The French and Spanish fleet needed many senior officers partly to assemble enough aggregate seagoing experience. Nelson, Collingwood, and Northesk together had accumulated roughly comparable sea time to a far larger Allied flag group. Adding commanders could not erase the shortage of practiced officers, though it gave a less experienced fleet more supervision. Political divisions inside the combined fleet made coordination harder as well. Trafalgar's command imbalance was therefore an institutional readiness problem as much as a contest between famous admirals.
Notable Point · 17:01-18:36
Why the Allied fleet carried so many senior officers
The Allies' crowded senior command compensated for limited recent sea time, political friction, and the complexity of a combined fleet.