Talk:Ship of the line

French Shipbuilding
"Although Spain, the Netherlands, and France built huge fleets, and in France's case even with better ships, they were rarely able to match the skill of British naval crews." From what I've read, this is untrue: http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-057.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.112.84.26 (talk) 23:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Only surviving ship-of-the-line
I was wondering- does the USS Constitution count as a ship-of-the-line? If so, then the Victory isn't the only one surviving. 64.2.133.78 (talk) 02:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No, the Constitution is a frigate. I don't know if there's another ship of the line left besides Victory, but Old Ironsides isn't it.
 * Pirate Dan (talk) 14:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Wasa can be considered a partially surviving ship of the line...

Rating system
The rating system should perhaps have its own page. Stan Shebs 17:30 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

The rating system needs a brief overview of who used it and when, for example "The rating system given in this table was used by the Royal Navy from the 17th century to the 19th century." And something about how it related to the rating systems (if any) used by other navies. Gdr 13:07, 2004 Jun 23 (UTC)


 * Moved rating system to Rating system of the Royal Navy and moved first-rate article with pictures to here. Petersam 03:11, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rating systems were certainly in use in other navies, notably the French Navy, so this needs to be described. Rif Winfield 09:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

First paragraph is navigational aid
Please do not remove the first paragraph as it functions as a quick navigational aid to the other articles in this series. Thank you. Petersam 20:40, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I did change it. The whole article is about the ship-of-the-line.  The lead paragraph focused too much on the line-of-battle tactic when it should have just been an introductory paragraph on the line-of-battle-ship.  There was also a line which smacked of personal opinion, i.e. "it is not correct to call them battleships..."


 * It's called accuracy, correct spelling, grammar, and flow of thought. Carajou 22:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that the term line-of-battle ship never had any formal significance. This is why it is correct to refer to all capital ships as ship-of-the-line up until the end of the wooden-hulled battle fleet in about 1860 (including the brief period of steam-assisted ships-of-the-line!). It is also misleading to refer - as is done at the start of the article - to the modern battleship as being derived from the ship-of-the-line. In fact the battleship developed from the frigate, since like the frigate it carried its main armament on one deck; indeed, you will note that the Warrior and her early descendents were formally rated as frigates for several years from 1859 onwards. The term 'battleship' was a late Victorian concoction to describe what the iron (later steel) capital ship had become; it had no relevence before the 1860s. Rif Winfield 09:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Some additions needed
The structure and layout is very good; no changes need to be done with it. But it could use some more information within each subsection:

Carajou 23:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Brief descriptions of Sovereign of the Seas and Mary Rose and Vasa perhaps.
 * Descriptions of significant battles in which these ships operated.
 * More info regarding any existing ships; Vasa and Mary Rose need to be briefly touched upon.


 * I think that's about right; and more about the decline of the ship-of-the-line. Is here the right place to talk about the fleeting introduction of screw-powered ships? The Land 11:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would think so, like something that goes with the last picture. Carajou 12:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Fine, except DO NOT confuse this article with descriptions of naval battles. Please note that there are individual articles on individual significant naval battles. This article (and others in the same series) should be strictly confined to the ships themselves, and their development; there's more than enough work to be done on this! Rif Winfield 09:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Ship-of-the-line and frigate
Under the section "Today", HMS Victory is classed as the "only original ship-of-the-line remaining today". There is the 5th rate 46 gun frigate Trincomalee at Hartlepool Historic Quay. Was a fifth rate ship classed as a ship of the line?


