Napoleon invades Britain instead of Russia

Md139115

Banned
I know it's outlandish as all get out and nigh-impossible to achieve, but I'd love to see a TL about Napoleon's causeway.

So would I, and I would write one except I'm too busy writing about Emus gaining sentiency and really kicking Australia's backside in the Great Emu War.
 
Even if France rearms the British are going to come gunning for the fleet before it can reach a decent level of operational readiness and ability.

Yeah that's not going to happen, as long as French ships remain in their ports the British wouldn't be able to even come near to them. Many French ports were situated deep within harbours, the inlets of which were often guarded by numerous fortresses. Some examples are St. Malo which itself was a fortified city, it had an additional fort on the mouth of the Rance river (which you had to sail around to reach the port) and 5 more forts on islands in a ring around the river's mouth. The 'Goulet du Brest', the strait that leads to Brest has lined with no less than 8 forts. Even OTL the only thing the British could do was sit far away enough to be out of reach of the forts but close enough to spot and intercept raiders. This is the French we're talking about, not the British who only realised how useful fortresses were during the 19th century... who just let the Dutch sail up the Thames all the way to London unopposed after which they shot up their dockyards and anchored ships.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
Yeah that's not going to happen, as long as French ships remain in their ports the British wouldn't be able to even come near to them. Many French ports were situated deep within harbours, the inlets of which were often guarded by numerous fortresses. Some examples are St. Malo which itself was a fortified city, it had an additional fort on the mouth of the Rance river (which you had to sail around to reach the port) and 5 more forts on islands in a ring around the river's mouth. The 'Goulet du Brest', the strait that leads to Brest has lined with no less than 8 forts. Even OTL the only thing the British could do was sit far away enough to be out of reach of the forts but close enough to spot and intercept raiders. This is the French we're talking about, not the British who only realised how useful fortresses were during the 19th century... who just let the Dutch sail up the Thames all the way to London unopposed after which they shot up their dockyards and anchored ships.


Again, training the crew in port is not training in the sea.
 
Again, training the crew in port is not training in the sea.

And training at sea doesn't guaranteed victory. Winds, tides, the 'statistics' of individual ships (cannons, weight, draught, etc.) and even sheer luck all play a role. The French'd also have the home advantage, they can relatively easy retreat back to their ports, they're guarded by fortresses, etc. so a breakout can't be too problematic, the fleet at Toulon did it OTL, made it all the way to the Caribbean (past Gibraltar) and back. The only thing that could be a problem is maintaining control over the Channel long enough. And if France'd have invested more in its navy, not wasting resources on men on raiders then you can't name a definitive winner when it comes to that.
 
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And training at sea doesn't guaranteed victory.

Except that going by results it clearly comes rather close to doing so. Per N.A.M. Rodger The Command of the Ocean p408:

"In just over twenty years of warfare from 1793 to 1815, the French built 133 ships of the line and 127 frigates; and lost 112 and 126 respectively to enemy action or stress of weather."

The French problem was not in lack of building men of war but in them surviving contact with the open sea let alone the enemy.

Edit: oops typo in the book title, only one letter but grrrr
 
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Md139115

Banned
Except that going by results it clearly comes rather close to doing so. Per N.A.M. Rodger The Command of the Oceans p408:

"In just over twenty years of warfare from 1793 to 1815, the French built 133 ships of the line and 127 frigates; and lost 112 and 126 respectively to enemy action or stress of weather."

The French problem was not in lack of building men of war but in them surviving contact with the open sea let alone the enemy.

Considering that the smallest ship of the line was usually a "fourth-rate" of about 50 guns, and the average was a "third-rate" of 74...

That is a staggering amount of cannon. I can easily picture Napoleon wishing he could just have even a quarter of that to outfit the Grande Armée.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
Considering that the smallest ship of the line was usually a "fourth-rate" of about 50 guns, and the average was a "third-rate" of 74...

That is a staggering amount of cannon. I can easily picture Napoleon wishing he could just have even a quarter of that to outfit the Grande Armée.

What if he builds a really big cannon instead of the navy and fires that at Britain?
 

Md139115

Banned
What if he builds a really big cannon instead of the navy and fires that at Britain?

That would be tough. Consider that the gun the Nazis built needed carefully timed explosions to get the projectile up to speed...

