Cost of Ships in the Age of Sail cost compared to today?
- Thread starter Elta
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The 1st rate was the ultimate fighting ship 1714-1860. The aircraft carrier is the ultimate fighting ship 1941-2008.
What is wrong in this comparison?
GinandTonic
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That a carrier is proportunately far more expensive.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean.
There were only 3 British 1st rates at Trafalgar out of 24 ships-of-the-line.
The French had 0 1st rates out of 18 sol. The Spanish 4 1st rates out of 14 sol.
In peacetime there was usually only one 1st rate in service. They were far too expensive to maintain. Compare that to the number of US carriers active in peace time. It appears carriers are cheaper to maintain than 1st rates!
GinandTonic
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How much more expensive was a first rate? 20%? A carrier costs half a dozen times what a destroyer does.
1889
Mayor of H-Marker Lake
Is anybody familiar with "The Cash Nexus" by Naill Furgeson? Its a collection of boring essays but I think he covers this topic.
The Caledonia of 1808, a 1st rate of 120 guns, cost £103,000 while the Leonidas of 1807, an 18pdr 38 gun 5th rate (the 'destroyer' of its day?), cost ₤36,129.
Throw in the small population of Britain at that time and the minimal taxes and the Caledonia may have cost more to build than a Nimitz class carrier.
Annual expenditure on the navy in 1808 was around £21.5 million.
Can anyone tell me what percentage the Caledonia was of that figure?
I am useless with numbers.
Yeah more or less. My goal is to figure out how many fully capable ships they could put on the water then and now when in full war mode. Though it is very hard to compare because we have so many types of ships now..... do you count the cost of an aircraft carriers plane? What about the yearly cost of fuel?
And disposal of fuel ? (like in a nuclear powered sub)
.... I think I have a rough idea now though.
That would be a bit hard to do; because we know what the RN could maintain in a full war footing in the Age of Sail. We don't know what a modern economy could maintain because it hasn't been done since 1945.
You can analyse this to the nth degree but comparing prices from different epochs is practically impossible to do in any meaningful way. The best you could do would be to express cost as a % of GDP, but that is only as good as your value for GDP which in a more primitive partially subsistence economy is not easy.
The short version is to say "navies are high tech and very expensive whatever era you are in"
Patroklos
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A fifth rate was NOT the destroyer of the day. More like a frigate or a corvette. A modern DDG is basically one step below a carrier with CGs and DDGs being basically the same armament wise for all intents and purposes in the USN. You can build three DDGs for the price of one Nimitz.
A first rate cost marginally more than the next most power class, carriers multiple times the cost of the next most potent combatant.
Well, the 5th rate 38 could fight any ship in battle - other than a ship of the line. The DDG can fight any ship - other than an aircraft carrier. If you look at their role they seem very much alike.
Once again, and not to belabor the point, I was comparing a First Rate to an aircraft carrier because both are the ultimate warships of their day. A Second or Third rate, was just as good in the line of battle, but the First rate was the biggest and most expensive ship a powerful navy had - just like a US carrier today.
A couple of good books regarding this period are:
Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation 1795-1815. By Brian Lavery.
It explains the rating system (and their roles) of the ships of Nelson's navy, and just about everything else!
British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817, by Rif Winfield.
This book covers the cost, design, career and fate of warships in this period.
Elta
我不会把这种
I am going to see if I can find this at the library when I am back at uni next month. Good lookin out
I am going to see if I can find this at the library when I am back at uni next month. Good lookin out
You might find these websites interesting.
http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Naval.html
http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/index.html
http://www.sailingwarships.com/
Good luck next semester.
1889
Mayor of H-Marker Lake
Wow Trafalgar, those are great links. I'm supprised at the service lives of those ships, with refits some hulls could evidently be kept in service for 80 years!
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