Strengths And Weaknesses Of The British Military

During the 18th century the British military was seen as the World’s greatest superpower. Britain seemed to continually gain moment over the century, achieving many victories against other superpowers of the time, such as France and Spain. The British maintained dominating military might through their naval supremacy and a professionally trained army of more than 50,000 soldiers. Their navy was not only the best in terms of quality, but quantity as well, with 131 naval warships alone. Likewise, the British army was seen as a formidable opponent for their overwhelming size and their superb training in tactics and overall discipline. Some of Britain’s impressiveness at the time was perhaps a visage, covering up some of Her weaknesses. Parliament’s focus was not only on the North American colonies, but also in Asia, India, and Africa. Additionally, the Seven Years War left Britain’s military not at it’s fullest capability. Out of the 131 naval warships, only 39 were initially available for deployment to North America (1). Indeed, Britain faced many disadvantages during the onset of the war against the rebelling American colonies. Much debt had been incurred from the previous war, making much of Parliament reluctant to invest too much money into a war with misbehaving colonists. Since this would be an offensive war, a continuous chain of …show more content…
There were approximately 23,000 Regulars, all volunteers and highly professional. It was a long standing army with soldiers that were very experienced and familiar with combat. For comparison, the British generals averaged 48 years old with 30 years of experience. American generals averaged 43 years old with only 2 years of experience. The average British private had 9 years of experience, essentially making British privates over 4 times as qualified as American