Keyser Soze said:
1805 10/21 - British defeat Napoleon at Trafalgar
Amazing battle. Brutal.
Nelson had his ships in two lines and lead one of them from the front, the other was captained by his second in command, Collingwood. The ship behind him was faster and he got on the stern and told them to back off, he was going first.
The entire French-Spanish line was in a concave curve so as to concentrate their broadsides. Because of the weather the British line advanced at about a walking pace, giving the French and Spanish guns plenty of chances to fire. Forty minutes worth. The one advantage Nelson had was that the Atlantic swells jacked with the aim of the opposition.
Once the lines had been breached Nelson could fire a little over a ton of iron per round right up the ass of the ship just yards away. Aiming was not a problem. Close quarters was the British strategy and it worked; British crews were better trained, some ships had flintlock wheel fired cannon where all the French and Spanish guns were using fuses and manned by inexperienced men who had been trained in the harbor, not on the sea. This enabled the Brits to get off more rounds per minute.
Nelson was shot as he cracked the first line, the musket ball shattered his spine. He was roundly respected by his crew, many of whom wept upon learning of his death.
My favorite story of the battle is of Jack Spratt. He thought he was leading a group of boarders by swimming about thirty yards. Nobody followed him.
Jack didn't care. “Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” (The Law, p.6) Frederic Bastiat