 * No. Frigates, by definition, were not to stand in the line.  They were used for reconnaissance, relaying signals, escorting merchant convoys, and for fast courier service.  The required number of guns for a ship of the line changed over time, but by the late 18th century 64 guns was the minimum.  Pirate Dan 14:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The only argument against the Victory would be the status of the USS Constitution, which was called a 44-gun frigate by the USN even though it carried upwards of 60 guns into battle. The Royal Navy regarded it as a fourth-rate, which can be a ship of the line, and ordered its frigates not to fight it or any other USN ship of its class. Of course, the USN never fought in line of battle, and the Victory was/is a first-rate with 104 or more guns. It's clearly a ship of the line without splitting hairs. Jsc1973 (talk) 06:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The word frigate was applied to ships of different functions at different dates. As you will have noticed ship types have historically grown in size and performance. This is because, in general, you can always make a ship design a little bit better by making it a little bit larger. The reasons for this are explained in a book called the Cost of Seapower by Pugh. --Toddy1 (talk) 09:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The first vessels called frigates (15th/16th Century) had oars and sail.
 * By the mid-late 17th Century, the word applied to relatively low vessels, which did include ships-of-the-line. The Constant Warwick of 1645 was the first English frigate ship-of-the-line.
 * The 18th/19th Century sailing frigate was used for reconnaissance, relaying signals, escorting merchant convoys, and for fast courier service.
 * There were steam frigates built in the 1830s-40s which also had the function of moving sailing line-of-battleships in action - I said moving because this could be by towing, or by being tied to the side - which was done in some bombardments of fortifications in what is now called the Crimean War.
 * Ironclad frigates were steam line-of-battleships which had iron armour but whose armament distribution corresponded to a frigate.
 * From the 1940s onwards, there ave been modern vessels called frigates, whose function was (in the 1940s) anti-submarine warfare. However, by the 1950s, people started making frigates for other purposes (e.g. radar early warning).  I use the word making as some were converted from destroyers.

Spelling
I have never seen "ship of the line" spelled with hyphens, as it mostly is in the article. (Admittedly, I've only read about them in modern fiction.) The use of hyphens doesn't seem consistent with 16th-19th century usage, and I don't see any reason for it. Can someone explain the reason for the hyphens, or alternatively, can they be removed? Thanks. (The same holds for "line of battle".) Zaslav 21:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I've never seen "ship-of-the-line" spelled without the hyphens. I don't often read fiction... so perhaps that's why...--12.182.30.4 (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The use of hyphens in English signifies that the words run together when spoken without any pause in between them - hence 'ship-of-the-line' or 'Rolls-Royce'. Without the hyphens the phrases would be pronounced as separate words, whereas they are actually specifically related to one another. So, 'ship-of-the-line' has a specific naval meaning whereas 'ship of the line' could mean a ship operated by a steam navigation company such as Cunard or P&O, i.e., a liner.

Mahmudiye (1829)
In the Ottoman archives, the size of Mahmudiye (1829) is given as 201 x 56 kadem (1 kadem = 37.887 cm) or 76.15 × 21.22 m (249.8 × 69.6 ft). The ship carried 1,280 sailors on board. These figures would make it the largest ever ship-of-the-line in history (even larger than Valmy).

However, in some sources, the dimensions are given as 62x17x7m.

Can an enthusiast of the subject determine which of these measures are correct? 88.242.37.64 (talk) 21:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I understood the reason: 201 x 56 "kadem" is often mistranslated as "feet", but "kadem" and "feet" are not exactly the same. 201 x 56 "feet" = 62 x 17 m. But, 201 x 56 "kadem" = 76.15 x 21.22 m (the correct size). 78.176.105.37 (talk) 21:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

National Prejudice Issue
The links for lists of ships by nation all state the relevant nation, except one. The ships list for the British Royal Navy is listed as just "the Royal Navy", as though there were only one navy that deserves the title "Royal".108.207.121.139 (talk) 04:10, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not prejudice, it is normal usage. See Royal Navy: "Due to ... historical prominence, it is common – even among non-Britons – to refer to it as "The Royal Navy" without qualification." Shem (talk) 12:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

very few inline citations
This article has only 11 inline citations, for an article with a lot of text and many sweeping statements. Relying on a bibliography does not substitute for a proper citation for statements like the ones marked in the lead with the citation needed flag, and so many other in the body of the article. Examples of sentences of fact or judgment that would do well with a citation include
 * This aspect of the cog was kept in the newer style carrack designs and proved its worth in battles like that at Diu in 1509.
 * With the growing importance of colonies and exploration and the need to maintain trade routes across stormy oceans, galleys and galleasses (a larger, higher type of galley with side-mounted guns, but lower than a galleon) were used less and less, and only in ever more restricted purposes and areas, that by about 1750, with a few notable exceptions, they were of little use in naval battles.
 * As broadsides became increasingly dominant in battle, tactics changed.

All these are before the very first inline citation.


 * The adoption of line-of-battle tactics had consequences for ship design.
 * The largest sailing three-decker ship of the line ever built in the West was the French Valmy, launched in 1847.

There are more places needing inline citations. There are many wikilinks to specific ships, battles and wars, but it is not clear that any of them would support the main points of this article so as to replace the need for the inline citations. --Prairieplant (talk) 00:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

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