Naval Tactics

Yes, you can use cannon. Yes, you can board other vessels.  Trouble is, you can't do any of that glorious, deadly, completely foolish movie plot action, unless you can identify, fool, and approach your target in the first place. That means constantly drilling your crews for skill, and  disciplining yourself in trigonometry, navigation, and learning your ship and how to get the best out of her. It takes a good Bos'un, a good crew, and  accurate charts, tide tables, and all your other navigation skills, and knowing  a bit of deception. The rest is luck and of course fate, and in how the winds will treat you.

Privateers, relied heavily upon the time honored practice of misrepresentation to get close to their prey, while stealth and night attacks assist in cutting out  expeditions on plantations.  The main point is to find something weak and take it. Then  return to a base camp and collect more information on outgoing merchants, and do it  again. Large or small operations at sea, these sailing tactics below apply.

As the efforts of Colonial privateers grew, they  actually were able to launch multiple vessel operations, where naval tactics  became important. For more info on the Chesapeake Bay during this period, see  our 1700s  page.

Step one; Find the  opponent. The sea is large and you are small. The chief aids to finding the enemy are intelligence, knowledge, planning, and fate. Intelligence makes one aware of departure dates,  enemy plans and objectives, size and strength. Knowledge of the tides, winds, weather, the opposing commanders background, habits and skills allows you to  make an intelligent guess as to where, when, how and if you will encounter your  opponent. From this formulated plan or pursuit and attack, you know put your  faith in whatever fates, gods or luck you have, and attempt to find and engage  your opponent. Once sighted by the lookouts, it's time to catch  them.

Step two. Jockey for  position. Contrary to popular movie  belief, most Prizes were not seized by grappling to and boarding, after firing  broadside for broadside. Seizing a prize is a question of sailing skill. This  takes two main points of focus. The first is in your planning, the second is  pure skill.

If your target is known and his course  predictable, then the point is not to intercept the target, but to anticipate  his actions and then intercept the target in a manner that provides you  with the advantages in tide and wind, and him the disadvantage. (explained in  more detail later) Once sighted, the problem is to approach the enemy without  alarming him. The most popular way to do this was deception, a completely  honorable practice even in the Royal Navy, within limits. For example, it is  acceptable to disguise your ship as a whaler or merchantman, and to fly an  enemies flag, as long as you raise your own flag at the moment of attack. It is  however, completely dishonorable, to fly a flag of distress, or to surrender and  then withdraw the surrender.

Step Three; seizing your  objective. Once  within range of your guns, identify yourself honorably and fire a shot across  the bows, continuing to negotiate with the wind for position. This explains the  requirement of such large, experienced crews. You will have to be able, assuming  the enemy does not surrender, to expertly sail the ship, with all that requires  from the Quartermaster, bosun and crew, and still have enough men to man and  service your guns.

Well, considering that a Merchantman probably  doesn't have the same number of crew, they are less experienced and disciplined,  and/or they are simply outgunned, the captain will lower his flag, be brought  over, and will present his papers. You are done. In a Royal Naval vessel, the  process would be to send an officer to take possession with a skeleton crew to  sail her to a prize port, and her own crew to your hold. In a pirate vessel, you  of course have the option of just seizing the goods and releasing the vessel, or  burning the vessel and setting the crew who did not want to sign on onto an  island or the nearest port. Pretty anti-climactic, but historically  accurate.

Should your opponent refuse to surrender, and  choose to fight or flee, you will have to use your skills to out sail him.  Should he be a better sailor, he'll escape. If you are, you will be able to get  within range and attempt to stop his means of propulsion. There is no point in  firing broadside to broadside when trying to seize a prize. Sunken vessels are  worth nothing. There is no profit. Better to demast her. Of course, should they  fail to outrace you, they can do the same, and are not so worried about who they  sink, main or kill.

