Estimates of French killed and wounded range from two thousand to five thousand, alongside nearly four thousand captured. A ship-by-ship calculation favors the higher casualty estimate, using assumed losses for vessels whose precise totals are unknown. France loses eleven of thirteen ships of the line and two of four frigates, more than three quarters of the seventeen major warships committed. British losses are 218 killed and 677 wounded, with no ship lost and even grounded Culloden recovered. On the higher French estimate, casualties and prisoners approach ten times the British casualty total. The comparison with Trafalgar emphasizes the much greater proportion of the defeated fleet lost at the Nile. Tsushima and Midway offer other examples of exceptional destruction, although Midway destroyed the Japanese carrier force without annihilating the whole deployed Japanese fleet.
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Measuring the Nile's extraordinary destruction
Ship losses and likely casualties place the Nile among the rare fleet battles that annihilated an opponent rather than merely defeating it.