In these days of recurring cutbacks in government military spending, outsourcing, and the privatization of warfare with private-sector military firms involved in naval affairs, it may be worthwhile to remember that it was not always a foregone conclusion that, from an organizational point of view, a modern navy would have to be responsible for its own armaments technology. Indeed, the opposite held true well into the early modern period. Privateering remained a viable business into the nineteenth century, and a privateering firm was responsible for its own armaments, as had always been the case with those merchantmen who chose to carry weapons in self-defence…
Publications of Michael Fredholm
