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Saturday, April 18, 2009

A mistaken idea that I had in the past

Perhaps 15 years ago, before I had very much knowledge and information about Dutch warships in 1652-1653, I could only imagine what the ships were liked. From The First Dutch War, I knew that Michiel De Ruyter's flagship Neptunus in 1652 was said to be armed with 28 guns. I imagined that if there were so few guns, that the ship might carry larger guns on the lower tier. I got that idea from a book about sailing warships from the late 16th to the 18th Century that showed an armament for a Dutch ship from about 1600. The ship had perhaps 18 guns, but there were mostly larger guns, perhaps 18pdr. I had thought that the Neptunus might be armed like that: 18pdr on the lower tier and 6pdr and 8pdr on the upper tier and quarterdeck. In fact, the Neptunus was quite small and lightly armed. You have to wonder how De Ruyter survived the Battle of Plymouth in such a modest ship.

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