaggeration there 34 fleet carriers (10 after WW2 ended) 12 light carriers (2 after WW2 ended) and 122 escort carriers with 39 ordered by Britain and never serving with the USN meaning 83 with the USN, 7 of which after WW2. So 110 aircraft carriers across all types served with the USN in WW2.
Historically speaking, The Ship of the Line was a superb answer to the age-old practical problem of "How am I gonna prevent some big mean Mother Hubbard from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind?"
One thing that people never really consider is just how the firepower of navies put that of armies to shame. Leningrad was mainly held by the guns of the Red Navy's Baltic fleet. At Normandy USN and RN battleships did massive damage to amassing Nazi units, throwing the famous big cats around like leaves in the wind. Ships are able to hold so much more firepower than any land units can because they're essentially moving fortresses.
not really, 100 guns at an average of lets say 2 tons each is 200 tons and can be moved on mass around the coast in days where as the army to move a similar number of guns mostly lighter calibres would take weeks or months to move which is why at great expense costal fortifications were built with heavy cannon to keep warships at a safe distance so a description of a floating fortress I think is apt :)
Not really true since Armies tended to had bigger guns then ships and could be on heights which gave them a lot better range. Its one reason that Normandy had to be a surprise attack, and it also have paratroopers on the ground before the invasion and air support.
@@bmc7434 Except for some very special guns most army guns are half the diameter of the Guns on warships or less. The standard field guns for armies tend to be around 150 mm whereas many USN battleships had 406 mm guns (16") and the big land guns are around 200 mms. You can find a few land based guns that are bigger than this but they're specialized siege weapons not the standard armament. I don't really know where you got the idea that armies had bigger guns, battleships needed big guns because they were fighting other battleships that were heavily armored but with armies you have the issue that big guns become hard to transport and they weren't firing on armored targets so big guns were both impractical and not needed. And it's not really true that they had a lot better range, placing artillery on a hill doesn't give you a lot more range unless it's a really high hill and it also leaves you much more vulnerable to attack. What you would do is place a spotter on that hill and then have the artillery safely behind it where the enemy spotter has a harder time seeing it. I'm not sure how the rest of what you're saying factors in, it is still true that naval fire support on D-day did a number on the Nazis and battleships did knock out costal batteries (and also at one point a battleship took out a sniper).
@@hedgehog3180 Coastal artillery used the same Guns as warships or heavier for example Singapore had 4 15 inch guns defending the harbor during WWII. Mobile artillery for coastal defense was usually around 8-12 inches and usually they were used on heights and behind hill firing either directly or indirectly very accurately. One of the reason that Japan won the Russo Japanese War as they put 11 inch guns on the hills of Port Arthur, and destroy a large portion of the Russian fleet. Also the reason that Gallipoli in WW1 went South as 150mm-200mm+ Mobile guns has a decent chance of blowing up any ship.
As a sailor I understand exactly how amazing these things were. Most people can sail with some level of competence a little dinghy. These things are so massive compared to these things and so difficult to sail that it took years to be able to sail these with skill. There are so few people who can sail square rigged ships anymore and that is one of many things that most people don’t understand about these beautiful ships.
While amazing, I must admit when I first saw Victory i must say my first reaction was "she's smaller than I thought". It doesn't help that HMS Warrior is docked less than a mile away, and her rigging dwarfs Victory, even though it's just auxiliary rigging on the steamship. I guess this is limitation of wood as a material, but late 19th century tallships are even bigger-and they ran with crews that were one tenth of those on ships of the line.
Ships of the line could be sailed with far smaller crews than they carried. The large crews were to man all the guns (and others to look after the large crews. Large crews were also necessary for boarding actions and to man prize ships. Warrior's rig was not auxiliary to the engines - the engines were auxiliary to the sails. she was considerably faster under sail than under power Her guns though fewer in number were generally much more powerful, and with true Royal Navy irony, the then most powerful warship in the world was rated as a frigate! .@@mancubwwa
@@BrandonF Man please review either Master and Commander or Hornblower TV series. Truly remarkable how some older movie and tv series still a quality production instead of cookie cutter super hero movies.
@@BrandonF i hase one Question why in the time of the Giant and big Sail ships why there was offen only Canons used to perporate the ship and rearly to try in Battle to set the enemy Ships on Fire they are made out of Wood Sail they for the modern eyes View easy to burn?
@@killerkraut9179 Incendiary weapons were as much of a danger to the ships using them as to the ones they were used against. Shore batteries used red hot cannonballs on occasion, experiments with those on ships proved far too dangerous. Also, sinking enemy vessels was always only the second best option. Capturing was far more desirable. Dedicated fireships were rarely successful although used quite often. Shells/grenades were (at sea) only fired from mortars and this required specially constructed ships. Even on land precision fire with those was extremly difficult. On a heaving ship against moving targets it was futile, so mortar ships were exclusively used against stationary targets (on shore or ships at anchor). Same is true about Congreve rockets. Once reliable grenades (with impact fuses) for straight shooting cannons were available, wooden warships without iron armor became obsolete rather quickly.
@@killerkraut9179 The Seeadler was a not a regular warship but a civilian sail ship that got an engine and a piece of light artillery added. She preyed on helpless merchant ships and would not have survived an encounter with any actual warship (unlike some other German commerce raiders).
Ships of the line, and then eventually battleships, were absolutely terrifying mobile platforms of immense destruction that were universally feared for their ability to sail into an enemy harbour and lay waste to the city around it. A ship like this showing up outside was the Napoleonic equivalent of a nuclear strike going off, which is the main reason why every single colonial garrison is fortified against naval attacks even if they were lacking in ability to defend themselves from land attacks. Because if one of these showed up and you didn't have a fort to hide in, you were pretty much just dead.
Except that most of the time you wouldn't use a ship of the line to attack ports but rather to blockade them because any fortified position on shore might be capable to make short work of a wooden warship
@@lokenontherange Yes but as you stated, most important ports had some sort of garrison... and the list of failed naval attacks on shore installations is probably just as long as the list of successful attacks on those... even a foolhardy commander such as Nelson almost didn't succeed in overcoming Kopenhagen, e.g... and as the video shows, those capital ships were too expensive and thus too valuable to use them to attack ports directly ( not to mention the difficulty of maneuvering those vessels close to shore, which always brought the risk of simply running aground because you came under lee of the coast )... at times, the Admiralty fighting instructions even forbade any other than line engagements with pre planned maneuvering tactics, and nobody had mercy with an admiral not sticking to those if that didn't result in a total victory.... Now shore bombardment eventually became a thing on it's own, but the navy used specifically designed vessels for that, which carried mortars on their forecastle...
Rated Long-guns in shore batteries would make matchsticks of even the most heavily armed SotL and would out range shipboard weapons. The best use of these ships was in blockades or in defensive roles. they did not handle well on the open sea, smaller ships such as frigates and brigatines were better for open water. Also don't forget that Shore fortifications had facilities to make hot-shot, that will give a wooden ship a really bad day.
I adore this, especially how you included naval history, my favourite part of a war. Not to mention other ships more larger than the victory, such as the Santissima Trinidad, with 140 guns, along 4 gun decks! The Napoleonic wars naval side is truly a sight to behold, the stories from the seas are fascinating. I think all people who like learning about the American war of Independence and Napoleonic wars should most defiantly read and learn about these ships.
