Better French ships: myth or reality?

[MikeCK]

Recently however, I read in a book called "French build ships were notI have recently read several books on both the sailing ships of the era and the battles/tactics. Concerning French vs. British built ships, a book called "Broadsides" stated that French build ships were  not only faster and better handling than they are British counterparts but also more durable and of a higher quality.  This view on French versus British ships seems to be the  conventional wisdom. 

Recently however, I read in a book called " fighting ships in the Napoleonic era".  In this book the author claims that the traditional view is a myth. He admits that French ships were faster and were generally more maneuverable; however,  he states that they were not in fact more durable or better built. They used iron nails and other expedient measures which overtime would dissolve and rot causing the ship to split where as the British used other methods that made for a much more sturdy and durable ship.  The reasoning is that because British ships were on patrol for much greater periods of time they needed to be durable and able to  operate in the ocean environment for years at a time before repair. They also stayed out for longer periods of time on patrol. The french ships were often in Port and we're not being used like the British ships were so they did not need to be as durable or is long-lasting.

 So basically are French ships better at everything? Or are French ships faster and more maneuverable but British ships far more durable, comfortable with headroom and better able to sustain punishment ?

 

[DeRuyter]

The safe answer is that they were built differently with different goals in mind. You could say as a general proposition that French ships were usually more lightly build and often faster or more maneuverable, but not always.

Take frigates for example. The British had to consider a design that could stay at sea for 6 months and retained certain sea keeping qualities,  especially in rough seas. I read a British account of a captured French frigate that she pitched badly and shipped water over the bow in moderate seas for example. Having said that the British often copied the lines of captured French ships and developed classes of their own based on the French design.

[maturin]

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 not only faster and better handling than they are British counterparts but also more durable and of a higher quality.  

This is not the conventional wisdom; it is absurd.

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He admits that French ships were faster and were generally more maneuverable; however,  he states that they were not in fact more durable or better built.

This IS the conventional wisdom, but it is also something of a myth.

French frigates had a reputation for being faster than British designs for much of the 18th Century, but with very important caveats. First of all, if a French frigate was faster, it was usually because it was bigger; the French were willing to spend more money on fewer vessels. This pushed the British to build their own larger frigates, which were just as fast, and by the Napoleonic Wars the idea of French superiority was outdated. In addition, French ships sometimes fared better sailing downwind in mild conditions. That may be very frustrating for the British officer who can't catch them, until the boot is on the other foot with the French ship struggling in heavy weather, makings more leeway than the British ship.

British naval architecture was relatively backwards in the early 1700s, when the French were building fast privateers and introducing the classic frigate. But the British matched the French at the speed game as soon as they started building their own frigates, which often owed something to French lines, but also erased the drawbacks associated with French designs. And they didn't need to be oversized to be fast. Take the Niger-class, for example, of very moderate size in the 1760s, but they could make 14 knots. There was some ebb and flow over the course of the century, but by the Napoleonic Wars there is no real advantage when it comes to comparisons of French and British design.*

Meanwhile, French frigates were were of quantitatively lighter construction in many ways, seriously diminishing their usefulness by British standards. I've never heard of a reputable source suggesting that they were superior in this regard. I've also never heard anything that mentions more headroom on French frigates, which doesn't make sense given the stereotype of low, shallow and fast. You can't combine those things with comfort.**

The book you need to read is 'Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars' by Robert Gardiner. He lays out these arguments very well.

And for a French perspective, read Jaques Boudriot's highly-technical tome 'History of the French Frigate.' Boudriot is surpassingly rigorous in all things and never makes any claims about overall French superiority.

 

* A lot of the evidence we have points to overall British superiority if anything, but we have to consider the Anglocentrism of the texts and the poor state of the French service at the time.

** Also, towards the end of the 1700s the British were far ahead of the French in making their ships livable. Better ventilation belowdecks, no burying bodies in the ballast, etc.

[BungeeLemming]

If you want a read about the comparism between 18pdr frigates of the several nations around the napoleonic aera you can have this:

https://depositonce.tu-berlin.de/bitstream/11303/598/1/Dokument_8.pdf

You will find stuff in there like Maturin said, too.

The british had to run an empire. They needed reliable vessels which can hold as much supplies (food, water etc) as they could possibly build space for.

