A viewer's question about a flyboat relaying signals leads into the difference between early formations and later line-of-battle doctrine. At Plymouth, ships repeatedly charged through the enemy, fired, turned, and attacked again. A line might organize the opening approach, but combat could quickly become a close melee shaped by boarding and local opportunities. Later eighteenth-century fleet drill therefore provides a misleading model for Kentish Knock.
Notable Point · 2:07:28-2:08:27
Early line tactics still led into repeated melee attacks
Fleets could form a line in 1652, but they had not yet adopted the rigid signal-driven doctrine associated with later ships of the line.