A better comparison would have been throw weight of an army vs 1 broadside of Victory. One broadside is only 300lb shy of the throw weight of Wellington's whole force if we are being generous and grant Wellington having all 9 lb guns.
The music playing at about the 4:30 mark is "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" - the best rendition I've heard was by Vaughan Williams. This is the sad music playing in Master and Commander: Far Side of the World when the crewman who fell overboard in heavy seas has to be given up for lost to save the ship and the lives of the entire crew.
These warships show that prior to the aviation age, the true test of a nation's industrial creativity was the warship whether powered by oars, sails, or steam for nothing else at the time took more skill and effort to create and then deploy.
I saw it in port there as well when I was a young boy. It’s a truly beautiful ship, and really helps you to understand the power of these vessels when you stand beside or onboard it.
Good video. I don't feel you were being overdramatic at all. The cathedral comparison really sells just how much of a technological and engineering achievement these things were, while the more statistical stuff just becomes a string of numbers after a while.
That was a genius move. To put those numbers in perspective, with the current context and the context when the ship was build, was just GOLD, for me. I think i understand more like this.
I know I’m late to the party but please consider one of the most awe inspiring facts of these vessels to those of us that live and work on a modern vessel, these square rig ships sailed themselves to battle in all weather conditions. Imagine being up that mast 15 to 20 stories in a storm with no shoes on. They were amazing ships and the men and officers who sailed them really devoted their lives to see them succeed
Being from Wales, UK we really don't get taught almost anything about what happened between the British and the American Revolution, so finding this channel randomly is like stumbling across an undiscovered history for the first time, you have a great delivery too
Spectacular, my esteemed! As a History major, Operation Odysseus is much appreciated. Splendid narration and approach to the topic, which merits a rightful subscription!
I'm subbed to 5 of the people that have their icons listed. And many more! I know this collab is about Naval History, but I wish Skalligrim, Shadaversity, and the Metatron were all collabing
@@BrandonF yeah, especially ScholaGladatoria, I am subbed to them all but his videos are the best. He is very knowledgeable and I would trust his words over any of the others
Drachinifel noted that freshwater sailing ships, such as those that fought on the Great Lakes, carried much heavier armament compared to contemporary ocean-going ships of similar size. This is down to much lighter supply requirements. It's much more convenient to return to port when you're on a lake. I don't know why I'm sharing this, but it's little tidbits like this that have me fascinated in naval history. You did a great job of driving home how significant these ships were to a nation. I'd love to have a comparison of naval might in economic terms (just as you did here) between various countries around the 18th and early 19th centuries. It'd be interesting to see how much stock was placed in these ships, but it's probably really difficult to get the necessary information to make this sort of video.
Took a walk aboard Victory, many years ago. The tween decks and gun decks involved a lot of walking crouched over and ducking. Must have been hell when in battle.
People often speak of the romance of the tall ships and the adventure of being aboard them. For myself I've found them to be fascinating and impressive vessels, but there's an unlovable side to them too. Like a tank, or some other engine of war, there's a coldness in their purpose and practicality. I only visited the Victory once and it was long ago, but more recently I visited the sixth rate tiddler of the HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool and it too had a dark, soulless aura to it. Maybe it's the stark humbug paintwork or the black glare of the gunports, but my first reaction was a shiver rather than some swell of pride. These ships left you in no doubt that they were the awe-inspiring business end of empire. I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been to have been on the receiving end of their displeasure. Being intimidated by something that became obsolete 160 years ago is a strange feeling!
as a tall ship sailor, what boggles my mind most is that in battle, while cannon, musket and pike where wielded with vigor, the sails were still manned! sailing is hard enough without a raging battle in the foreground!
wonderful video on these Behemoths, these Leviathans of the Seas! Furthermore I loved your approach to convey the size and the economical as well as military significance to these ships!
This is an excellent video for helping DMs (dungeons and dragons) improve their discriptions relative to their worlds. I loved your discription of portmouth and the ship of the line. Awesome video
C.S. Foresters novel "A Ship Of The Line" has a depiction of HMS Sutherland, a 74 gun (3rd rate?) bombarding a column of troops on a coastal road that delivers a real sense of the power of the massed cannon power of such a ship. Fictional but very well written and I suspect not unrealistic in the context of the massed artillery battery power of such a ship.
I remember reading that scene in horror when the command to fire comes right before Hornblower realised that they had reached a medical train in the column.
You certainly gave a new perception of these incredible wooden ships of the line. Some very interesting information about the comparison of the major Napoleonic land battles and sea battles in terms of guns, their cannon sizes and people who participated. Thanks for posting.
Bravo, nicely done, as usual, history is not the recall of how much of this, how much of that and when something happened, but putting the events in perspective. What they meant to the people that lived back then and how it affected their lives. One observation: it was iron shot not lead shot. Lead is way to soft, it would simply pancake on the heartwood oak ribs of a SoL. Perhaps was lead encased in iron, but definitely not lead. NVM, please ignore my last comment, you corrected yourself in the description. Always read the description :)
The real killer was not just the cannon balls. It was what those balls did to the wood of the ship they hit. The classic pirate curse" Shiver me Timbers" actually announces the worst killer and wounder in naval battles. Cannon splintered the wooden fabric of the enemy ships, adding huge splinters to the shot and cannon balls themselves, never mind rigging which might fall on the crew.. The hell of the gun decks is hard to imagine.
Great video really great way to get across the true cost and splendor of the 1st rate ships!!!! A point that is often forgotten about when looking at Carriers in the US Navy is that the cost of the planes is not included. So the $13 Billion cost is without planes. Using the Nimitz carrier airwing as a guide (could not find Fords carrier airwing) would be about $4 Billion extra. so its really a $17 Billon all together so it's .085% of the US GDP.
I'm in the early-mid stages of re-reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, Aubrey has just taken command of the Worcester, a 4th rate of dubious construction, with a crew of 600 odd. Your context has contributed to my enjoyment. Cheers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Might I suggest a video on the various tactics used for naval combat at the time? Perhaps a follow-up video on ground tactics involving infantry, artillery and cavalry? I have the hardest time finding material for such things.
I'm glad that one of the great last hurrahs of the ship of the line was the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser preforming a ram against an armored ship at the battle of Lissa in the Italio-Austrian war. They didn't go obsolete without a fight
Comparably current large ocean liner cruiseships that carry 3000-4000 passengers, has a crew of 1500-1800. But that includes the hotel, restaurant casino, etc personnel as well.
I actually live in Portsmouth and see her everyday so don't quite grasp the magnitude of her might back in the day, Also if anyone's interested She does a rolling broadside demonstration once a year. Portsmouth today is still a very naval oriented town, So much so that we are rivals with the Merchant port town of Southampton 30kms away who's sailors went on strike after the titanic sunk and refused to man her sister ship the olympic due to lack of lifeboats and the men and women of Portsmouth went over to sail her instead causing at the time great rivalry.
Aww, ships of the line and sailing ships in general! I've always been fascinated by them, but sadly only few RUclipsrs (even those who have a focus on history) barely ever touch that topic. Btw, i just found your channel and instantly subscribed.