I almost think that it would be easier to take all that wood and carpenters, and all that iron and a crap ton of acid (iron in acid is one of the most popular ways of producing hydrogen gas), and just make a couple thousand balloons each capable of carrying 10-20 men.
 
Except that going by results it clearly comes rather close to doing so. Per N.A.M. Rodger The Command of the Ocean

Off topic but that is such a great book. Really can't recommend it highly enough to anyone wanting to learn about the Age of Sail.

Considering that the smallest ship of the line was usually a "fourth-rate" of about 50 guns, and the average was a "third-rate" of 74...

That is a staggering amount of cannon. I can easily picture Napoleon wishing he could just have even a quarter of that to outfit the Grande Armée.

Never mind the gunpowder and semi-trained crews. The Napoleonic Navy is really only comparable to the High Seas Fleet it terms of being a resource sink that a nation at war really couldn't afford.
 
In just over twenty years of warfare from 1793 to 1815, the French built 133 ships of the line and 127 frigates; and lost 112 and 126 respectively to enemy action or stress of weather.

You do realise those numbers don't represent actual losses of France under Napoleon's leadership? Actually for ships of the line I know for a fact that the majority of those losses were pre-Napoleon. The battles of the Nile, 1st of June 1794, and Toulon saw the French lose a combined total of 47 ships of the line. That are only 3 battles and they alone attribute to just under half the total losses, not only that but they obviously aren't all the pre-napoleon battles that were fought.

In short, at least 50% of the total losses occurred within 25% of the timeframe, before Napoleon. It doesn't show an exceptional French investment in the navy. And since most of the losses were early it especially doesn't show that "training at sea" had a massive impact since most of the losses occurred when the French still had many sailors with actual experience. They had shitty admirals due to them being executed, but that didn't improve either as eventually the remainder of the post-revolution admirals (including the genius Latouche) also died sooner or later.
 
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You do realise those numbers don't represent actual losses of France under Napoleon's leadership? Actually for ships of the line I know for a fact that the majority of those losses were pre-Napoleon. The battles of the Nile, 1st of June 1794, and Toulon saw the French lose a combined total of 47 ships of the line. That are only 3 battles and they alone attribute to just under half the total losses, not only that but they obviously aren't all the pre-napoleon battles that were fought.

In short, at least 50% of the total losses occurred within 25% of the timeframe, before Napoleon.

And? As I said up thread Napoleon dialled back spending on the Navy post 1805 so it's not really a surprise that the majority of the losses were in the earlier era when the operational tempo was much higher. If Napoleon had decided to spend more on the Navy in the hope of knocking Britain out of the war by invasion rather than via the Continental System I'm sure losses would have been higher. As has been said elsewhere the Royal Navy were man for man and cannon for cannon vastly better than the French Navy through hard earned experience built up by spending 22 years at sea blockading the continent while the French rotted in port. Comparing the late era (1812 as per the OP) Napoleonic Navy to the RN is like comparing US Navy SEALS to the Army National Guard, much of the equipment and basic training is the same but the end result is vastly different. If you want the French Navy to be competitive to the RN you need to go back to the early 1790's when despite the turmoil of the Revolution and it's impact on the French office corps the quality gap was much narrower as the French hadn't seen their skills atrophy in port while the British were still learning how to maintain the constant blockade and were still rapidly expanding their fleet with predictable consequences.
 
To the OP, well between 1688 and 1940 the British always asked those who wanted to invade the Isles "Well you and what navy?" when faced with an invasion. The Navy was pretty successful an interdicting and cutting off attempts at invasion, even Bonnie Prince Charlie only got through because he didn't bring all that many men with him since he intended to raise a Jacobite Army in Britain itself. Even when later on in the 18th century Britain was threatened with invasion the Navy either crushed its opposition (Quiberon Bay, Trafalgar) or effectively deterred the threat of landing. Realistically the French Navy would not have been able to train without some kind of harassment from the RN, which meant that their effectiveness was slowly retarded over time. So even at great odds the RN would probably still come out on top in a pitched fight.

As to the causeway idea...well it's like summoning Cthulu, it's an idea. Not a great idea, but an idea.
 
