Flubber
Banned
1870, the French navy consisted of 470 vessels of war - and that was after a serious reduction in expenditure. And that was purpose-built warships. The vast majority of the US 650 vessels were converted merchant ships that lacked the hull strength to carry the heavier guns and especially stand up in a gun duel against a purpose-built warship.
Once again, we're talking about the requirements for a blockade and not blue water naval clash.
To conduct a blockade in the 1860s you need lots of small draft, littoral, aka "brown' water, vessels armed just well enough to handle merchant craft. In order to blockade US ports, France is going to have to station hundreds of vessels directly off US ports while also providing for their resupply, repair, and rotation.
No, you do not.As I posted above, I have plenty of idea what I am talking about.
And among the many reasons you know nothing about which you're talking is the fact that you're lumping all monitors into one class of seaworthiness. You believe that the term "monitor" only means "coastal" or "riverine". Nothing could be further from the truth however.You do not seem to know the difference between a monitor and a sea-going ironclad.
Dictator and Puritan were designed as sea going vessels as were the 4 unfinished vessels of the Kalamazoo class. Among the vessels of the Miantonomoh-class, supposedly only good for coastal work, Monadmock steamed from Norfolk to San Francisco through the Straits of Magellan while Miantonomoh crossed the Atlantic from east to west under her own power after a tour of European waters which included the Med, North Sea, and Baltic.
As for the rest of your gibberish, Stonewall was commissioned just long enough to steam her from Havana to Washington where she was laid up until sold to Japan and, like the Kalamazoo-class, Dunderberg wasn't completed because the war ended.
Counting tonnage, counting broadside, counting fighting power, the French seafaring navy capable of doing more than chasing unarmed merchants is 10 times as strong as the US seafaring navy.
Once again, a blockade during this period isn't seafaring work. A blockade during this period is coastal/littoral/brown water work.
The fact of the matter is that during the Civil War the US required more ships operating out of nearby bases than the 1860s French navy owns to blockade only a portion of the ports along the US coastline. Your belief that the French will be able to enforce a larger blockade with fewer ships from more distant bases is a failure of comprehension, nothing more.
So - once again if you're able to understand it - I've no doubt that France would win a major naval battle, just as I've no doubt that maintaining blockades outside just a handful of US ports will greatly strain French logistics.
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