How To Get France Do Better In The Naval Battles During The Napoleonic Wars

My theory is that more Royalist naval officers stay loyal to France and don't flee. Your opinion?

In addition, France needs to secure access to naval stores, to build ships. During the Seven Years War these remained critically short. Most naval stores, such as timber, tar, pitch, turpentine, flax and hemp for canvas and cordage came from the Baltic (Norway, Russia, Sweden).

With its dominance of the seas, the Royal Navy could blockade the French coast and prevent the French Navy from obtaining these vital materials. Norway and Russia provided large masts, as France was lacking in these. Also, hull and timber plank from France's domestic forests was carried down the Loire and then had to be shipped along the coast to Brest. Roads were bad and timber could not be carried overland. This made even domestic supplies vulnerable to attack on their way to the dockyards.

Finally, with France bankrupt, it was hard to purchase naval stores to keep the army up to shape. It could not commission new ships, repair existing ones, nor pay officers and sailors.
 
My theory is that more Royalist naval officers stay loyal to France and don't flee. Your opinion?

Stay loyal? I think they were one of the only groups that did that. You mean join the people murdering the nobility (which by and large the officers were.) So really you need less murder, preferably keeping the king as a constitutional monarch (they were after all loyal to him) and then they may stay on board. (So to speak).
 
In addition, France needs to secure access to naval stores, to build ships.
In addition, it needs to construct more shipyards and train more workers for those. As things stood IOTL Britain could significantly outbuild France.
 
RandomWriterGuy said:
My theory is that more Royalist naval officers stay loyal to France and don't flee.
Hard to do because Napoleonic Wars means France has already gone through much of its Republican phase, including a purge among its Etat Major of all generals and admirals judged too loyal to the Monarchy.

I think the French navy would be better off if it had the chance of discovering skilled Captains and Admirals like the land army did with its generals. Think of Napoleon and his Marshals but on sea.
RandomWriterGuy said:
Assuming France does win Trafalgar, does that change much?
Well, it could give Napoleon a fleet big enough to try invading Britain. But honestly, the Royal Navy was the first naval power at the time so it's still incredibly risky. Besides, with the timing, Napoleon would probably already be doing the Austerlitz Campaign and would have to face Prussia soon after... Which basically could throw his whole plans for invading Britain through the window, as it's likely the British would do everything to protect the home islands.

The best it would probably do would be that France and Spain wouldn't lose as much ships as they did in Trafalgar. Which might still not be enough for France to have a navy able to rival with Britain: the battle of Aboukir had also been a pretty huge blow to the French fleet.
 
Hard to do because Napoleonic Wars means France has already gone through much of its Republican phase, including a purge among its Etat Major of all generals and admirals judged too loyal to the Monarchy.

I think the French navy would be better off if it had the chance of discovering skilled Captains and Admirals like the land army did with its generals. Think of Napoleon and his Marshals but on sea.
Well, it could give Napoleon a fleet big enough to try invading Britain. But honestly, the Royal Navy was the first naval power at the time so it's still incredibly risky. Besides, with the timing, Napoleon would probably already be doing the Austerlitz Campaign and would have to face Prussia soon after... Which basically could throw his whole plans for invading Britain through the window, as it's likely the British would do everything to protect the home islands.

The best it would probably do would be that France and Spain wouldn't lose as much ships as they did in Trafalgar. Which might still not be enough for France to have a navy able to rival with Britain: the battle of Aboukir had also been a pretty huge blow to the French fleet.

But is it still possible for Napoleon to destroy Britain? What if other French allies helped out with their navies?
 
But is it still possible for Napoleon to destroy Britain? What if other French allies helped out with their navies?
The Danish navy had been badly damaged at Copenhagen (for which keeping that fleet from helping Napoleon had been the main reason), and the Dutch were defeated at Camperdown.
 
Assuming France does win Trafalgar, does that change much?

The problem for the French was that Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar was effectively the disposable part of the Royal Navy. And even if defeated with reversed losses they would then have to do it again with the Channel Fleet, once more with the North Sea Fleet & Baltic squadron then face whatever could be scraped up from ships on repair, re-supply, reserve and new construction.
So the British required one Trafalgar to destroy the Franco-Spanish fleet but the French would require three to destroy the British.
 
