'Superguns' of Elizabeth I's navy

[acroyear]

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Superguns' of Elizabeth I's navy:

The English navy at around the time of the Armada was evolving revolutionary new tactics, according to new research.

Tests on cannon recovered from an Elizabethan warship suggest it carried powerful cast iron guns, of uniform size, firing standard ammunition.

"This marked the beginning of a kind of mechanisation of war," says naval historian Professor Eric Grove of Salford University.

"The ship is now a gun platform in a way that it wasn't before."

Marine archaeologist Mensun Bound from Oxford University adds: "Elizabeth's navy created the first ever set of uniform cannon, capable of firing the same size shot in a deadly barrage.

"[Her] navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies, and which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later."

ah, but the followup...

Until now, it was thought Queen Elizabeth was using the same cannon technology as her father, Henry VIII. His flagship, the Mary Rose, was ultra-modern for its day.

However, it carried a bewildering variety of cannon - many designed for land warfare. They were all of different shapes and sizes, fired different shot at different rates with different killing power.

The Spanish ships would have followed this same pattern, 'cause that's what navy's were - ships to carry troops and support an invasion, which means everything had to work on land as well. Ship to Ship combat was still fairly rare. With the success of Drake's early attacks on Spanish shipping, Elizabeth had him focus almost entirely on a Navy for its own sake rather than a Navy for invasion purposes. Knowing what worked from his Piracy days, Drake simply bought more of what worked.