Escape  tactics; flee or  fight

Knowledge.  If you are aware of the shoals, sand bars, protective    fortifications, etc, and are able to out sail your opponent (possibly simply because your ship is built faster than his) his lack of knowledge or    over-zealous actions may enable you to draw him into running aground, or refusing to enter a river where he may become bottled up once the tide runs out and he is unable to exit till the next high tide

Seamanship.    As you can tell by this point, being able to fire three rounds a minute with accuracy is all well and good, but if your crew is not well drilled and experienced, you''ll never be able to get close enough to    use them. So, how to do this. Approach from a good position, with the weather-gage. Sail faster, and maneuver to be ahead of your opponent, and    think like him, to be there one step of his anticipated move. Seizing another ship is a chess game, not brute force

Fight and Win; Broadside for Broadside.Yes, when a Royal Navy of one country meets the Navy of another country, everyone wants to defeat everyone else, or at least demast them so they can not be part of the action. Although the british, for example, might have considered themselves the best sailors, the were poor shipwrights. Their preference, though maybe not officially admitted policy, would be to seize an enemies vessel, especially should she be french, or one of the other better shipbuilding nations, and then the ship    would be bought into service by the admiralty at the prize court. In this manner the captain and crew still got their shares, and the Navy got a fast, sleek new vessel. Needless to say, as a privateer or pirate, this indeed was a valuable point of consideration. Sinking the opponent was not a good idea

Weather Gage. ;For a  ship to "have the weather gage" is to say that one ship or a line of ships are  windward of another ship or line of ships. Still lost? Of course you are, and so  what if a ship is windward of another? I'll try and explain this with a diagram  and some explanation.

To be windward means that side from which the wind  comes. If your ship is windward of another one, you are "upwind" of it. If you  are following, and get close enough, you an steal their wind, as your sails are  not only capturing the wind to propel you, but blocking the wind from their  sails. (figure one) If you are approaching a ship from windward, and he is  tacking up into the wind, you have the advantage of speed and maneuverability,  and he will probably reverse course and run.(figure two)

Tides. You may have noticed that there is also a tide in these figures. In figure  2, ship b is turning to use both wind and tide to flee. The problem for the  Captain of Ship A, in this example, is to find a way to calculate the time for  ship B to turn, regain the wind, and attempt to flee, and the course she will  take to do so. Once that is done, The Captain then has to adjust his own speed  to insure he does not pass Ship B on the starboard side, and by doing so lose  the weather gage. By sailing to find himself on the port side of B, and slowing  enough to stay slightly behind B, he can maintain the weather gage, and the  advantage of maneuverability.

The problem is that both ships are not moving in still  water, and both will drift with the tide at the same time they move forward.  This also has to be taken into advantage when plotting the course and speed of  both vessels. In Figure 2, if the Captain does not travel far enough against the  tide, he will drift to starboard of ship B, even though his bows point towards  her stern.

Having taken speed, tide, and wind into  consideration, and then trying to predict ship B's actions, The captain of A can  then set course. Of course, ship B is taking this to mind, and can do things  such as luff off, suddenly altering his course and slowing his speed, throwing  off Captain A's calculations. Captain B could also sail towards a storm on the  horizon, hoping to lose his pursuers in the storm at night. Should he feel  escape his only option, he might even throw cargo overboard, pump off his  drinking water supply, or even toss his great guns into the sea to lighten his  ship and increase speed. This is the game of Chess, or Cat and Mouse, that can  take hours or days, before possible final assault.

Now, what about all this fallderall about guns and  boarding. If your guns are able to throw shot farther than the opponent, cut her  masts and rigging so she loses headway. Once done, if they are foolish enough to  not surrender, then you are forced to approach closer. At this appoint, your  guns better be heavier, fire more rapidly, and more accurately than your  opponents. All this is discussed in detail on the Weapons Page.

You want more? Try this site, because you really must be  interested! Naval  Strategy and Tactics- Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge  G.C.B.

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