So I'm going to be taking bite sized chunks out of this and try to gain a better understanding of it all piece by piece, because there is a lot to unpack here and a lot of interesting ideas!
So, again, I really love the idea of the CS Navy being surprisingly "inclusive" when it comes to accepting new officers and sailors into its ranks. Mind you, as "inclusive" as the CSA as a whole can possibly get. Before the Great War in 1914, I still highly, highly doubt they would accept blacks into any branch of the military. But Confederate Cubans and Mexicans? That's a different story I believe. Racism and segregation would no doubt play a predominant part in any branch in the Confederacy throughout the country's life, but the CS Navy in this case would arguably be the "least racist" in terms of recruiting and promoting. Someone's got to man the ships after all and if the majority of Confederates whites won't do it then perhaps Confederate from Sonora, Chihuahua, parts of Louisiana, and Cuba will. This is an interesting topic to hit upon I think.
The period between 1881 and 1914 would no doubt be the CS Navy's best time for expansion, even if it pales in comparison to the United States and Britain. While ultimately the Confederates would not have a strong blue-water navy, I'd argue that they would have a comparatively decent brown-water, riverine navy that can keep up and even match the United States brown-water navy. However, I believe the CS Navy would concentrate on protecting the most vital rivers that it can afford to protect - especially the Mississippi River, as well as any other rivers that run along the border with the United States and ones that go cross-border. Granted, even if the Confederates may not have a strong presence on their own rivers, it would be fatal for them to not recognize the strategic and tactical situation when looking at map. They'd try to find some way to for the Confederate congress to look at their situation from their perspective - it would tragically fall on deaf ears perhaps. After all the Confederate government is banking on using the Army to win its wars. Still I think this is a point to really be considered and debated on.
I think this would even carry over into 1941-1944, with the CS Navy desperately asking for funding to re-arm and modernize its deep-water and brown-water fleets, with its pleas being unheeded by an indifferent Featherston. If the CSA is still relying on the British Royal Navy to do the heavy lifting on the high seas, I think the point of the Royal Navy being knocked down a peg or two in the Great War needs to be considered as well. Powerful as it still is in TL-191, events have proven that the Royal Navy can be beaten. CS Navy officials would be pleading for some kind of funding to get their ships and subs up to snuff, if only to try and protect their home waters and rivers. But again Featherston, being an Army man and an artillery-man at that, would bank on using the Army and Air Force to deal the decisive blow.
TL;DR - are we really ready to write off the CS Navy as being so neglected as to be totally impotent? Not even repurposing or refitting older ships to meet modern standards, like what the Soviets did out time with their old Tsarist-era battleships? I think that would be cool at least.
Thanks for the input on the CS Navy though! Please keep these ideas coming. As you can probably tell by now I have a bit of an unusual soft spot for naval topics concerning this, so anything helps!
"It can now safely be said that while the United States has a blue-water navy and a brown-water navy and a two-ocean navy, the Confederate States have a bathtub navy" - from correspondence between President of the United States Alfred Thayer Mahan and Theodore Roosevelt (then Assistant Secretary of the Navy).
Such benign neglect was not destined to last - with the ongoing, inexorable growth of the US Navy from a second rate power to a suitably colossal potency sponsored by Administrations of the Remembrance Era, the Royal Navy made it very clear to their American allies that they would be expected to bear some of the burden in any War at sea; coupled with the national embarrasment of seeing South American republics & the Empire of Brazil procure the most modern warships while the Confederate Battle-line aged towards irrelevance, the Confederate Congress found itself obliged to subsidise the first major increase to the strength of the CS Navy since the War of Secession (and redoubled their investment following National Humiliation in the "Canal Crisis" close to the turn of the Century).
Jokes about the "Thin Grey Line" actually being the "Grey Tin line" remained current even as the Southern remained current in the barracks of the Confederate Army and the berths of the US Navy alike, not least because the Southern Department of the Navy elected to follow the jeune ecole of French Naval theory (prioritising smaller ships and asymmetric tactics) over the Northern & British emphasis on Battleships and the General Engagement (a philosophy that would underpin critical support for the famous Confederate submarine service).
Even during these boom times, the Southern Navy was customarily obliged to accept second best and make do with whatever it could get - even to the extent of admitting cadets from the least suitable backgrounds for office training (including officers from the "Spanish Confederacy") - indeed, with the Army all but monopolising White manpower, the first voices suggesting a recruitment of Confederate Coloureds into Government service were actually heard from the Navy. While the Whigs and the "Plantation Patricians" which constituted the beating heart of that Party held all the levers of power in the Army, the Navy increasingly came to be seen as the "Radical Service" owing to the unusually strong representation of the Confederacy's "distant second" opposition party in even the more senior ranks of that service (caused in part by the greater willingness of the CS Navy to promote "White Enough" officers to relatively senior rank).
So, again, I really love the idea of the CS Navy being surprisingly "inclusive" when it comes to accepting new officers and sailors into its ranks. Mind you, as "inclusive" as the CSA as a whole can possibly get. Before the Great War in 1914, I still highly, highly doubt they would accept blacks into any branch of the military. But Confederate Cubans and Mexicans? That's a different story I believe. Racism and segregation would no doubt play a predominant part in any branch in the Confederacy throughout the country's life, but the CS Navy in this case would arguably be the "least racist" in terms of recruiting and promoting. Someone's got to man the ships after all and if the majority of Confederates whites won't do it then perhaps Confederate from Sonora, Chihuahua, parts of Louisiana, and Cuba will. This is an interesting topic to hit upon I think.
The period between 1881 and 1914 would no doubt be the CS Navy's best time for expansion, even if it pales in comparison to the United States and Britain. While ultimately the Confederates would not have a strong blue-water navy, I'd argue that they would have a comparatively decent brown-water, riverine navy that can keep up and even match the United States brown-water navy. However, I believe the CS Navy would concentrate on protecting the most vital rivers that it can afford to protect - especially the Mississippi River, as well as any other rivers that run along the border with the United States and ones that go cross-border. Granted, even if the Confederates may not have a strong presence on their own rivers, it would be fatal for them to not recognize the strategic and tactical situation when looking at map. They'd try to find some way to for the Confederate congress to look at their situation from their perspective - it would tragically fall on deaf ears perhaps. After all the Confederate government is banking on using the Army to win its wars. Still I think this is a point to really be considered and debated on.
I think this would even carry over into 1941-1944, with the CS Navy desperately asking for funding to re-arm and modernize its deep-water and brown-water fleets, with its pleas being unheeded by an indifferent Featherston. If the CSA is still relying on the British Royal Navy to do the heavy lifting on the high seas, I think the point of the Royal Navy being knocked down a peg or two in the Great War needs to be considered as well. Powerful as it still is in TL-191, events have proven that the Royal Navy can be beaten. CS Navy officials would be pleading for some kind of funding to get their ships and subs up to snuff, if only to try and protect their home waters and rivers. But again Featherston, being an Army man and an artillery-man at that, would bank on using the Army and Air Force to deal the decisive blow.
TL;DR - are we really ready to write off the CS Navy as being so neglected as to be totally impotent? Not even repurposing or refitting older ships to meet modern standards, like what the Soviets did out time with their old Tsarist-era battleships? I think that would be cool at least.
Thanks for the input on the CS Navy though! Please keep these ideas coming. As you can probably tell by now I have a bit of an unusual soft spot for naval topics concerning this, so anything helps!