Thanks for your reply! Do you plan to make more naval focused videos someday? Maybe examining and explaining naval batte tactics (single ships or fleets), sailing in general and other things related to naval warfare in those times. This is such a huge and fascinating topic, i wonder why only so few people give it the attention it deserves.
Love how the very suitable and not at all intrusive background music is by one of the BEST English composers EVAH, Ralph Von Williams. Well done, me laddies!!
Its interesting how the geography of Britain forced the nation to put so much effort into its navey. This not only saved the country from countless invasions, but also propelled technology into the industrial age and then to today. Its fascinating how nature guides humanity towards complexity.
Great video. One comment: I think an interesting comparison to have made would be the total weight of shot of the gun compliment between Victory and waterloo. I would hazard a guess that Victory would easily come out on top in that comparison.
Brandon, this was fantastic, I found you only yesterday going about re-enacting and uniform etc, I have subscribed. You have an obvious passion for all things historic and it shines through whatever you speak about. A great channel, which I'm glad to now be a part of. BTW, I myself was an NCO in the British Army, I served in the 1st Bn, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, formerly the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, who were originally the 5th Regiment of Foot, (The Fighting Fifth, as described by Wellington, who often selected them as his personal bodyguard). They saw a lot of service in North America, including Lexington, and at Brandywine Creek they broke the Continental Army's centre and captured five cannon.
Great video but I'm slightly disappointed that you didn't compare the weight of shot between the victory and one of the land battles in the Napoleonic war you mentioned that one of the larger guns if not the largest used at the Battle of Waterloo was a 9 lb field artillery piece compared to the smallest gun in the Victory being a 12 pounder and it's larger ones being 30 or 32 I don't know the math but I can guess that the weight of shot fired by full broadsides on the Victory would come fairly close to matching the entire fire power used at Waterloo
Wellington's guns had to be light enough to be moved about with the army. The guns used for coastal defences, however, were even bigger than ship's cannon.
The ship was big they said, it'd be fun they said. Every time I go to the historic dockyard in Portsmouth I struggle to fit my 185cm tall self through the door of that thing.
To think that nearly a hundred years before the launch of the Victory, the Dutch had already helped the Swedes construct a similarly sized vessel; the Stora Kronan (also known as Kronan), which numbered a 122 guns and about 800 souls just alike. She was, an absolute exception for her day, being the single largest vessel in the world at the time. She would, if compared to any other vessel, be closest to the Trinidad (again, built nearly a hundred years later), with her 140 guns and 900 souls aboard. Which, is not all that much larger. I do however think, that the Stora Kronan looked more impressive than these later vessels. Merely due to the decoration of her stern ans bow.
British navy owes a lot to the Dutch. The wars with the Dutch helped the British navy into the powerhouse it became. Took many of the ideas of the Dutch and after the stewert monarchy Prince of orange was jubilanty welcomed to take the crown of Britain and interdiction of tea.
@@roythescrub461 Well quite frankly, the disaster of the Vasa was the fault of the trandlators doing their work at the shipyard on which she was built. The building master was Dutchman, and so was about a quarter of the workforce working on her (they were in service of the VOC at the time, and their services were rented out to the Swedish crown), however; The issue was that the translatoon of a Foot (length). The Dutch and Swedish ones differed ever so slightly. And since most Dutchmen were working on the larboard/portside (left) of the hull, that side turned out to be ever so slightly larger in circumference. While the Swedish one had a smaller circumference. Ending up with an uneven hull. This was not noticed at the time, mostly due to the language barrier (as far as I am aware). This mistake, combined with the fact that the guns aboard the Vasa were not attached to the hull by ropes like on Dutch and English vessels at the time caused the disaster when she just left port. When she left port, the slightly larger waves of the Baltic sea swept her over her starboard, to such an extend that some of the larboard guns rolled to starboard, bringing her out of balance so horribly that the lower gundeck's gunports were brought down into the water, causing them to let in the water. Thereby flooding her in a few minutes, and causing her to capsize. The Stora Kronan met a similar fate, for during the battle of Øland (I believe), in 1672 (If I remember correctly), she made ready to turn around against the wind, when the Swedish fleet was being pluaged by a Dutch squadron in the rear of their formation. So, the Kronan, making her way against the wind, kept the gunports of her lower gundeck open, in spite of the strong wind (her captain, was a completely inexperienced admiral, who only recently was appointed by himself, having only been a minister for some years before) So; She turned, the lower gunports reached the waterline on her lee, and flooded the lower gundeck in a mere few minutes. She capsizded, just as some of the Dutch vessels passed by, and fired into her now exposed bottom. The powder hold was hit, and she, togther with her 800 crew, were blown sky-high in an instant. Quite the shame she had to fall at the hands of the same people who built her.
@@JariB. very interesting, I've seen the Vasa several times and it is undoubtedly a beautiful ship so it's a shame it sank. Doesn't make the event any less embarrassing, even if it technically wasn't any of the builders fault directly.
You are somewhat exaggerating the size and power of the Kronan. In fact Victory is considerably larger and more powerful. Kronan was more comparable to the English Sovereign of the Seas built about 30 years before Kronan and also renowned for her lavish decoration.
When you live in a port city, every ship becomes small because you get used to it. So it must have happened back in those days too. However, when something really big, I mean, unusually big floats in a shipyard, then you notice.
Brandon, one of the things, I would like for you to do with regard to wearing historic military uniforms, is to pay your respects at certain monuments and battle sites that correspond to the uniform. For instance, in Great Britain, you could wear the uniform of the British Tommy at a monument or site that memorializes the British soldier of World War I or II. Not only does it provide great background, but it also provides great historical context and honors both the veterans and the fallen. I think the relatives and ancestors would look upon it very kindly. My two shillings. Best regards.
I know that your idea is well-meant, but as a descendant (though not yet an ancestor), and having served in a minor way myself, I would prefer not to see this happening. Paying respect happens inside yourself. Wearing a uniform in public to which you are not entitled is vulgar self advertisement. Depending on the context and behaviour, it may also be illegal.
Never heard, seen or thought of such a channel before, but having seen this video I need this channel!!!!! thankyou for all your works. A guilty pleasure.
Well at 11:15 that's not exactly true. The US Navy doesn't call them carriers but the Wasp Class and the America class ships are the size of other nations' aircraft carriers. France's Charles de Gaulle is about 42000 tons, while USS America is about 45000 tons and the Wasp 40500. So until 2014 the US had a total of 25 'carriers'. Now it's more like 19 with a couple old Tarawa class ships in reserve.
Interesting figures. I suppose when you have so many 'Super' carriers, you don't feel the need to boast about the smaller ones! Even still, I think the comparison was a good one to make.
Definitions of ships can get pretty wonky really. Australia has a handful of ships it somehow calls 'carriers', but all they have onboard are helicopters. (and frequently not even all that many helicopters.) There was some talk of having some of these ships carry VTOL aircraft instead, but it's still pretty out there to call these things 'carriers'...
Incredible video! Concisely well put together retrospective that illustrates the enormous relevance in technological accomplishment as well as strategic importance these vessels represented for so many centuries of naval history. It has been said the ship-of-the-line was the most complex feat of engineering in the pre-Industrial world and this video certainly confirms that. Well done!
