Talk:Battle of the Downs

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Well, here we have a Dutch folkloric tale about the battle of the Downs, as we have heard during centuries a British folkloric tale about the Spanish Armada. I will not touch the article (for now) until I have enough information. But a force of 77 ships repelled by a Dutch fleet of 13 ships sounds to me a very weird account, no matter how much ferocity the Dutch exhibited (being Oquendo too much used to fight and defeat the Dutch fleets, to be ultimately afraid in his last combat). Nitramón


 * The date is wrong: has to be 21 not 31. If you took it from the dutch wkipedia, there it was wrong too. I won't alter it. The first and last time I tried to alter a date I was promptly accused of vandalism. Josje (dutch)


 * 21 October was the date in the Julian calendar, equivalent to 31 October in the Gregorian calendar. Gdr 23:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Date has been hyper-corrected to 31 October. 21 October in Dutch sources is absolutely correct as per the Gregorian Calendar already in use by the Dutch and is in Dutch primary sources (see, for example, printed material in the Rijksmuseum, accessible on rijksmuseum.nl via search for Duyns 1639).

English sources refer to this battle as 11 October Julian style, still in use in England (and continued to be so until 1752), again from primary sources, e.g. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, accessible via british-history.ac.uk). Thus this battle is 11 October Julian/21 October Gregorian, and 31 is a hyper-correction based on the assumption that 21 is Julian, which it isn't. Heritagegeek (talk) 16:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I've corrected the dates to 21 Oct etc. Hard to tell sometimes. I've just seen sources that say 11 October also. Another is the Battle of Chesma, just saw a source saying 24 & 26 rather than 5 & 7 July. But the source mentioned does (I don't speak Dutch) mention 21 Oct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.220.199.69 (talk) 07:54, 20 July 2020 (UTC)


 * By the way. Nitramón is wright. On the Dutch Wikipedea the Dutch had 95 ships plus 10 old ships to set on fire and sent to the Spanish. The Spanish had only 55 ships. Josje again


 * Do you have an English-language reference? Gdr 00:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The correct number of ships are those Josje gave: of the total ships which took part in the battles (the first one lasting 3 days, between Beachy Head and the French rade of Boulogne in September, and the second one, a month later at the Downs) the spanish war ships were 51, the rest were suply vessels, transports and a variety amount of small ships. Tromp managed to stop the first attack by Oquendo on the 16th of september with just 17 ships by using for the first time in naval history the line of battle tactics in a rather defensive (and intelligent) way (despite what english historians says about being Blake the first to used it at the first-anglo ducht war), while the Spanish didn´t have any strategy at all (last time the "media luna" tactic was used was in 1588). Oquendo was a great captain but not an admiral (he had the charge but not the skills), the Spanish fleet had better admirals (Lope de Hoces, Miguel de la Horna or francisco Feijoo) but they were under Oquendo´s command. A very important and forgotten battle which deserves a better (one of the highest) place in naval history. A spaniard. Ruru


 * I don't think there is a credibility problem here. It's quite clear to me that it is an attack on a Spanish convoy transporting troops, which puts the Spanish at a disadvantage. Whether 13 ships can ward of 77 is not the issue: 13 might be able to dissuade 77 from going to Dunkirk for a few days, depending on the wind direction, and the 77 didn't want to engage. The major issue is whether the suggestion of the Spanish having superior firepower on October 31st can be substantiated. It is very well possible, if the majority of Dutch ships were merchantmen hired for the occasion.


 * A comment about the sentence "Tromp also formally asked de Oquendo why he refused battle ...".

This is the first reference to de Oquendo in the article. Who was he? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.115.75.230 (talk) 11:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Very good point.--MWAK (talk) 09:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The article is right in asserting that it was a significant moment in the shifting balance of sea power, it did mark the decline of Spanish seapower, although those who claim it was destroyed are ignoramuses. The battle box figures look very suspiciously like ancient Dutch propaganda. Many of the soldiers had been transported from Britain by Dunkirkers before the main battle and Spanish naval gunnery had improved greatly (as had everybodys) since the days of the Armada. Can somebody check them against modern scholarly sources? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.221.95.95 (talk) 02:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Dutch losses
I've reverted again since none of the Dutch sources makes mention of lost Dutch ships other then one that got entangled with the Santa Teresa. Catsclaw 11:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Misleading infobox
The number of Dutch ships is put at 95, which was only at the very end. The Spanish numbers are put at their very lowest. Doesn't seem very fair. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 19:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)