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Concept
Line of battle
Summary
The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tactics were in widespread use by 1675.
Compared with prior naval tactics, in which two opposing ships closed on one another for individual combat, the line of battle has the advantage that each ship in the line can fire its broadside without fear of hitting a friendly ship. This means that in a given period, the fleet can fire more shots. Another advantage is that a relative movement of the line in relation to some part of the enemy fleet allows for a systematic concentration of fire on that part. The other fleet can avoid this by manoeuvring in a line itself, with a result typical for sea battles since 1675: two fleets sail alongside one another (or on the opposite tack).
The first recorded mention of the use of a line of battle tactic is to be found in the Instructions, provided in 1500 by Manuel I, king of Portugal, to the commander of a fleet dispatched to the Indian Ocean. The precision in the Instructions suggests that the tactic was in place before this date. Portuguese fleets overseas deployed in line ahead, firing one broadside and then putting about in order to return and discharge the other, resolving battles by gunnery alone. In a treatise of 1555, The Art of War at Sea, Portuguese theorist on naval warfare and shipbuilding, Fernão de Oliveira, recognized that at sea, the Portuguese "fight at a distance, as if from walls and fortresses...". He recommended the single line ahead as the ideal combat formation.
Line-of-battle tactics had been used by the Fourth Portuguese India Armada at the Battle of Calicut (1503), under Vasco da Gama, near Malabar against a Muslim fleet. One of the earliest recorded deliberate uses is documented in the First Battle of Cannanore between the Third Portuguese India Armada under João da Nova and the naval forces of Calicut, earlier in the same year.
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