Could the Spanish Armada have beaten the English navy?

Question

If they'd used a Battleship.

Answer 1

Doubtful.
The Brits won due to several factors: The Spanish loved big ships, and lots of them. This meant that they had great difficulty maneuvering and maintaining a tight defensive formation. The wind was against them, apparently, though it can be argued that this just meant the Brits "didn't play fair" by attacking from an unexpected direction. Sir Francis Drake also had the novel idea of breaking up their defensive formation using fireships, again prompting complaint because this was seen as cheating, and rather ruined the whole battle. Apparently just lining up and blazing away at each other was the done thing then, and it was bad form to actually think whilst fighting.
In any case the English won through superior tactics, more manueverable boats, faster gun crews and better intelligence. The initial battle cost the spanish 2000 casualties, and only stopped because the English ran out of ammunition.
Overall a rather sterling victory for the old Empire, and if the spanish had possessed a battleship (and technically they did...i forget the name but their Portuguese Atlantic-Class ships formed the core combat navy, and were pretty heavy hitting), victory would still have eluded them as the English were simply better at moving and shooting, whilst the Spanish could hardly move at all.
Rule Brittania, methinks

Answer 2

The Armada was superior in many ways to the pin prick attacks by the English Navy, however the problem was more between the commading officers of the Spanish Armada and the Spanish Invasion Forces. If they had co ordinated and got the timings right then Britain would have been a very different place.

Answer 3

The Spanish armada was destroyed in the bay of Biscay when a storm dispersed and severely damaged the ships of the fleet. England's fleet's "tars" (sailors) though, were better trained and capable of a higher more accurate rate of fire. The Armada though was vastly superior in numbers and many of the English vessels ( and indeed, many naval magazines on land) were perilously low on ammunition after the initial engagement. So, had the armada turned around for round two of the battle, the English fleet would have been routed. So it was more luck than judgement.

Answer 4

Battleships didn't exist at the time of the Spanish Armada.
But if one were to assume that they did, the English would have had them as well so the outcome would have been the same.

The main reason that the Spanish were defeated was that their ships were much bigger than those of the English and so less manoeuvrable. It wasn't helped that the battle occurred in the English Channel and as the Spanish fleet was so vast there was not enough room for it to respond appropriately to the tactics of the English which essentially were hit and run.

Answer 5

They'd have probably done quite well if they'd had Exocet missiles and submarines, but they didn't, so its a bit late to put any bets on now.

One often hears the excuse for losing by the Spaniards, that they only lost because the British Navy had the wind in its favour.

Personally I think that its quite mean and petty of them to suggest that the only reason they all turned their boats around and made a run for it, is just because the British sailors were all creating such an awful stink because they all had a bad attack of flatulence.

Its time the Spanish just accepted that they lost and let it go at that!

Answer 6

No, No, No!!!

Battleships are harder to manouevre.

Us Brits did not have as many ships as the Spanish, who almost felll over their greater number to try and escape the winds. We (the Brits) because our ships were smaller were able to sail a lot closer to the dastardly Spanish than they were to us. Also we were and still are better sailors.

Our Royal Navy was unconquerable - we defeated Napoleon, and the Dutch, the Portuguese (we took over their trade routes/possessions). Hence out involvement on a grander scale with the slave trade. Again we Brits de everything by default. We never go out to win necessarily, but somehow we manage to survive intact.

What a great thing it is to be English/British!! No about the Slave trade though before I am attacked from all sides..

Answer 7

no. at the time spain had big ships that were slow and hard to move around. the english had smaller quicker ships that can hit the bigger spanish ships like sitting ducks. the bigger ships had a hard time hitting the smaller ships because they moved too fast. if the spanish had more smaller ships that could counter the english ships, the outcome could have been in favor of a spanish victory.

Answer 8

The English ships had much better cannons and were easier to sail. The Spanish ships only had numbers and were difficult to sail which is why so many of them sank.

Answer 9

Well, let's see.
The Brits got the Colonies (who eventually booted their butts out) and Canada.
The Spanish got the whole of Central and South America. Don't whine about the difference between Portuguese and Spanish. You May as well whine about the difference between the English and the Welsh.
So.......who won?????

Answer 10

They could've and should've won, with shear numbers. What defeated the Spanish Armada was the winds.....not the English.