Redoutable — French 74-gun Ship

Generated illustration. Not a historical photograph. A French 74-gun two-decker in the Trafalgar generation. Not a named portrait of the ship.

Overview

Redoutable was a French 74-gun two-decker in the Combined Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar 1805 — Overview. The battle overview already places a marksman aboard her as the man who shot Nelson Horatio — Biography Overview from the mizzentop at about fifty feet, while she lay alongside HMS Victory — Overview.¹

Specifications

Feature	Detail
Guns	74
Type	French two-decker ship of the line
Fleet	Combined Fleet, 21 October 1805

Adkin’s companion is the vault’s 1805 order-of-battle reference. A 74 is not a First Rate Ship of the Line — Class Overview; it is the French workhorse two-decker, the same family as Bucentaure — Overview (an 80-gun Téméraire-class two-decker).²

Service

This note covers 21 October 1805 only. Construction yard, captain, earlier commissions, and individual fate after the battle are not on a licensed named-ship page — they stay on RESEARCH_QUEUE.

At Trafalgar she fought in the close action around Victory. The battle overview already records Nelson hit at about 1:15 pm, dead at 4:30 pm, from a marksman in her mizzentop.¹ The Storm After Trafalgar — 24–29 October 1805 wrecked many prizes; this note does not add Redoutable to that list until a licensed page names her.³

Sources

• @white2005nelson — Trafalgar overview already uses White for the marksman / Victory action
• @adkin2005trafalgar — 1805 OOB companion, pp. 286–323
• @knight2005pursuit — pp. 540–545 (close action), 565–572 (storm)

Related

Navigation

• MOC_Ships_Maritime
• Individual_Ships_Index

Same Battle

• Battle of Trafalgar 1805 — Overview
• Trafalgar Campaign 1805
• Storm After Trafalgar — 24–29 October 1805

Key People

• Nelson Horatio — Biography Overview — shot from her mizzentop
• Hardy Thomas Masterman — Captain HMS Victory — Victory’s captain in the same huddle
• Villeneuve Pierre-Charles — French Admiral — Combined Fleet commander

Ships

• HMS Victory — Overview — alongside
• Bucentaure — Overview — sister two-decker, Villeneuve’s flag
• First Rate Ship of the Line — Class Overview — the British three-decker class Victory belongs to

Cross-Domain

• Cape Trafalgar — Geography
• Age of Sail — Era Overview

Footnotes

1. Battle of Trafalgar 1805 — Overview, sourced to @white2005nelson: a French marksman aboard Redoutable shot Nelson from the mizzentop at about 50 feet. ↩ ↩²

2. @adkin2005trafalgar pp. 76–82 (French two-decker doctrine, already used on Bucentaure) and pp. 286–323 (Trafalgar ships). ↩

3. @knight2005pursuit pp. 565–572 names the gale and prize losses in the campaign close; the storm note currently names Bucentaure — Overview only. Do not add a captain, launch year, or wreck for Redoutable until a page is licensed. ↩