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British naval dominance during the age of sail

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98 points surprisetalk | 4 comments | 16 May 25 13:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.854s | source
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lurk2 ◴[16 May 25 17:36 UTC] No.44007988[source]▶
> Compensation: In addition to huge prizes—capturing a merchant vessel could make a captain wealthy for life—there was a wage system where officers were oversupplied and naval officers that weren’t at sea were kept at half pay. The unemployment pool that resulted from this efficiency wage made it easier to discipline officers by moving them back to the captains list. (Allen argues that a fixed-wage system would have led to adverse selection since captains on half pay weren’t permanently employees of the navy but would reject commissions that weren’t remunerative.)

I reread this three times and I can’t make heads or tails of what it’s supposed to mean. There is an oversupply of officers. They are kept at half pay. This affords opportunities to discipline officers. This is presumably because there are others willing to take his place, but all that is referenced is a captain’s list. Is this the list of officers on half-pay?

I genuinely can’t even understand the argument being made in brackets.

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1. Keyframe ◴[16 May 25 21:14 UTC] No.44009866[source]▶
As is customary, I read only what you quoted before the article.

The way I understood it is that main incentive was to capture ships, that's on top of the pay; So, like a bonus structure in modern day and age. If you weren't assigned to a ship, you'd still get paid but half of what you'd get on a ship. Since there were eventually more officers than ships, this created a pool of officers eager for assignments and thus "if you won't, there's someone that will" management style.

Now, a bit more complicated what Allen argued about, also from what I understood, is if captains were on fixed wage they'd turn down assignments (which they could since they weren't permanently employed) since reward isn't following the risk and you'd probably get only the worst or desperate captains to accept the job instead of competent which have all the reasons to refuse.

I don't know, maybe I read it wrong, but it makes sense like that at least.

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2. londons_explore ◴[17 May 25 00:57 UTC] No.44011197[source]▶
> you won't, there's someone that will" management style.

But if a head to head battle leads to a 50/50 chance of being sunk and dying, It seems far more attractive to be 'on the bench' at half pay...

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3. harpiaharpyja ◴[17 May 25 03:11 UTC] No.44011761[source]▶
And if you were the sort of captain to see it that way, that's probably where the admiralty wanted you. There are only so many ships, after all.
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4. Lio ◴[17 May 25 06:30 UTC] No.44012411{3}[source]▶
> There are only so many ships, after all.

One of the reasons they kept their bench full, rather than firing the men on it, was because they would try to take enemy ships as “prizes” rather than sink them.

That meant they needed trained captains and crew at the ready.

So at time of war the Royal Navy could grow rapidly.