Can someone help me understand Nelson's tactics at trafalgar

>>1969859
>How did the British manage to pull a win here?
They had God on their side.

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>>1969867
Aight. Please dont be goofy. K thanx.

>>1969859
>Is there some other tactic at play I am not understanding?
Yes. In seeking to find the most advantageous formation, Admirals in the age of sail had lost sight of why formations are so important in teh first place, command and control. The whole advantage of a formation is that a well-drilled fleet will know exactly where the flagship is and exactly where to look for orders via signal flags. If the flagship or the ability to perceive commands is removed from the formation, it cannot serve its purpose and it certainly can't respond to another formation adequately, no matter how advantageous its theoretical situation.

Nelson realized this, and so he prioritized disabling the enemy command and control (i.e. the flagship at the center of the fleet) over finding an advantageous formation. By removing command and control, all the benefits of a formation were negated, and this loss of coordination was exacerbated by a lack of experience on the part of the French and Spanish Sailors. Without somebody to give orders, the two ends of the Franco-iberian formation were not able to coordinate their wings and double up on the British battle line, or to respond effectively in any way at all.

tl;dr the enemy's gate is down.

>>1969889
Interesting. So he essentially saw the reward of going straight for the flagship at the center of the French line as worth risking getting hit with their broadsides. Very interesting.
So all in all is it still considered a risky move for him to have went right into their T?

>>1969903
It was risky, but you have to keep in mind how inexperienced the French and Spanish sailors were compared to the British. They were not used to adjusting and operating cannons, and often missed the British ships completely.

"I think it will surprise and confound the enemy," Nelson wrote to a naval colleague, describing his overall approach. "They won't know what I am about. It will bring forward a pell-mell battle, and that is what I want."

When the smoke had cleared, the British had outkilled their opponents by 10 to 1, lost no ships and put an end to Napoleon's grand plan of invading Britain and destroying it as a naval and commercial power. It was not a pretty sight
When shot whipped across an open deck, the pressure wave alone could kill a man, while others nearby might look down to see their clothes on fire.

>>1969859
It's the same thing as blitzkrieg, concentrating all the force on one point
It's also important to note that British ships were technologically superior and offered a much greater firepower than the opponants

>>1970025
There is no way that last line is true

>>1970025
This doesn't answer OP's question at all.

>>1969859

Not a historian or a sailor, but as I remember reading about it:

You are correct in thinking that the Spanish would be able to bring their entire line to bear on the Brits while they were sailing into them. However:
A.) they would be firing both at smaller and (IIRC) better angled/armored targets.
B.) Once Nelson broke their lines the Spanish were completely fucked. Ship-to-ship communication in those days were based on signalling with flags, if your line is broken so is any way of effective communication. Additionally, the Brits could fire both sides of guns and also had the same advantage of facing their sides towards the enemys bow/stern.

>>1970046
>It's also important to note that British ships were technologically superior and offered a much greater firepower than the opponants

No, they weren't and didn't.

Brits won because they had superior admirals and crew while Spanish and French crews were inexperienced or retreved with press gang. This was especially true for French who just finished beheading their aristocracy and sailors didn't have any experience to recreate unlike land forces which were at battle frequently.

>>1970222
>This was especially true for French who just finished beheading
or 15 years ago when the beheadings happened

>>1970239
15 years didn't help, if anything it exacerbated the problem because the sailors that didn't get beheaded were out of business by then, there was only new blood which never sailed and didn't have anyone to learn from. It's same problem soviets faced during early phases of WW2.

>>1970246
>the French Revolution had the same effect on the French Navy that the Great Purges had on the Red Army

No

>>1969859
Because Nelson remembered the first rule of Age of Sail combat: When the clusterfuck starts, the side with better men wins. Hence the plan was basically "hit them in the middle to turn it into the clusterfuck ASAP, then use our superior initiative and skills to mop them up."

>>1970046
>It's also important to note that British ships were technologically superior and offered a much greater firepower than the opponants

Other way around, much of the Royal Navy ships of the line were older ships. The Océan and Tonnant class just better then their British counter parts and the Téméraire class set the new stranded for 74 gun ships. The British in fact copies the Téméraire class.

Truth is that for much of 18th the French were making the technologically superior ships other then a 20 year period of 1750 to 1770 thanks to Sir Thomas Slade. The British just had a much better trained and staffed navy. That is how they won their Naval battles.

>>1970274

yes