Shipwreck Metals Reveal Secrets of Napoleon’s Warships

Shipwreck Metals Reveal Secrets of Napoleon’s Warships

French 80-gun ship of the line Robuste. Credit: François Geoffroi Roux / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain Tiny fragments of copper pulled from a French shipwreck are helping historians unlock secrets about how Napoleon’s warships were built and supplied during one of the empire’s most desperate wartime campaigns. A new study examined metal sheathing and nails from two French warships that sank off the coast of France in 1809, offering rare phys…