There is a very good video on RUclips about the details of Victory and just what an amazing piece of engineering she is. Complicated well beyond what you would expect and built by people with amazing skill and ability.
I think you deserve WAY more than 135k subscribers. Thank you for amazing content dude. Seriously. I really respect your wealth of knowledge and respect how much you embrace history. Keep up the amazing work. I’ll be sure to watch new videos and rewatch the oldies. Thank you.
Brandon F. Ah, now you see, I don't know what the command is after that, but I shall continue to act like I know what I'm doing. Yes! Go do that..or something.
In my opinion, one of the things that you missed was not a comparison of the raw NUMBERS of guns at various battles (both land and sea), but of the amount of steel those guns toss about. 10 9-pounders can throw around 90 pounds of steel, whereas 10 64-pounders (the largest carried aboard First Rate Ships like the VICTORY) would throw a whopping total of 640 pounds. Imagine what the VICTORY could actually throw if she fired all of her guns at once.
A big and large Navy with sizable ships were the life lines of the biggest oversea empires humans created. Without them neither the Spanish, Portugese, British or Dutch Empire would have reached such heights and greatness. All thanks to behemoths like these
Please see the video description for some corrections!
Distasteful troll reported. Got your back mate.
@@ANZACS100 I support you in your Endeavors!
@@knightlypoleaxe2501 cheers
Where is the list of all the members of operation Odysseus? All I can see is the logos at the beginning and although I know of many of them there are some I don’t recognise.
USS Gerald R Ford is almost 200 feet longer than the HMS Queen Elizabeth, so the QE is definitely not the largest ship ever
This also puts into perspective how devastating it was when one of these behemoths sank. A sizable portion of the nations GDP, as well as enough artillery pieces to outfit an army, all lost below the waves where they could never be recovered.
And also why they were always sought as prizes, and why it was such a loss when you accidentally sunk an enemy vessel!
Brandon F.
At least ships-of-the-line were actually useful in their intended role.
Dreadnought and post-dreadnought BBs however.....
justin beath
They were built to be used in the same general role as ships-of-the-line (blast enemy naval vessels from long range while being too big to be sunk by anything but an equal opponent). They were supposed to be the superweapons that would determine everything
Except that never happened. Only a handful of battleship engagements happened in WWI and WWII combined, and they weren’t engagements that turned the tide of battle like everyone on all sides was hoping for.
In WWI everybody was too chicken to use battleships properly.
In WWII aircraft carriers could do the job of maritime domination far better than a battleship, and battleships became relegated to doing things that could have been done much more cost-effectively with cruisers or even destroyers.
So: it turns out every nation with them just ended up wasting money.
@@bkjeong4302 To be fair the British had good reason to be chicken with their battleships during WW1. Why risk your battleships when your navy is already starving the enemy? There was no need to have a decisive naval battle.
George A.
If your strategy during a total war consists of “let’s build all these weapons that we’re never going to use and use them to threaten instead of actually causing enemy losses”, it’s a very cost-inefficient plan, even if it works. They could have disguised random ships as battleships and gotten the exact same result (since the German High Seas Fleet wouldn’t know the difference because they were equally afraid to fight).
And it doesn’t excuse the fact everyone in WWII still built battleships even after it had become clear they were now pointless. The only major WWII power that didn’t waste billions on this obsolete weapons system was Soviet Russia, and not for lack of trying.
They weren't just tools of war, they were works of art. So beautiful.
They really do look stunning
Yes and recreating them is a fantastic hobby. I can highly recommend Occre. The Albatros is a very good beginners ship and after 2-3 you can move on to Occre Montanes a stunning 74 gun third rate ship of the line. Or the Caldercraft HMS Victory. That is NOT a beginner kit.
You should read "civilisation " it starts with a comparison of the dragon figure head on a viking ship to a nuclear submarines periscope
I like your thinking
@@jasonsweet1868 Is that the Kenneth Clark one?
@Delta040301 yeah well done mate the name was bugging me
A single ship of the line would carry more guns than the entire American continental army
@John Ashtone It's soo much more difficult to transport guns on land, you can't harness the wind and lay back, you have to push it yourself or with horses. Horses eat a lot and Humans are too weak to push large artillery pieces, It was and still is more efficent to move on the sea than on ground, even now the avarage ship carries goods and resources 2 times more fuel efficently than any train or rig.
@John Ashtone A first rate line of battle ship has more than 100 guns. The Spanish warship Santisima Trinidad was rated at 112 guns but carried 140 during the battle off Cape Trafalgar. Add that to the fact that most field armies carried 12 pounders as their biggest guns while the Santisima Trinidad carried 30 36 pounders on her lower deck.
@@patrioticamerican6414 Who cares?
Let me just point out that the guns on warships were recovered, when it was possible. The vasa for example, the majority of her guns were recovered by the use of diving bells after she sunk. Guns were so expensive that it was worth the massive effort.
@@patrioticamerican6414 better at treason maybe
The problem with these ships is they don't have enough guns. They should triple the number of guns and put ducks underneath them all, to counteract the weight problem. Because ducks float.
Have you considered a job at BAE Systems?
@@BrandonF I think that simply adding guns is forgetting that you also need ammunition and safety system that would increase the weight to much
Louis Nonyourbuissnes more ducks
@@launderedsilvrr2110 but that will take us so much room
@@louisnonyourbuissnes5191 woooooosh
So much for infinity war being the most ambitious crossover
Anthony Hayes amphibious. Get it. Naval history... ok
Endgame though
Imagine a Ship of the Line with Infinity stones!!!!
Good job at putting things into perspective. Imagine a navy today with 100+ carriers... mindblowing. No wonder Britain was called ruler of the waves.
Blackbeard the USN of world war two built hundreds of fleet light and escort carriers. Today the USN has 11 fleet carriers and 10light carriers/assault ships, US Navy Burke class destroyers are the size of most navies flagships and there are dozens of them , same with USN submarines they are the battleships of today and the US has dozens of them. The USN is the royal navy of today following in their fathers footsteps.
@@duitk Hundreds?! I didn't know that it were that many. They weren't as powerful and costly as today's carriers, though. I also thought the US has 20 carriers today. And yeah, the USN is undoubtly the current ruler of the waves :)
Yes, they weren't as powerful as modern carriers, but once again, you're looking through a modern lens. A flawed lens.
The British navy during the Napoleonic war is a great comparison to the US navy during world war II. However I don't think you can compare those wartime navies to modern peacetime navies. Any navy downgrades during peace. Not smart to spend everything you got on a navy when others spend their money on trade.
+@@duitk A bit of an exaggeration there 34 fleet carriers (10 after WW2 ended) 12 light carriers (2 after WW2 ended) and 122 escort carriers with 39 ordered by Britain and never serving with the USN meaning 83 with the USN, 7 of which after WW2. So 110 aircraft carriers across all types served with the USN in WW2.
I'm glad you're talking about these beautiful ships.
They are always a fun topic!
Historically speaking, The Ship of the Line was a superb answer to the age-old practical problem of "How am I gonna prevent some big mean Mother Hubbard from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind?"
@@bskorupk The answer:Use a gun.And if that don't work, use more gun.
@@lukalackovic9059 or maybe just create a sapper/gun proof sentry? would that work? Hey valve, get on that!
