It introduced the mechanization of war

Feb 23, 2009 08:32 GMT  ·  By
This painting depicts the battle between the Spanish Armada and the English Fleet
   This painting depicts the battle between the Spanish Armada and the English Fleet

The reign of Elizabeth I of England (September 7, 1533 – March 24, 1603), other than helping the UK get past one of its major historical challenges, namely the battle against the Spanish Armada, also introduced some of the most important innovations in naval warfare. According to the latest scientific studies, the vastly outnumbered English fleet managed to defeat the Spaniards because they employed standardized guns, which used the same type of powder and gun shells of the same type. This allowed ammunition and explosives to be changed between ships without worries of incompatibility.

“This marked the beginning of a kind of mechanization of war. The ship is now a gun platform in a way that it wasn't before,” Professor Eric Grove from the Salford University, who is a naval historian, explains. “Elizabeth's navy created the first ever set of uniform cannon[s], capable of firing the same size shot in a deadly barrage. [The] navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies, and which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later,” Oxford University marine archaeologist Mensun Bound adds.

One of the main things that Elizabeth and her gunners learned was that many small guns were far more effective than a few large ones. And so, they renounced the old way of carrying out naval warfare, set forth by her father, Henry VIII. The British fleet was equipped with many smaller cannons, which could fire a cannonball at a distance of a mile. But seeing how vessels were regularly just 100 yards away from each other, the English fleet's cannons had at that point enough power to pierce any kind of armor, and even to come out on the other side.

“What we have shown is that the English navy and its gun founders were almost 50 years ahead of their time technologically,” Bound says. In all, Elizabeth's ideas made England's fleet the most deadly force on the face of the Earth for the next three centuries. Very few battles were lost during that time, and British artillery operators became national heroes, while, under Henry VIII, they were the laughing stock of the entire kingdom.