The french ship construction was not directly flawed but something they did was making their vessels less durable than the british ones. I cant remember what it was but you can read it up (if you understand german huehue)

Page 71 and following is maybe the most interesting if you want to get an idea of what the captains though of the various vessels. The dissertation at page 73 features a comparism of ship classes. The source of the data is by the nation's captains. Obviously british captains got to test a lot of french designs whereas vice verca.. not so much^^

 

[Fluffy Fishy]

The short answer to me is generally French naval architecture was pretty world leading, they adopted simple fluid dynamics and the scientific principle much more early, however British ships tended to go through different technological advantages, a British ship was better at different things than a French ship. While France generally happens to have slightly faster and more manoeuvrable ships by pure design, they didn't have the advantages that innovations like coppering gave, which meant that the British navy was less reliant on perfect plans. Lets also not forget that almost unanimously Sir Thomas Slade (British) is generally considered the greatest naval architect of the 18th Century. British ships tended to be more sturdy and also more quickly adopted designs that improved build strength, where you see things develop in Britain like the Seppings method. British ships also tended to have larger stores, with better organised and resourced crews.

The French did have some technological advantages, but Maturin has you covered mostly. If you really want to explore who has the best naval capacity its important to remember that it wasn't just a race between Britain and France, but also there were some fantastic contributions from other nations, such as Iberia, The German and Italian states, Russia and the Northern European countries, and really what made nations able to move on and become powerful at sea was the ability to adapt and work out what a foreign capture would do better than the ships produced in your home country, the real gains for the various admiralties were the ones who could take a best idea of a country, work out what makes it best, then how to apply it to your own navy.

Naval technology is much like any other type of technology, its a continuous tennis of ideas, hopefully adding something every time. There is no best nation, each nations had their own special attributes and skills

[maturin]

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The french ship construction was not directly flawed but something they did was making their vessels less durable than the british ones. I cant remember what it was but you can read it up

Skimpy fastenings for certain structural timbers, for one.

Plus the longer frigate always needs to worry about hogging a bit more.

[BungeeLemming]

ahyes.. I knew there was a reason why the brits retained to shorter vessels.

btw: the brits fiddeled around with lots and lots of different ship designs. The french did it a bit more modern: have a selection of few classes and let the best one win the competition to mass production. Hence the Hebe is so widely used and the Temeraire (SoL) as well.

[MikeCK]

38 minutes ago, Hodo said:

I believe this is a myth.. mostly.

The French built good ships, but so did the British.  No one is going to build a crap ship for combat during that time.  

Now the design concepts may be different.  The French made more concessions towards comfort and ease of use.  While the British maybe slacked on creature comforts in favor of more utility.  

 

Hodo,  I had understood this to be the opposite. Because British ships were deployed for long lengths of time and had more crew per ship the British built their ships for more comfort. An example would be more height between decks then friendships which were very cramped .  The French did not generally conduct long-term patrols. Is this not correct?

[MikeCK]

 I should clarify my first sentence of the original post where part of what I said appears to of been deleted. The book I had read that stated the French build superiority in general was "broadsides" by  Nathan Miller

[maturin]

31 minutes ago, BungeeLemming said:

ahyes.. I knew there was a reason why the brits retained to shorter vessels.

Yeah, shorter vessels.

Which gives us reason to suspect any source that talks about French speed "and maneuverability." The author is probably just using videogame logic and throwing in the 'maneuverability' part because it 'makes sense.'

All I've heard is a lot of observations that French ships (and British ones too, when they got longer) were slow in wearing (aka, manual sails 180 turn).

 

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 The book I had read that stated the French build superiority in general was "broadsides" by  Nathan Miller

I could forgive Miller if his book covered 1700-1815, but it is a rather egregious statement for 1775-1815. By the second half of that period, French naval architecture could even be described as conservative. 

[MikeCK]

"Maneuverability" is my term. He used "handling".

[maturin]

3 minutes ago, MikeCK said:

"Maneuverability" is my term. He used "handling".

Oh, OK. 

But the tradeoffs involved in seeking speed are generally not kind to handling. An sharp-built ship may tend to pitch violently, a shallow hull won't be as weatherly, etc. 

British design was conservative at times, but the whole advantage of a conservative design is the ability to reliably produce rugged ships that handle well in a variety of conditions.

[NorthernWolves]

To the OP, in short no.

[NorthernWolves]

Ok so, British ships had hanging and lodging knees at every beam end, the French threw hanging knees along the deck as occasionally and randomly as a Parisian breeze. British built ships had much more rigidity throughout. British ships performed well on blockaded duty for months fully loaded and at times over gunned. Captured French ships were regarded as 'lightly built' by the British, shipped a ton of water and were not very weatherly and were sent in for structural repairs more often when put to standard British use.

However the French ships were faster and sailed much better when the wind was where they liked it, basically having better sailing in a much smaller sailing profile window.

Now as far as hull thickness and resistance to shot, there is not much to choose between the two, French frigate hull thicknesses matched that of British frigates and British 74's matched that of French ones. The biggest difference was British frames were closer together at the keel and tapered (sided dimensions) as they rose to the rails (2" to 7" on 74s) and French ships maintained the same space from the keel to the top, generally 5.25" on 74s.

It is far too complex of a subject to label it with 'these ships were better' blah blah.

Edited January 9, 2017 by NorthernWolves