In fifth or sixth grade, I used to be OBSESSED with drawing this sort of vessel
Hehe, same here. It's a shame that only a few channels giving this topic some attention.
Aw man, me too! I never even bothered with the sails though, there were so many!
Same, although I was more into paddlewheel frigates...
me too bud
It's in your genes. Genetic memory/attraction. The blood of explorers and conquerers flows in European veins.
One thing that people never really consider is just how the firepower of navies put that of armies to shame. Leningrad was mainly held by the guns of the Red Navy's Baltic fleet. At Normandy USN and RN battleships did massive damage to amassing Nazi units, throwing the famous big cats around like leaves in the wind. Ships are able to hold so much more firepower than any land units can because they're essentially moving fortresses.
That's a good point- this theme is hardly specific to the 18th Century!
not really, 100 guns at an average of lets say 2 tons each is 200 tons and can be moved on mass around the coast in days where as the army to move a similar number of guns mostly lighter calibres would take weeks or months to move which is why at great expense costal fortifications were built with heavy cannon to keep warships at a safe distance so a description of a floating fortress I think is apt :)
Not really true since Armies tended to had bigger guns then ships and could be on heights which gave them a lot better range. Its one reason that Normandy had to be a surprise attack, and it also have paratroopers on the ground before the invasion and air support.
@@bmc7434 Except for some very special guns most army guns are half the diameter of the Guns on warships or less. The standard field guns for armies tend to be around 150 mm whereas many USN battleships had 406 mm guns (16") and the big land guns are around 200 mms. You can find a few land based guns that are bigger than this but they're specialized siege weapons not the standard armament. I don't really know where you got the idea that armies had bigger guns, battleships needed big guns because they were fighting other battleships that were heavily armored but with armies you have the issue that big guns become hard to transport and they weren't firing on armored targets so big guns were both impractical and not needed.
And it's not really true that they had a lot better range, placing artillery on a hill doesn't give you a lot more range unless it's a really high hill and it also leaves you much more vulnerable to attack. What you would do is place a spotter on that hill and then have the artillery safely behind it where the enemy spotter has a harder time seeing it.
I'm not sure how the rest of what you're saying factors in, it is still true that naval fire support on D-day did a number on the Nazis and battleships did knock out costal batteries (and also at one point a battleship took out a sniper).
@@hedgehog3180 Coastal artillery used the same Guns as warships or heavier for example Singapore had 4 15 inch guns defending the harbor during WWII. Mobile artillery for coastal defense was usually around 8-12 inches and usually they were used on heights and behind hill firing either directly or indirectly very accurately.
One of the reason that Japan won the Russo Japanese War as they put 11 inch guns on the hills of Port Arthur, and destroy a large portion of the Russian fleet.
Also the reason that Gallipoli in WW1 went South as 150mm-200mm+ Mobile guns has a decent chance of blowing up any ship.
As a sailor I understand exactly how amazing these things were. Most people can sail with some level of competence a little dinghy. These things are so massive compared to these things and so difficult to sail that it took years to be able to sail these with skill. There are so few people who can sail square rigged ships anymore and that is one of many things that most people don’t understand about these beautiful ships.
While amazing, I must admit when I first saw Victory i must say my first reaction was "she's smaller than I thought". It doesn't help that HMS Warrior is docked less than a mile away, and her rigging dwarfs Victory, even though it's just auxiliary rigging on the steamship. I guess this is limitation of wood as a material, but late 19th century tallships are even bigger-and they ran with crews that were one tenth of those on ships of the line.
Ships of the line could be sailed with far smaller crews than they carried. The large crews were to man all the guns (and others to look after the large crews. Large crews were also necessary for boarding actions and to man prize ships. Warrior's rig was not auxiliary to the engines - the engines were auxiliary to the sails. she was considerably faster under sail than under power Her guns though fewer in number were generally much more powerful, and with true Royal Navy irony, the then most powerful warship in the world was rated as a frigate! .@@mancubwwa
mancubwwa the fact her masts don’t go as high is because her topmasts are off due to conservation work.
Thing most people dont think about: because of all the masts, sails and rigging, you couldnt see enough in front of you. Trust the captains orders...
And sail in formation. And fight.
Woohooo! #operationodysseus is growing.
ad astra per aspera for #operationodysseus
This video makes me really want to watch “Master and Commander,” again.
Great work, mate!
Thank you!
@@BrandonF Man please review either Master and Commander or Hornblower TV series. Truly remarkable how some older movie and tv series still a quality production instead of cookie cutter super hero movies.
Or better yet read the books (21) by Patrick O'Brian - they are Brilliant!!
And Hornblower!
Oh, I loooove that dramatic immersion you brought to us in order to show the awe of the Ships.
Pretty inspiring yeah
Brandon great video, but where's your camera!
Whenever I write a script, I do a 'voiceover' video like this. Whenever you actually see me it's all unscripted!
@@BrandonF i hase one Question why in the time of the Giant and big Sail ships why there was offen only Canons used to perporate the ship and rearly to try in Battle to set the enemy Ships on Fire they are made out of Wood Sail they for the modern eyes View easy to burn?
@@killerkraut9179 Incendiary weapons were as much of a danger to the ships using them as to the ones they were used against. Shore batteries used red hot cannonballs on occasion, experiments with those on ships proved far too dangerous.
Also, sinking enemy vessels was always only the second best option. Capturing was far more desirable.
Dedicated fireships were rarely successful although used quite often.
Shells/grenades were (at sea) only fired from mortars and this required specially constructed ships. Even on land precision fire with those was extremly difficult. On a heaving ship against moving targets it was futile, so mortar ships were exclusively used against stationary targets (on shore or ships at anchor). Same is true about Congreve rockets.
Once reliable grenades (with impact fuses) for straight shooting cannons were available, wooden warships without iron armor became obsolete rather quickly.
@@Segalmed in the First World War Felix Graf Luckner Fighting with a Sail Ship named Seeadler.
@@killerkraut9179 The Seeadler was a not a regular warship but a civilian sail ship that got an engine and a piece of light artillery added. She preyed on helpless merchant ships and would not have survived an encounter with any actual warship (unlike some other German commerce raiders).
Ships of the line, and then eventually battleships, were absolutely terrifying mobile platforms of immense destruction that were universally feared for their ability to sail into an enemy harbour and lay waste to the city around it. A ship like this showing up outside was the Napoleonic equivalent of a nuclear strike going off, which is the main reason why every single colonial garrison is fortified against naval attacks even if they were lacking in ability to defend themselves from land attacks. Because if one of these showed up and you didn't have a fort to hide in, you were pretty much just dead.
Except that most of the time you wouldn't use a ship of the line to attack ports but rather to blockade them because any fortified position on shore might be capable to make short work of a wooden warship
@@cmdrrnjohnriley6246 If they had defences set up sure. If not, good lord no.
@@lokenontherange Yes but as you stated, most important ports had some sort of garrison... and the list of failed naval attacks on shore installations is probably just as long as the list of successful attacks on those... even a foolhardy commander such as Nelson almost didn't succeed in overcoming Kopenhagen, e.g... and as the video shows, those capital ships were too expensive and thus too valuable to use them to attack ports directly ( not to mention the difficulty of maneuvering those vessels close to shore, which always brought the risk of simply running aground because you came under lee of the coast )... at times, the Admiralty fighting instructions even forbade any other than line engagements with pre planned maneuvering tactics, and nobody had mercy with an admiral not sticking to those if that didn't result in a total victory....
