"How were naval battles in the 1800s and before?" Topic

"How were the tactics coordinated, what were the most common tactics, and what weapons and ammo were commonly used?…"

See here
link

Amicalement
Armand

A book length reply would be required to adequately answer that question.

No time at the moment.

B

School project ?

A book length reply would be required to adequately answer that question.

I completely disagree. A single book would be completely insufficient. :-)

You could easily top any of the answers on that page, Blutarski. Even the better answers there made me wince a bit.

- Ix

In the 1700s and early 1800s, the common tactic when engaging an enemy fleet was to deploy your fleet in a line of battle, with the biggest ships (ships of the line) in the center and the smaller ships, from frigates on down, at opposite ends of the line.

As to the question, "How were tactics coordinated," the short answer is (a) when possible, tactics were discussed with the ship captains ahead of time, and (b) visual signals were given by flag. Obviously, the coordination was very basic and pretty much went to hell when the ships became closely engaged.