A Titan of Pre-Industry: The Ship of the Line

CORRECTIONS: I state in this video that Borodino was the largest Napoleonic battle, but the Battle of Leipzig was actually bigger! I also refer to cannon shot as being made of lead...it would have been iron!

This is my contribution to Operation Odysseus, a massive 17channel wide collaboration about Naval History! If you'd like to see the other episodes, you can find the the full playlist here

The Ship of the Line was the largest and most terrifying weapon of war in her day. They could reach above even the tallest structures in the towns which built them, they were manned by crews the size of small villages, and their armaments were the equivalent of whole armies. These were monolithic constructions of war, but without a proper understanding of the statistics behind them, it can be difficult to see them as such. That is what this video is about- our perception of these Titans of Pre-Industry.

Sources and Further Reading:

If you would like to learn more about the construction of these ships, and the impact of these constructions, here are a few good places to start:

To learn more about Ships of the Line, and the various kinds of warships during the Long 18th Century

My source for the number of guns at the Battle of Trafalgar:

My source for some of the economic data used:

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