Matt Quinn said:
Did Napoleon have plans to invade Britain? I thought the plans he had involved lots of smaller craft (like what China might try with Taiwan); a "navy" like that would be good for a short-range move, but not for a long-distance invasion of the Western Hemisphere. If he's smart, he can distract the British fleet w/ attacks on the periphery; peel away enough ships from defending the homeland, perhaps have agents set off an Irish rising, and then when the time's right, slip the Grand Armee across the channel in a few hundred small boats and voila.
He tried all sorts of ways; there was an attempt to use transports that were small, which was turned down when itrealized they would sink; there was a plan to use latouche to distract the british byattacking theperiphery, and that also failed.
You see, the British were not fools.
"Before the French could invade, they must remove the Royal Navy from the channel, if only briefly. To achieve this, there would need to be fifty or more ships of the Line in the Channel.
The plan was for the main Toulon squadron, under Admiral Villeneuve to run through the Straits, join the squadron form Rochhefort, under Missiessy, and meanwhile, from Brest would sail Ganteaume, with 18,000 troops for Ireland.
This plan was scrapped when it was pointed out that the seventeen sail of the line would not be enough to cover the invasion.
The new plan had Missiessy’s squadron escaping from Rochefort, which it did on January 11, 1804. The British blockading squadron was blown off-station, and he made a break for it.
Meanwhile, Napoleon had entered into alliance with France, by providing him with subsidies. Pitt’s response was to attack the treasure ships from South America. The ships of the line did not arrive, but the four British frigates managed to capture 3 of the 4 Spanish treasure ships on in October. in December, Spain declared war on Britain.
This altered the naval balance. With Cadiz and Cartagena, as well as Ferrol, Corunna, and Vigo, the French had bases on the Atlantic. More dangerous were the thirty Spanish ships of the line, divided between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. There were also twenty-one ships of the line at Brest, six at Rochefort and eleven at Toulon.
Now came the final plan. Villeneuve was to evade Nelson, which he did on 29 March, 1805. Nelson sailed for Alexandria, believing that the French fleet was heading for Egypt. Villeneuve had made his break.
But the Admiralty had enough ships to meet any contingency. There were twelve ships of the line with Nelson, six off of Cadiz with Sir John Orde, eight off of Ferrol with Vice-Admiral Robert Calder, Cornwallis, commanding seventeen fleets off of the French Atlantic ports, and Lord Keith in the channel with eleven ships. The British, then, had 46 ships of the line at sea. Additional ships were ordered to sea as well.
Whenever the French evaded Britain's fleet, the fleet withdrew to the channel. You do not become the greatest maritime natoin on the planet without knowing how to preventmartime invasions.
Matt Quinn said:
If Nappy can win on land before the Royal Navy and colonial forces come back to defend the homeland, what's the RN to do? Surrender? Heck no. I imagine they'd flee to Canada or some of the islands and become anti-French pirates. Canada, defended by what's left of the Royal Navy and probably with American assistance, could be defeated to take, even if if it's poor and underpopulated.
Matt, what do you think Bonaparte will do to Britain? And if your RN is so large, why can't it stop bonaparte from leaving ireland?
Not to say an invason of england is impossible; it's not sealion. But it needs work.