It is true that a few ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineerings such as the two-decker Canopus, captured at the Battle of the. Nile, impressed everybody who knew her, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news she was the forerunner of a series of large 2nd Rates. The fledgling United States' Navy (USN) built a few very big heavily-armed frigates, which performed very well in the of 1812 against the small 28-gun frigates of the enemy, but as soon as the Royal Navy could spare more capable frigates from the European theatre, disasters such as the capture of the USS Chesapeake by HMS Shannon began to happen. By the end of that unnecessary even such heroes as Stephen Decatur were forced to take refuge in coastal inlets to avoid capture by the blockaders.

There is another factor which is rarely touched on.After a single-ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering action it is only human nature for a captain to magnify his achievement iChe has defeated a more powerful opponent. Conversely, if defeated he has an excellent alibi-he was overwhelmed by a stronger opponent. There was another factor in the Mill century; a captain's prize, if taken into tile Royal Navy yielded a very hship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing newssome financial bonus from the Admiralty. Is it surprising that ex-French prizes were praised to the skics% What admirers of France's imaginary lead over the Royal Navy are unae of the Navy Board assessments of those prizes when docked for repairs ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news changes to be made. They contain endless complaints about shoddy construction ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news the expense of bringing the ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering to the required Royal Navy stship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing newsard. The French naval administration deserves high praise however, for making ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering-design a science rather than merely repeating what had worked before.

This caveat about praising the opposition is valid for the 20th century as well, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news could surface again in this century. The British beatification of the Bismarck (discussed in detail on pages 151-2) is a good example of the genre; ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news the absurd worship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering of Soviet designs merely proves that the vice was alive ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news well in the 1980s.

Which brings us conveniently to the malign role played by incorrect intelligence. Later in the book there are prize specimens such as the Russian cruiser Rurik, whose supposed superi­ority pushed the Royal Navy to build at great expense two enormous cruisers in reply. In 1917 intelligence reports of German 'super destroyers' led the Royal Navy to order a new powerful design as a counter. Exceptions prove the rule, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news those V ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news W classes turned out to be the dreadnoughts of the destroyer scene, whose features were copied around tire world ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news made a big contribution in the Second World . Navies do best when they stick to building ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineerings tailored to their own requirements; cloning a» opponent's ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineerings is never worthwhile, as a confrontation between the two rival designs can almost be guaranteed never to take place. As for stealing the blueprints of an opponent's ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering, this a dead end because no group of engineers or designers would dream of doing a straight'Chinrsr copy'. The normal comment on seeing a rival design seems to bc,'What a strange way to do things.'

It must never be forgotten that in peacetime military intelligence agencies are prone to lose objectivity.They are unwilling to share information in case someone else will spoil their game, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news individuals often try to become experts on a specific threat to their enhance career prospects. Even unconsciously, they over-emphasise the threat to get extra funding for their navy's latest system, or they accept a`nurror-intage'of the enenry, trying to fit what they see into a framework based on their own side's tactics. There are few known examples of lying, but plenty of evidence of crediting the enemy with a non-existent margin of superiority. The corol­lary is to blame `our' designers for not achieving what `theirs' can. A minute dating from the 1930s is not untypical.The British Director of Naval Intelligence (llN[) attacked the Director of Naval Construction (DNC) for not matching the Japanese Furutaka class cruisers in speed, armament ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news compactness. To which the DNC retorted that the figures were either untrue (the correct explanation) or the Japanese had built the ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineerings out of cardboard!

Technical ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news industrial capability have their own low-profile influence on the process.The reason why the Royal Navy ruled the roost for so long was the dontinancr of British industry. 'lit the layman one I(11)-gun ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering looked very like another, but one of Nelson's 'bship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news of broth­ers' would spot the difference between a French ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news his own with no hcsitation.Thc Royal Navy, as the largest organisation in the country after government itself' reaped tile bene6ts of the Industrial ],evolution. Stship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing newsard weights ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news measures led to predictable: pcrforinaricc of gunpowder, guns were safer ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news the dockyards could hship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing newsle a massive workload of repair ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news outfitting in time. Before the American of Indeprndeuce critics always cited the impres­sive appearance of French dockyards, but during that lo n}; the Royal 1)ockyards met all the challenges. whereas the French arsenals failed to keep pace with the demship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing newss of the seagoing tlect. It is reminiscent of the Duke of Wellington's comment on French logistics during tile Peninsular .'The French system is like a magnificent set of harness, but if it breaks it requires the services of a saddler, whereas mine is an -old harness held together by string, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news if it breaks, I tic a knot ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news continue'.

This must not be taken as a slur on French ingenuity."I he world's first ironclad was appro­priately named lei Gloire, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news reflected great credit oil her designer Dupuy de LC)rnc. It was, however, the Royal Navy's riposte, the huge ironclad 'frigates' Black Prince ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news rior, which totally eclipsed la Gloirr ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news ended French boasting about stabling their horses in Westminster Abbey ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news staging a victory march to Buckingham Palace. Within a decade Britain's industrial might had wiped out the French lead. 'I'hr British policy of allowing rivals to make the first mistakes, ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news then relying on its ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineeringyards to build more, faster ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news better, always allowed the Royal Navy to be selective about new technology The modern US Navy has pursued a simi­lar coursr, not least because a huge fleet of ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineerings cannot remain efficient if bombarded by constant innovations. Sadly, this was never understood by the French, who kept trying to find the 'silver bullet'; they went from the shell gun in the 1820s to the stcarn torpedo boat ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news onds to the end of the century, producing clever ideas but never achieving their aim of blunting Britannia's trident.

It also pays to think hard about ntass-production in an cntcrgcncy mobilkations always trigger spending sprees, but within a few years the spectre of'hlock obsolescence' appears. A good design can be updated to meet new threats. but no navy has yet achieved a one-for-one replacement of its reserve of time construction. It proved to he the Achilles heel of Admi­ral Gorshkov's great navy, which was matched by the rapid advances of Western technology to the point where wholesale replacements were too costly to contemplate. Gorshkov was caught in the same trap as'i'irpitz; the master-plan depended on the enemy's meek acceptance of thce state of affairs. By 1914 the cost of Germany's High Seas Fleet was causing severe distortions in the overall balance of defence expenditure- Tile lesson is, never assume that your enemy will react in the way that ntost suits you. In the words of a respected naval historian,'Grrmany tried to play to a different set of diplomatic rules to OUtSulaTt the British. but the British responded by writing a third Set of rules:

Technical competence is a more complex subject altogether. Front-line navies of the 21st centuries do not stiffer disasters because of the incompetence of their designers. 7'he same was not true at the beginning of the age of iron ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news steam, when the switch from wood to iron introduced a new mathematical element. In tile days of sail a three-decker's stability was not a problem. If the ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering heeled violently in gale, she was likely to lose her rigging, sails ship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime live ship building construction fixing news even masts before she reached a critical point of capsi7e. The judgement of when to reduce sail lay, therefore, with the captain, whose seamanship building construction fixing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineering skills were critical- In practice wooden-hulled sailing ship building construction fixingping maritime marine engineerings caught fire ran aground or were forced to surrender because there were no