Industrial capacity favors proven standard guns

The long transition to gun locks shows how even wealthy naval powers struggled to modernize a large fleet. Britain began adopting the mechanism around 1745 but still had not equipped every gun with it by Trafalgar sixty years later. France lagged further behind, and Spain faced a similar modernization problem. Metallurgy imposed another constraint: brass guns were expensive enough to limit fleets, while iron became useful only after foundries learned to produce weapons capable of surviving repeated firing. Reliable mass-produced 18-pounders could therefore offer more practical value than a rarer 24-pounder special run. A major navy ordering weapons by the gross faced different choices from a smaller state dependent on boutique production. Standard guns could support more ships, easier replacement, and a steadier supply system even when an exceptional weapon looked stronger in isolation.