I Can Haz RightZ?

[gaelic cowboy]

Superior in quality though, not quantity, British ships were faster and heavier gunned, making it possible for Britain to apply high power in precise ways whilst maintaining a relatively small land army.

Not only quality recruits and ships ye also had a fine research and innovation tradition in battle tactics(naval tactic I believe were superior), and ye more meritocratic than other countries (being connected still was a massive leg up the ranks obviously though).

Basically necessity bred invention plus a bit of luck in being spearated from Europe.

[Slyspy]

Superior in quality though, not quantity, British ships were faster and heavier gunned, making it possible for Britain to apply high power in precise ways whilst maintaining a relatively small land army.

During the formation of the Empire British ships were, generally, neither faster nor more heavily gunned than their European rivals. Britain gained an Empire mostly through people's desire for money.

[gaelic cowboy]

During the formation of the Empire British ships were, generally, neither faster nor more heavily gunned than their European rivals. Britain gained an Empire mostly through people's desire for money.

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kronXOWTU&feature=related"]Empire of the Seas

I cant find the earlier programmes that deal with trafalgar but this programme was very interesting

Seeing as your in UK you can prob watch it on the bbc website I remeber it basically said britain did have better ships

[al Roumi]

Step away from the jingoism gentlemen, it's rife.

During the formation of the Empire British ships were, generally, neither faster nor more heavily gunned than their European rivals. Britain gained an Empire mostly through people's desire for money.

And in fact, much of that capital and trade originaly came from the Netherlands. The "glorious revolution" tied England to the Netherlands but also sealed the Netherlands decline from a first rate colonising/mercantile force.

And while we're at it, the capital on which the Netherlands rose to prominence was originaly Latin American/Spanish - Spain depended on the bankers of Italy and the Netherlands rather than developing its own financial base.

[al Roumi]

Empire of the Seas

I cant find the earlier programmes that deal with trafalgar but this programme was very interesting

Seeing as your in UK you can prob watch it on the bbc website I remeber it basically said britain did have better ships

To my mind, Trafalgar is after the time Slyspy mentions.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

To my mind, Trafalgar is after the time Slyspy mentions.

Trafalgar is in what is termed the "new" Empire, the "old" Empire was before the American revolution.

[al Roumi]

Trafalgar is in what is termed the "new" Empire, the "old" Empire was before the American revolution.

Great. I'm talking about the "Glorious revolution" of 1688, one of the main (Dutch) motivations for which was the alliance of England and the Netherlands to overwhelm France.

[Louis VI the Fat]

What's a 'tragalfar'?

[Idaho]

1. So as the Muslim world is exploding with all sorts of awesome democracy much has been attributed to social networks such as facebook and Twitter as the catalysts for these protests. To me this is the same as giving all the credit to Bush for first coming up with the idea that spreading democracy can work.

It's not about the Muslim world. It's the Arab world, and it's always had a healthy tendancy for overthrowing tyrants and pushing for social and political change. As I have said a hundred times on this board, this political tendancy has recently been subverted into political islam, but that's only a subversion, it's not the main stream. It's very notable how non-islamic and secular the flavour and style of these protests have been. They have been what arab protests have historically often been about - jobs and corruption.

Rome used it's brutally efficient military machine, a result of a cultural view which favoured a spartan and militaristic lifestyle as a means of political advancement.

Rome's acendancy was about taxes and logistics. They were simply more organised on a larger scale.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Rome's acendancy was about taxes and logistics. They were simply more organised on a larger scale.

Rome's military drew from a much larger section of society than her enemies, by organising her society into teared classes and drawing from all of them she increased her relative manpower without increasing the size of her population.

[Idaho]

Rome's military drew from a much larger section of society than her enemies, by organising her society into teared classes and drawing from all of them she increased her relative manpower without increasing the size of her population.

You're putting the cart before the horse. The logistical sophistication led to the stratification of class.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You're putting the cart before the horse. The logistical sophistication led to the stratification of class.

No it didn't, the class stratification was in place by 500 BC, and greatly refined in 350 BC, logistical innovation did not occur until 106 BC when Marius greatly reduced the Roman baggage train, the centralised Military Industrial Complex of the Romans was a product of the early Empire.

If you read Polybius you can see that what impressed him was the way Roman society was organised, not their technical logistics. It all had to do with how you define a citizen, Rome was the polar opposite of Sparta in this regard, it defined citizenship much more widely than it's Hellenic and Hellenistic neighbours.

[Vladimir]

During the formation of the Empire British ships were, generally, neither faster nor more heavily gunned than their European rivals. Britain gained an Empire mostly through people's desire for money.

You people are all wrong. Sodomy and the lash is the key to empire!