Now shore bombardment eventually became a thing on it's own, but the navy used specifically designed vessels for that, which carried mortars on their forecastle...
Rated Long-guns in shore batteries would make matchsticks of even the most heavily armed SotL and would out range shipboard weapons. The best use of these ships was in blockades or in defensive roles. they did not handle well on the open sea, smaller ships such as frigates and brigatines were better for open water.
Also don't forget that Shore fortifications had facilities to make hot-shot, that will give a wooden ship a really bad day.
I adore this, especially how you included naval history, my favourite part of a war. Not to mention other ships more larger than the victory, such as the Santissima Trinidad, with 140 guns, along 4 gun decks! The Napoleonic wars naval side is truly a sight to behold, the stories from the seas are fascinating. I think all people who like learning about the American war of Independence and Napoleonic wars should most defiantly read and learn about these ships.
The beauty of these ships are time-less and require all the same special skills that have always been required. Pure seamanship. A beauty to behold.
I was today years old, when I came to terms with, and accepted, that I am sexually attracted to Ships of The Line...
Have you informed your parents yet? It is a difficult conversation, but there are support groups if you need them.
Listen, we are here for you if you need us.
same 🤝
A better comparison would have been throw weight of an army vs 1 broadside of Victory. One broadside is only 300lb shy of the throw weight of Wellington's whole force if we are being generous and grant Wellington having all 9 lb guns.
DAVID Edens: The Army wins wars the rest help YES even the Mrines
Infantry is the queen of battles. You have to take and hold. Everything else is support.
You guys are missing the point. Your talking about for example building furniture while I'm comparing sledge hammers.
What about all those musket balls? If everyone of Wellington’s men shot once that’s over 2 tons of lead.
@@ctbaw9484 artillery lends dignity to what otherwise would be an ugly brawl.
The music playing at about the 4:30 mark is "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" - the best rendition I've heard was by Vaughan Williams. This is the sad music playing in Master and Commander: Far Side of the World when the crewman who fell overboard in heavy seas has to be given up for lost to save the ship and the lives of the entire crew.
Shout out to the Victorian era industrial towns people!
These warships show that prior to the aviation age, the true test of a nation's industrial creativity was the warship whether powered by oars, sails, or steam for nothing else at the time took more skill and effort to create and then deploy.
Still does. Consider how many nations can support a single fleet aircraft carrier?
I saw Nelsons ship at portsmouth - that was IMPRESSIVE.
VC YT Wish to see it one day, even if it might hurt me as a Frenchman
I saw it in port there as well when I was a young boy. It’s a truly beautiful ship, and really helps you to understand the power of these vessels when you stand beside or onboard it.
Thomas CATTY xD
@@thomascatty379 As long as you keep your fishing vessels out of our waters then you have nothing to fear.
How tall is a ship of the line? well before 1900 less than a 100 buildings (based on current knowledge) worldwide had been built that where taller.
Hence before the term skyscrapers was using in high rise buildings, it was used for ship masts.
This was easily the most beautiful piece you've ever written. Thank you.
His best video on this channel and one of my favorite YT vids ever
I didn't know that first class ships could be taller than all the buildings in town. That puts these ships in perspective. Thank you Brandon.
Good video. I don't feel you were being overdramatic at all. The cathedral comparison really sells just how much of a technological and engineering achievement these things were, while the more statistical stuff just becomes a string of numbers after a while.
Well I'm glad to hear it!
That was a genius move. To put those numbers in perspective, with the current context and the context when the ship was build, was just GOLD, for me. I think i understand more like this.
Well thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I know I’m late to the party but please consider one of the most awe inspiring facts of these vessels to those of us that live and work on a modern vessel, these square rig ships sailed themselves to battle in all weather conditions. Imagine being up that mast 15 to 20 stories in a storm with no shoes on. They were amazing ships and the men and officers who sailed them really devoted their lives to see them succeed
I JUST LOVE THIS KIND OF SHIPS!
their design their looks are gorgeous and because of the movie potc i came to loved them
Ngl, this Operation Odysseus thing is kinda cool, actually.
I mean hey, if it finally gets you to talk about naval history..... ;)
Being from Wales, UK we really don't get taught almost anything about what happened between the British and the American Revolution, so finding this channel randomly is like stumbling across an undiscovered history for the first time, you have a great delivery too
As someone who lives in Nova Scotia. I always enjoy when the Tall Ships come to port. its such a sight.
Spectacular, my esteemed! As a History major, Operation Odysseus is much appreciated. Splendid narration and approach to the topic, which merits a rightful subscription!
Well thank you! I am glad that you enjoyed my contribution to the project.
I'm subbed to 5 of the people that have their icons listed. And many more! I know this collab is about Naval History, but I wish Skalligrim, Shadaversity, and the Metatron were all collabing
Throw in Schola and Lindy, and you have my dream collaboration.
@@BrandonF yeah, especially ScholaGladatoria, I am subbed to them all but his videos are the best. He is very knowledgeable and I would trust his words over any of the others
Drachinifel noted that freshwater sailing ships, such as those that fought on the Great Lakes, carried much heavier armament compared to contemporary ocean-going ships of similar size. This is down to much lighter supply requirements. It's much more convenient to return to port when you're on a lake. I don't know why I'm sharing this, but it's little tidbits like this that have me fascinated in naval history.
You did a great job of driving home how significant these ships were to a nation. I'd love to have a comparison of naval might in economic terms (just as you did here) between various countries around the 18th and early 19th centuries. It'd be interesting to see how much stock was placed in these ships, but it's probably really difficult to get the necessary information to make this sort of video.
Great vid. Now I want to binge read one of my Master and Commander books.
Took a walk aboard Victory, many years ago. The tween decks and gun decks involved a lot of walking crouched over and ducking. Must have been hell when in battle.
tHE AVERAGE HEIGHT OF THE BELOW DECK MEN WOULD HAVE BEEN AROUND 5 FT TALL
>Largest battle is Borodino
>Keyboard Warrior Mode engaged
>Scrolls down and sees description
Never mind.
That one was a silly mistake on my part!
People often speak of the romance of the tall ships and the adventure of being aboard them. For myself I've found them to be fascinating and impressive vessels, but there's an unlovable side to them too. Like a tank, or some other engine of war, there's a coldness in their purpose and practicality.
I only visited the Victory once and it was long ago, but more recently I visited the sixth rate tiddler of the HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool and it too had a dark, soulless aura to it. Maybe it's the stark humbug paintwork or the black glare of the gunports, but my first reaction was a shiver rather than some swell of pride. These ships left you in no doubt that they were the awe-inspiring business end of empire. I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been to have been on the receiving end of their displeasure.
Being intimidated by something that became obsolete 160 years ago is a strange feeling!
Stuff like the 122 gun heavy first rate was the true giant of it's time
as a tall ship sailor, what boggles my mind most is that in battle, while cannon, musket and pike where wielded with vigor, the sails were still manned! sailing is hard enough without a raging battle in the foreground!
wonderful video on these Behemoths, these Leviathans of the Seas! Furthermore I loved your approach to convey the size and the economical as well as military significance to these ships!
