Just a thought that popped into my head while watching one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. During one of the naval battles the British navy seemed very organized as far as ship maneuvers. I know this was just a movie but how would that play out in real world applications for the time period?
In: Technology
Prior to the invention of the radio(and for sometime after it) messages were passed using a series of flags. Flags could be used to spell out words, or flag combinations could be used to denote a more complex message that was already written in the code books. Ships had to stay close enough together to be able to see the signal flags of the leadship (which would fly the flag of the Admiral onboard, thus Flagship)
Larger fleet engagements would have both sides arrange themselves in a line called the “Line of Battle” (this is why big ships were “Ships of the Line”) because it meant that they only had to look at the ship in front of them to get the signals from the flag.
Smaller operations with just a couple ships would have mostly fallen back on established tactics, there are only a couple good choices in each situation so the captain in charge calls for the flags that indicate which one he picked and the ship will either harass from range, break off, or close for boarding. It wasn’t like trying to catch a super nimble target that could dodge either, the fastest British sailing ship from the Age of Sail could do a whopping 14.4 knots (26 kph) and any large ships like Galleons or 3rd rates would have been notably slower.
The result of this all was that most ship combat was generally one or two ships versus one or two ships, or 30+ ships versus 30+ ships, and in both cases crews just had to watch 1 or 2 other ships
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