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McGillis_is_a_Char t1_ivfqtou wrote

What are the differences between a 16th Century Galleon, and an 18th Century Ship of the Line?

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TheGreatOneSea t1_ivi7dnb wrote

Besides the obvious, I assume?

The Galleon would generally have had around 38 guns as a main battery, with more, generally smaller guns, if it was being used as a warship. The additional weight needed for war could cause problems, though, like the extra weight causing ships to partially fill the bottom decks with water; the end result was clunky, if not outright dangerous. Unsurprisingly, they also tended to be quite slow given their bulk, which caused serious problems for the Spanish Armada during its infamous attack on England.

Dedicated warships would come to be double-planked in the 17th Century, making the hull more resistant to guns, and the rigging was also improved. If we're going even further to the 18th, and also going all out by comparing Galleons like the Triumph (roughly the same kind of class used by Francis Drake,) with the Océan class (probably the most advanced class of its century,) we get:

  1. A tonnage of 1000 for the galleon against 2750 of the warship.
  2. 124–136 heavier guns against a roughly 1/3 of lighter for the galleon.
  3. The 10 knots of the warship against the 8 knots of the non-war prepared Golden Hind.
  4. Such a difference in sailing characteristics that weather which would sink a war galleon could be at least survived by the Océan class.

Suffice to say, a fight between the two would be quite the massacre.

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McGillis_is_a_Char t1_ivjqarv wrote

Actually I did mean the obvious stuff. I am not good at eyeballing changes in a ship's lines, and the Wikipedia is rather vague on the evolution. Thank you for your consideration.

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shantipole t1_ivkto3n wrote

It's the difference between a 1920s produce truck and a modern diesel delivery truck. Bigger, more capable, many incremental improvements in all systems, optimized for wartime, but no major obvious changes.

Some of those incremental improvements would be things like double-planking, copper bottoms (arguably not incremental), larger gun decks, bigger guns, framing to reduce hogging, better powder handling, etc. But a ship of the line was recognizably just a later member of the galleon type.

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