Thank you!
This is an excellent video for helping DMs (dungeons and dragons) improve their discriptions relative to their worlds. I loved your discription of portmouth and the ship of the line. Awesome video
C.S. Foresters novel "A Ship Of The Line" has a depiction of HMS Sutherland, a 74 gun (3rd rate?) bombarding a column of troops on a coastal road that delivers a real sense of the power of the massed cannon power of such a ship. Fictional but very well written and I suspect not unrealistic in the context of the massed artillery battery power of such a ship.
I remember reading that scene in horror when the command to fire comes right before Hornblower realised that they had reached a medical train in the column.
Love the Master and Commander music in the background. Very thematic
Best comparison for modern context for size, use the introduction sequence of Star Wars A New Hope.
You certainly gave a new perception of these incredible wooden ships of the line. Some very interesting information about the comparison of the major Napoleonic land battles and sea battles in terms of guns, their cannon sizes and people who participated. Thanks for posting.
And thank you for watching!
Bravo, nicely done, as usual, history is not the recall of how much of this, how much of that and when something happened, but putting the events in perspective. What they meant to the people that lived back then and how it affected their lives.
One observation: it was iron shot not lead shot. Lead is way to soft, it would simply pancake on the heartwood oak ribs of a SoL. Perhaps was lead encased in iron, but definitely not lead.
NVM, please ignore my last comment, you corrected yourself in the description. Always read the description :)
The real killer was not just the cannon balls. It was what those balls did to the wood of the ship they hit. The classic pirate curse" Shiver me Timbers" actually announces the worst killer and wounder in naval battles. Cannon splintered the wooden fabric of the enemy ships, adding huge splinters to the shot and cannon balls themselves, never mind rigging which might fall on the crew.. The hell of the gun decks is hard to imagine.
Great video puts a lot into perspective.
Matt Easton would be proud of all that context.
I should hope so. Matt is a very nice gent, I met him in London. Didn't dare say I do the RUclips thing as well, of course!
Brandon F. Epic crossover. “Captain Context” is a running gag on his channel, just in case you didn’t know.
Great video really great way to get across the true cost and splendor of the 1st rate ships!!!!
A point that is often forgotten about when looking at Carriers in the US Navy is that the cost of the planes is not included. So the $13 Billion cost is without planes. Using the Nimitz carrier airwing as a guide (could not find Fords carrier airwing) would be about $4 Billion extra. so its really a $17 Billon all together so it's .085% of the US GDP.
Those two last paintings really hit home.
Amazing video, keep up the good work!
I'm in the early-mid stages of re-reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, Aubrey has just taken command of the Worcester, a 4th rate of dubious construction, with a crew of 600 odd. Your context has contributed to my enjoyment. Cheers.
Operation Odysseus?
Do I see my boy Hilbert there?
Magnificent presentation, the part with Portsmouth Cathedral just gave me a goosebumps.
I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Might I suggest a video on the various tactics used for naval combat at the time? Perhaps a follow-up video on ground tactics involving infantry, artillery and cavalry? I have the hardest time finding material for such things.
I'm glad that one of the great last hurrahs of the ship of the line was the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser preforming a ram against an armored ship at the battle of Lissa in the Italio-Austrian war. They didn't go obsolete without a fight
18:05 His point is that war ships were bloody awesome!
Pretty much.
Your breakdowns that explain the vastness of the expenditures, size, etc is brilliant and really puts it into perspective. Well done
Nice vid...
Napoleon I Bonaparte A tissue for the Emperor!
Viva la France
We must consolidate, consolidate! We'll train our men on the march!
Wow! Thank you for putting the scale of these shops into perspective for us modern folks.
Comparably current large ocean liner cruiseships that carry 3000-4000 passengers, has a crew of 1500-1800. But that includes the hotel, restaurant casino, etc personnel as well.
I actually live in Portsmouth and see her everyday so don't quite grasp the magnitude of her might back in the day, Also if anyone's interested She does a rolling broadside demonstration once a year. Portsmouth today is still a very naval oriented town, So much so that we are rivals with the Merchant port town of Southampton 30kms away who's sailors went on strike after the titanic sunk and refused to man her sister ship the olympic due to lack of lifeboats and the men and women of Portsmouth went over to sail her instead causing at the time great rivalry.
Aww, ships of the line and sailing ships in general! I've always been fascinated by them, but sadly only few RUclipsrs (even those who have a focus on history) barely ever touch that topic.
Btw, i just found your channel and instantly subscribed.
Hah, I am glad to hear it! Thank you!
Thanks for your reply!
Do you plan to make more naval focused videos someday?
Maybe examining and explaining naval batte tactics (single ships or fleets), sailing in general and other things related to naval warfare in those times.
This is such a huge and fascinating topic, i wonder why only so few people give it the attention it deserves.
Love how the very suitable and not at all intrusive background music is by one of the BEST English composers EVAH, Ralph Von Williams. Well done, me laddies!!
I recognize some of the music from ‘Master and Commander’ in this video! 🙂👍🏻
Ralph Vaughan Williams was the original composer, the song is called "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis"
@@BrandonF Thanks. I was convinced it was from Holst.
First video I have seen. Honestly I am loving your commentary. I will be here for more.
That Ralph Vaughan Williams in the background though
Its interesting how the geography of Britain forced the nation to put so much effort into its navey. This not only saved the country from countless invasions, but also propelled technology into the industrial age and then to today. Its fascinating how nature guides humanity towards complexity.
Great video. One comment: I think an interesting comparison to have made would be the total weight of shot of the gun compliment between Victory and waterloo. I would hazard a guess that Victory would easily come out on top in that comparison.
Brandon, this was fantastic, I found you only yesterday going about re-enacting and uniform etc, I have subscribed. You have an obvious passion for all things historic and it shines through whatever you speak about. A great channel, which I'm glad to now be a part of.
BTW, I myself was an NCO in the British Army, I served in the 1st Bn, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, formerly the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, who were originally the 5th Regiment of Foot, (The Fighting Fifth, as described by Wellington, who often selected them as his personal bodyguard).
They saw a lot of service in North America, including Lexington, and at Brandywine Creek they broke the Continental Army's centre and captured five cannon.
Great video but I'm slightly disappointed that you didn't compare the weight of shot between the victory and one of the land battles in the Napoleonic war you mentioned that one of the larger guns if not the largest used at the Battle of Waterloo was a 9 lb field artillery piece compared to the smallest gun in the Victory being a 12 pounder and it's larger ones being 30 or 32 I don't know the math but I can guess that the weight of shot fired by full broadsides on the Victory would come fairly close to matching the entire fire power used at Waterloo
Wellington's guns had to be light enough to be moved about with the army. The guns used for coastal defences, however, were even bigger than ship's cannon.
Assuming an average of 9lbs per-gun for the land armies Victory’s throw weight is ~2/3 of that of both armies at Waterloo.
The art of these types of ships has always been fantastic to me, like at 2:03
So we can look forward to a Girls und Ship of the Line Anime?
The ship was big they said, it'd be fun they said. Every time I go to the historic dockyard in Portsmouth I struggle to fit my 185cm tall self through the door of that thing.