The Spaniards were fighting on Napoleon's side at Trafalgar anyway. I've never heard of Prussia or the Italian states as having any significant naval forces during this period.
 
I think the French navy would be better off if it had the chance of discovering skilled Captains and Admirals like the land army did with its generals. Think of Napoleon and his Marshals but on sea.

The problem with that, I think, is that it's generally harder to rebuild a navy than to rebuild an army. Aside from the obvious extra difficulty of building and maintaining the ships, training the sailors well requires large bodies of water, which a blockaded country doesn't have access to. Plus in France's case, as Viriato pointed out, most of France's naval supplies were themselves transported by sea, so logistics would be a complete nightmare.

Maybe if the French discovered a great admiral early enough, they could avoid the annihilation of their fleet and still keep in with a fighting chance. After Trafalgar, though (and possibly even earlier) even a great admiral wouldn't be enough, simply because he'd have no way of getting any proper ships or trained seamen to fight with.
 
I remember some AHer writing in detail some time ago about how Napoleon poached the most promising naval artillery NCOs and junior COs, sending them to the land forces, while also cutting the training budgets (for things like gunpowder and cannonballs, which, again, he appropriated to the land army). This had a devastating effect on the French Navy; the way it was conceived by Sané and de Borda, it relied on lightly built, fast and maneuvrable heavily armed ships to pummel its enemies from afar with accurate gunfire while keeping out of their gun arcs. The tactic was designed specifically to counter the British combat practice of closing in at speed, unleashing a short-range barrage then attempting to board. Without good gunners, and with insufficient/improper training, the French Navy underperformed predictably.
 
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Maybe not having a squadron being destroyed at Aboukir would have helped. Also it is often said that Napoleon couldn't comprehend the special requirements of naval momements and kept ordering his admirals and captains around like he would do with his generals. Thus they often received "impossible" orders, couldn't fulfill them and thus were despised by the Emperor.
I think we shouldn't underestimate the importance of the simple seamen: the Royal Navy could tap into a bigger merchant fleet for its recruits. This was however also a liability, as England needed many seamen to keep her merchant fleets going.
 
Maybe not having a squadron being destroyed at Aboukir would have helped.
Aboukir Bay was a total disaster for the French, particularly since the captured ships were repaired and put into service against their former owners.

Also it is often said that Napoleon couldn't comprehend the special requirements of naval momements and kept ordering his admirals and captains around like he would do with his generals. Thus they often received "impossible" orders, couldn't fulfill them and thus were despised by the Emperor.
I can see that being quite true. A land general would probably not understand naval operations. A domineering leader like Napoleon would just ignore contrary advice.

This was however also a liability, as England needed many seamen to keep her merchant fleets going.
Thus press-ganging/shanghaiing.
 
The biggest factor is experience and training. Getting the most out of a 18th century warship required an enormous amount of skill and experience on the part of the officers and crew. A sail warship is completely different from modern ships where it's simply a matter of pointing the prow in the right direction and turning the engine on. Simply sailing from A to B and not sinking is surprisingly hard as anyone who has ever been sailing can attest and that's with modern yachts. Warships designed to be a balance between firepower, speed and stability were even more of a nightmare.

The only way to build up that institutional experience was actually being at sea and in 1789 the French Navy while smaller than the RN wasn't actually much worse however then you had the Revolution, the purging of the officer corps and by 1792 the French Navy was much weaker but it still had a core of experienced sailors and it didn't perform that badly. However the superior size of the RN meant it was blockaded into port relatively quickly and that's when the rot set in. By 1805 you had mid ranking French officers who had been in the service for a dozen years who had only been out of port a handful of times and Captain's of First Rate's who had never sailed their ship out of harbour. Meanwhile the RN had spent 13 years on close blockade and their seamanship was simply in another league. In fact the one area where the French were competitive, gun handling, was also the one area where you could do useful practise in harbour and the RN's need to be constantly patrolling worked against them.
The one part of the French Navy that did pose a threat to the RN and occasionally win battles were the frigates and small privateers and not surprisingly these were the only ships that were getting any sea time.

So basically if you want the French to do better have them do better right from the start, that way the major fleet unit's (3rd Rates and above) don't get penned into port of years on end and skills don't atrophy.
 
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