The French'd also have the home advantage, they can relatively easy retreat back to their ports, they're guarded by fortresses, etc. so a breakout can't be too problematic,

That's not really practical at all. To do what the OP wants, they would have to venture further than hugging their own coast. Any further out and it's just them vs the qualitative superior English navy. The English were so overconfident on their fleet that a lot of their ships were allocated towards the Mediterranean, so if Napoleon won at Trafalgar, the British could just summon a fleet tree times larger from Malta. And post Trafalgar, which is what the OP is talking about, the French have no trained seamen. Sure they can train in harbor, but that's it. you said training isn't everything, but the British are also better on combat experience and ship design, both for First-rates and frigates,

What if he builds a really big cannon instead of the navy and fires that at Britain?

30 years later this might be possible, although 140 years later (Nazsis) shows that practicality might be a problem. It's so funny I'd like to see it.

To the OP, well between 1688 and 1940 the British always asked those who wanted to invade the Isles "Well you and what navy?" when faced with an invasion.

Nice cuttoff dates. If you said "since the Tudors" I would have pointed out the Spanish Armada heavily outgunned the rag-tag English navy at that time.

The Navy was pretty successful an interdicting and cutting off attempts at invasion, even Bonnie Prince Charlie only got through because he didn't bring all that many men with him since he intended to raise a Jacobite Army in Britain itself.

The Old Pretender might have had a better shot. At the time, a lot of the naval crews were indifferent about the whole Hannover Stuart thing. A plurality of Scottish Protestants (logic bomb) actually welcomed the idea. The 15 caught the government flat footed and were one battle away from having no Hannvoeran-British forces between them and London.

I'm NOT saying Jacobites outnumbered Georgites. In the eyes of the English as a whole, he's a filthy Catholic, not to be let on the throne. While the Jacobites had both Catholic supporters (duh) and Protestant ones (in Lancaster, Scotland, and Cornwall... the logic bomb of a Catholic leading the Church of England never seemed to occur to these people who clearly didn't think this through), the British were a protastant majority and as a whole didn't want him. Taking Scotland would be possible. England was only possible because the government forces were off foot, it was not possible due to popular support or anything like that.

Realistically the French Navy would not have been able to train without some kind of harassment from the RN, which meant that their effectiveness was slowly retarded over time. So even at great odds the RN would probably still come out on top in a pitched fight.

This is why they avoided a pitched fight over the decades. Yorktown only happened because a unit that could have demolished the French navy was repairing storm damage and didn't know Cornwallis needed evacuation ASAP not "eh... anytime next month"
 
And? As I said up thread Napoleon dialled back spending on the Navy post 1805 so it's not really a surprise that the majority of the losses were in the earlier era when the operational tempo was much higher. If Napoleon had decided to spend more on the Navy in the hope of knocking Britain out of the war by invasion rather than via the Continental System I'm sure losses would have been higher. As has been said elsewhere the Royal Navy were man for man and cannon for cannon vastly better than the French Navy through hard earned experience built up by spending 22 years at sea blockading the continent while the French rotted in port. Comparing the late era (1812 as per the OP) Napoleonic Navy to the RN is like comparing US Navy SEALS to the Army National Guard, much of the equipment and basic training is the same but the end result is vastly different. If you want the French Navy to be competitive to the RN you need to go back to the early 1790's when despite the turmoil of the Revolution and it's impact on the French office corps the quality gap was much narrower as the French hadn't seen their skills atrophy in port while the British were still learning how to maintain the constant blockade and were still rapidly expanding their fleet with predictable consequences.

First of all Napoleon didn't dial back spending on the navy. The First Republic build barely any ships compared to the kings before or Napoleon after, furthermore the ships that they did build were all just continuations of decades old designs. Under Napoleon France didn't just start building much more ships than the Republic had, but under Napoleon old models were either improved upon or even completely replaced with new models. For example the Republic only build 2 first-rates (both of them after Napoleon became consul), once Napoleon was Emperor he build 12 more.

Furthermore you're talking as if Napoleon was planning on prolonged engagement with the Royal Navy, which he did not. Napoleon was counting on a breakout, ferrying the army over and then returning to port. The army could feed, resupply and rearm itself in Great Britain (unless the British would have gone full Russia) and he'd probably send further supplies through with blockade runners.

You're also ignoring that the total loses of those first 6 years were humongous, as if those were normal. But they weren't, and under Napoleon the French were still fighting but loses fell back to more 'normal' amounts.