To think that nearly a hundred years before the launch of the Victory, the Dutch had already helped the Swedes construct a similarly sized vessel; the Stora Kronan (also known as Kronan), which numbered a 122 guns and about 800 souls just alike. She was, an absolute exception for her day, being the single largest vessel in the world at the time. She would, if compared to any other vessel, be closest to the Trinidad (again, built nearly a hundred years later), with her 140 guns and 900 souls aboard. Which, is not all that much larger.
I do however think, that the Stora Kronan looked more impressive than these later vessels. Merely due to the decoration of her stern ans bow.
British navy owes a lot to the Dutch. The wars with the Dutch helped the British navy into the powerhouse it became. Took many of the ideas of the Dutch and after the stewert monarchy Prince of orange was jubilanty welcomed to take the crown of Britain and interdiction of tea.
Heh, we don't talk about the Vasa
@@roythescrub461 Well quite frankly, the disaster of the Vasa was the fault of the trandlators doing their work at the shipyard on which she was built. The building master was Dutchman, and so was about a quarter of the workforce working on her (they were in service of the VOC at the time, and their services were rented out to the Swedish crown), however; The issue was that the translatoon of a Foot (length). The Dutch and Swedish ones differed ever so slightly. And since most Dutchmen were working on the larboard/portside (left) of the hull, that side turned out to be ever so slightly larger in circumference. While the Swedish one had a smaller circumference. Ending up with an uneven hull. This was not noticed at the time, mostly due to the language barrier (as far as I am aware).
This mistake, combined with the fact that the guns aboard the Vasa were not attached to the hull by ropes like on Dutch and English vessels at the time caused the disaster when she just left port.
When she left port, the slightly larger waves of the Baltic sea swept her over her starboard, to such an extend that some of the larboard guns rolled to starboard, bringing her out of balance so horribly that the lower gundeck's gunports were brought down into the water, causing them to let in the water. Thereby flooding her in a few minutes, and causing her to capsize.
The Stora Kronan met a similar fate, for during the battle of Øland (I believe), in 1672 (If I remember correctly), she made ready to turn around against the wind, when the Swedish fleet was being pluaged by a Dutch squadron in the rear of their formation. So, the Kronan, making her way against the wind, kept the gunports of her lower gundeck open, in spite of the strong wind (her captain, was a completely inexperienced admiral, who only recently was appointed by himself, having only been a minister for some years before)
So; She turned, the lower gunports reached the waterline on her lee, and flooded the lower gundeck in a mere few minutes. She capsizded, just as some of the Dutch vessels passed by, and fired into her now exposed bottom. The powder hold was hit, and she, togther with her 800 crew, were blown sky-high in an instant.
Quite the shame she had to fall at the hands of the same people who built her.
@@JariB. very interesting, I've seen the Vasa several times and it is undoubtedly a beautiful ship so it's a shame it sank. Doesn't make the event any less embarrassing, even if it technically wasn't any of the builders fault directly.
You are somewhat exaggerating the size and power of the Kronan. In fact Victory is considerably larger and more powerful. Kronan was more comparable to the English Sovereign of the Seas built about 30 years before Kronan and also renowned for her lavish decoration.
Oh damn, the man is playing Master and Commander music in the background. Instant sub from me.
Mat Cauthon I was trying to figure out what I was hearing. I thought it was
When you live in a port city, every ship becomes small because you get used to it. So it must have happened back in those days too.
However, when something really big, I mean, unusually big floats in a shipyard, then you notice.
really excited for the video, nice to see you in the collab
Brandon, one of the things, I would like for you to do with regard to wearing historic military uniforms, is to pay your respects at certain monuments and battle sites that correspond to the uniform. For instance, in Great Britain, you could wear the uniform of the British Tommy at a monument or site that memorializes the British soldier of World War I or II. Not only does it provide great background, but it also provides great historical context and honors both the veterans and the fallen. I think the relatives and ancestors would look upon it very kindly. My two shillings. Best regards.
I know that your idea is well-meant, but as a descendant (though not yet an ancestor), and having served in a minor way myself, I would prefer not to see this happening. Paying respect happens inside yourself. Wearing a uniform in public to which you are not entitled is vulgar self advertisement. Depending on the context and behaviour, it may also be illegal.
I think we’d rather have you spell in the Oxford way.
Never heard, seen or thought of such a channel before, but having seen this video I need this channel!!!!! thankyou for all your works. A guilty pleasure.
Well at 11:15 that's not exactly true. The US Navy doesn't call them carriers but the Wasp Class and the America class ships are the size of other nations' aircraft carriers. France's Charles de Gaulle is about 42000 tons, while USS America is about 45000 tons and the Wasp 40500. So until 2014 the US had a total of 25 'carriers'. Now it's more like 19 with a couple old Tarawa class ships in reserve.
Interesting figures. I suppose when you have so many 'Super' carriers, you don't feel the need to boast about the smaller ones! Even still, I think the comparison was a good one to make.
Definitions of ships can get pretty wonky really.
Australia has a handful of ships it somehow calls 'carriers', but all they have onboard are helicopters. (and frequently not even all that many helicopters.)
There was some talk of having some of these ships carry VTOL aircraft instead, but it's still pretty out there to call these things 'carriers'...
Incredible video! Concisely well put together retrospective that illustrates the enormous relevance in technological accomplishment as well as strategic importance these vessels represented for so many centuries of naval history. It has been said the ship-of-the-line was the most complex feat of engineering in the pre-Industrial world and this video certainly confirms that. Well done!
Is Military History Visualised on this? As I recall he already made an informative one on this subject, and said he do more research on this.
There is a very good video on RUclips about the details of Victory and just what an amazing piece of engineering she is.
Complicated well beyond what you would expect and built by people with amazing skill and ability.
1st baby! Been waitin all day for this one.
It was a little delayed, but finally arrived!
I think you deserve WAY more than 135k subscribers. Thank you for amazing content dude. Seriously. I really respect your wealth of knowledge and respect how much you embrace history.
Keep up the amazing work. I’ll be sure to watch new videos and rewatch the oldies. Thank you.
Give them a broadside!
Run out the guns!
Brandon F. Ah, now you see, I don't know what the command is after that, but I shall continue to act like I know what I'm doing.
Yes! Go do that..or something.
In my opinion, one of the things that you missed was not a comparison of the raw NUMBERS of guns at various battles (both land and sea), but of the amount of steel those guns toss about. 10 9-pounders can throw around 90 pounds of steel, whereas 10 64-pounders (the largest carried aboard First Rate Ships like the VICTORY) would throw a whopping total of 640 pounds. Imagine what the VICTORY could actually throw if she fired all of her guns at once.
It was comrade armchair!
Thank you so much for the context and scale comparisons. It was very helpful.
"most british channel in existence"
Nice to see you include “The Fighting Temeraire”, on of my favourite paintings, in there.
A bit too flowery and theatrical as narrations go, to put it mildly. Pity, it seemed interesting....
The fact that they had more than 100 3rd rates is just mindblowing
Good vid. 👍
But overly dramatic & too preachy.
A big and large Navy with sizable ships were the life lines of the biggest oversea empires humans created. Without them neither the Spanish, Portugese, British or Dutch Empire would have reached such heights and greatness. All thanks to behemoths like these