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Wednesday, May 05, 2004

I wanted to say some more about my last post

One thing that is striking about the two lists of survivors is that the English were much more heavily damaged than the Dutch. The Dutch still had little choice but to concede, as there were so many more English ships, and they were generally more heavily armed.

A point to realize is that both the fleets started with approximately equal numbers. Of course, the Dutch fleet was much more lightly armed than the English. Even ignoring broadside weight and just counting guns, there was a great difference. The results, however, show the folly of facing ships with demi-cannon (32pdr) and culverins (18pdr) with ships mostly armed with 8pdrs and 12pdrs on the lower tier. There were a few exceptions. The East Indiaman Vogelstruis had 18pdrs on the lower tier. The Brederode had 4-36pdr, along with 24pdr and 18pdr guns. The upper tier was armed with 12pdrs, in her case.

The Dutch didn't fix their "armament problem" completely until the Third Anglo-Dutch War. In the second war, many "battleships" were armed with 18pdrs on the lower tier and faced English ships with demi-cannon. Finally, in the third war, De Ruyter's flagship had a complete lower tier of 36pdrs.

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