AHC: revolutionary wars

It's impossible. Royal Navy is too much for the fledgling US and the Americans knew it.

The Royal Navy is very strong, but the problem with the US is no one was willing to support the taxes for a suitable US Navy to be established. Throw that in with France and Spain's navies, and the British have another dangerous challenger. Although IMO the US Navy's best goal in this conflict would be to clear the Old Northwest and Old Southwest of British influence on the rivers and lakes, which is easily doable and more or less done OTL.
 
Perhaps if there's an incident between US and British ships in the First Barbary War, the US can declare war on Britain before Trafalgar and build up its fleet? Ultimately a combined Franco Spanish American fleet might be able to rival the British particularly if say Copenhagen is butterflies.
 
Perhaps if there's an incident between US and British ships in the First Barbary War, the US can declare war on Britain before Trafalgar and build up its fleet? Ultimately a combined Franco Spanish American fleet might be able to rival the British particularly if say Copenhagen is butterflies.

But the 1st Barbary War happened in 1801–1805. While by that time all 6 original heavy frigates had been completed, the "revolutionary" part was almost over leaving less than an year for <whatever> developments: the "revolutionary" wars ended 25 March 1802 with the Peace of Amiens and 1st Barbary War started 10 May 1801.

Taking into an account the cost of the original frigates ($688,888.82 in the money of 1794), the US of that time hardly could build a navy comparable to the British (in the 1st Barbary War 12 American frigates had been involved). By 1775, the Royal Navy had 117 ships of the line and 82 cruisers and the numbers did not go down (AFAIK) by 1802.
 
Top