The Royal navy in those first years also wasn't "man for man, canon for canon" better. French sailors were actually still experienced sailors at that point of time. They degraded as time went by but in the beginning that was barely the case. The French navy was still sailing over all the oceans and still actively engaging her enemies. You also say "22 years of blockade", while France didn't fully return to her ports until after Trafalgar in 1805 which was halfway through the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

I agree that if France were to be a naval power comparable to the British then you should indeed have a POD near the start of the revolution (that is, if the revolution happens). But I don't consider "being a naval power", and "a quick victory and ferrying troops over" to be equivalents.
 
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And? As I said up thread Napoleon dialled back spending on the Navy post 1805 so it's not really a surprise that the majority of the losses were in the earlier era when the operational tempo was much higher. If Napoleon had decided to spend more on the Navy in the hope of knocking Britain out of the war by invasion rather than via the Continental System I'm sure losses would have been higher. As has been said elsewhere the Royal Navy were man for man and cannon for cannon vastly better than the French Navy through hard earned experience built up by spending 22 years at sea blockading the continent while the French rotted in port. Comparing the late era (1812 as per the OP) Napoleonic Navy to the RN is like comparing US Navy SEALS to the Army National Guard, much of the equipment and basic training is the same but the end result is vastly different. If you want the French Navy to be competitive to the RN you need to go back to the early 1790's when despite the turmoil of the Revolution and it's impact on the French office corps the quality gap was much narrower as the French hadn't seen their skills atrophy in port while the British were still learning how to maintain the constant blockade and were still rapidly expanding their fleet with predictable consequences.

The issues of the French Navy went way back before the Revolution. Since Colbert, the French Navy had chosen a model where officers were primarly educated ashore, where combat troops were trained in a special corps also land-based (marine artillery) and where ordinary sailors were drafted merchantmen and fishermen. Thus, the officers had very little idea on how to train their men, as the sailors were "already sea-trained" and the combat troops were regular soldiers. A french ship around 1789 had excellent scientists, hydrographers ans navigators on the quaterdeck, drafted fishermen drilled to maneuver a man of war but who hardly knew to aim a 24-pound gun, and a few artillery experts as a distinct group beyond the crew. The British Navy used presse´ed landmen and sea-based midshipmen, formed day after day at sea to became sailors and fighters from scratch. In order for the French Navy to compete, you need either to enlarge the Marine Artillery Corps x10 and have crackshots behind every gun in the fleet, or to shift to a sailor/gunner model after the 7YW with 30+ years of peace to drill the officers and form an efficient training routine.
 
I agree that if France were to be a naval power comparable to the British then you should indeed have a POD near the start of the revolution (that is, if the revolution happens). But I don't consider "being a naval power", and "a quick victory and ferrying troops over" to be equivalents.

I think the issue here is your comprehension gap. It takes more than a quick victory...already very hard to achieve and ferrying troops over as the ferrying part will take a not inconsiderable time, during which the army close packed on transports be they merchantmen or rafts or flat bottomed boats or even barges are very vulnerable to the kind of firepower even rather small warships of the Napoleonic era could customarily deploy. A simple brig sloop might have a broadside of eight 32 pounder carronades, enabling much greater execution than even an army reserve artillery battery with perhaps six 12 pounder guns and a pair of howitzers.

The army could feed, resupply and rearm itself in Great Britain (unless the British would have gone full Russia) and he'd probably send further supplies through with blockade runners.

Worse though this statement is simply not true unless the invading army were willing to disperse in the face of the defenders with the inevitable result it would be annihilated, not simply defeated but destroyed as a fighting force, in detail.

The issue for Napoleon's Navy is not simply victory but a victory with enough margin of reserve as to eliminate the threat from the very large number of frigates and cruisers, even revenue cutters and coastal defence gunboats, that the British could bring to bear on any landing effort not to mention being able to maintain an ongoing resupply of a field army operating in the British Isles.

This is all merely compounded by the fact that as repeatedly pointed out to you above the British had a significant advantage in the quality not so much of its admirals as its general seagoing personnel before and after Trafalgar. In many ways you yourself have argued that the damage was done prior to Trafalgar and that battle just made the strategic situation at sea crystal clear. However it was well understood by experienced sea going officers of all nations that training in port simply did not cut the mustard when making up for lack of experience at sea.
 
Never mind the gunpowder and semi-trained crews. The Napoleonic Navy is really only comparable to the High Seas Fleet it terms of being a resource sink that a nation at war really couldn't afford.

To be fair it also meant the British felt they needed to keep one hundred plus ships of the line in commission in addition to their cruisers, that is money no being spent on arming Boney's enemies.
 
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