Explaining British Naval Dominance During the Age of Sail

Summary

The other day I discussed how high monitoring costs can explain the emergence of “aristocratic” systems of governance:Aristocracy and Hostage CapitalArjun Panickssery · Jan 8There's a conventional narrative by which the pre-20th century aristocracy was the "old corruption" where civil and military positions were distributed inefficiently due to nepotism until the system was replaced by a professional civil service after more enlightened thinkers prevailed ...An element of Douglas Allen’s argument that I didn’t expand on was the British Navy. He has a separate paper called “The British Navy Rules” that goes into more detail on why he thinks institutional incentives made them successful from 1670 and 1827 (i.e. for most of the age of fighting sail).In the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) the British had a 7-to-1 casualty difference in single-ship actions. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815) the British had a 5-to-1 difference in captured/destroyed ships, and a 30-to-1 difference for ships of the line—the largest and most powerful ships. By the 1800s, contemporary accounts expected British ships to defeat opponents that had 50% greater gunpower and crew.Allen cites evidence that this dominance wasn’t because of superior technology and that French ships were even marginally superior by the end of the Seven Years’ War. There wasn’t any substantial difference in gunnery or other equipment, and any new technology was quickly adopted by every navy.Similar to the previous post, we see a dynamic whereMonitoring is difficult: The sea was big and sometimes unmapped; communication was slow and limited.There was a large random element: Wind and storms are often plausible excuses for not achieving specific objectives.Incentives were misaligned: Captains mostly profited from capturing wealthy merchant ships and receiving a share of the spoils. In battle, the captain’s position on the raised quarterdeck made him vulnerable (Nelson was killed by a French snipe...