A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear. Since these engagements were almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying the most powerful guns, the natural progression was to build sailing vessels that were the largest and most powerful of their time.
From the end of the 1840s, the introduction of steam power brought less dependence on the wind in battle and led to the construction of screw-driven but wooden-hulled ships of the line; a number of pure sail-driven ships were converted to this propulsion mechanism. However, the introduction of the ironclad frigate in about 1859 led swiftly to the decline of the steam-assisted ships of the line, though the ironclad warship became the ancestor of the 20th-century battleship, whose very designation is itself a contraction of the phrase "line-of-battle ship."
Read more about Ship Of The Line: Combat, Restorations and Preservation
Famous quotes containing the words ship of, ship and/or line:
“Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“You live on hopes, I guess. You always dream that someday you might have a lot of money, your ship might come in. But if the ship doesn’t come in, I’m going to work as long as I can.”
—Marion Gray (b. c. 1914)
“What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist’s presence makes itself felt above that of the model.... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul’s style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)