Napoleon scraps the French Navy

Ok so WI Napoleon when he came too power saw how useless his navy was against the British and decided to convert the sailors into soldiers turn the ships into wagons and artillery carriages, canvas into cloth for his soldiers and(I'm not sure how useful naval artillery would be on the battlefield)either use the naval artillery to augment his land armies or melt them down to start a new.

Does Napoleon have enough extra troops and kit to crush the Russians at Eylau? How about Portugal and Borodino?
 
Leaving his ports totally defenceless? While an attack on Britain might not work, no navy seems like your asking for trouble. (Just my ignorant opinion though.)
 
Mahan did state it right at the end of the 19th Century when in his book about Sea Power. A fleet is necessary to create a powerful state/empire. Without the threat of the French navy or invasion we have no Nelson and the British would have been involved on the Continent much earlier. Instead of millions of pounds per year going to crew/man/construct ships of the line in order to maintain the blockade Britain could have used a much smaller fleet of battleships and utilized frigates, sloops and brigs to blockade the French coastline and interdict shipping. In addition the problems the United States had with Britain would have been less atagonistic as there would have been no need for the press if you have a smaller Royal Navy. The British Army however would have grown or been used earlier as fewer soldiers would be held for home defense. A corps under a British general at Jena? Wellington might not even be famous or Wellington for that matter butterflies and all that.
 
Alright so the RN gets downsized and British army gets beefed up but still it seems to me the French gain more in this scenario as France's main weapon-the army-is strengthened and Britain's main weapon-the Royal Navy-gets weakened. But here is another point in OTL Britain could've landed an army anywhere on the European continent but what was the point because as soon as the French arrived they could relatively easily deal with an such landing(at least until the Peninsular War kicked off). That IMO doesn't change with this scenario
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Alright so the RN gets downsized and British army gets beefed up but still it seems to me the French gain more in this scenario as France's main weapon-the army-is strengthened and Britain's main weapon-the Royal Navy-gets weakened. But here is another point in OTL Britain could've landed an army anywhere on the European continent but what was the point because as soon as the French arrived they could relatively easily deal with an such landing(at least until the Peninsular War kicked off). That IMO doesn't change with this scenario

No they gain less, France in it it 1789 borders had twice as big population as Great Britain (and 3 times as big without Ireland), they could simply invest less per capita in the fleet and still get a fleet which could a threat to Britain. This forced the British to invest more in their fleet meaning less money to the army, while in this case Britain can invest more in their army, which thanks to the greater mobility the fleet lend to it, could attack more or less at will, especially if France doesn't have a fleet to use against it.
 
Aide: Sir! The British are attacking Brest!
Napoleon: Okay, station a few thousand men there.

---

Aide: Sir! The British are attacking La Rochelle!
Napoleon: Okay, station a few thousand men there.

---

Aide: Sir! The British are attacking Amiens!
Napoleon: Okay, station a few thousand men there.

---

Aide: Sir! The British are attacking Brest once more!
Napoleon: Well, just have the men we already stationed there defend it.
Aide: But, sir, our line was stretched too thin; it was covering the entire coast. There are too few men in Brest to defend.
Napoleon: Well, have nearby forces concentrate.
Aide: But, sir, we needed many of those men for our army. We were in the process of invading Prussia, and we had to pull many of them back when we realized there were only two divisions free for the invasion.
Napoleon: Well, there's got to be some nearby! Concentrate them!

*booms in the distance*

ENTER Aide 2

Napoleon: What was that?
Aide 2: Sir! The British sent gun boats up the Seine, and we had absolutely no navy to stop them. Paris is under attack!
Napoleon: Well, defend it! We have soldiers!
Aide: Actually, we had to pull those back when the British were threatening Marseilles last Thursday.
Napoleon: I guess I really fucked up LOLOLOLOL!!!!

*boom as a cannonball bursts into the room, killing all*

EXEUNT



That's basically it. I oversimplified it, but yeah. >_>
 
"Those far distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world."
"The allies we gain by victory will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our defeat"
"Free supplies and open retreat are two essentials to the safety of an army or a fleet"
Alfred Thayer Mahan


All three of these quotes were about the British dominance of the sea. The first is true Napoleon's army could not win because its greatest rival for power in Europe was unassailable due to its fleet. The second is also true because when Napoleon began to lose due to Britain's control of the sea and especially due to the Continental systems destruction of his "allies" economies Britain was able to continually re instigate conflict between Napoleon and Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, et al. Same problem Hitler had when his allies faced defeat they abandoned him to join the winning side. Finally the last demonstrates the success of the Peninsular campaign in comparison to Napoleon's Russian campaign. Britain was able to send an army and keep it supplied and reinforced. Even when defeated at Corunna, Moore's army (without him of course) was able to withdraw due to the British navy's control. However Napoleon had no secure rear area as seen by the partisans and guerrillas in Spain and his disasterous retreat through Russia.
 
You really don't gain that many men from removing your navy. Sure, there were ships around with about 800 crew, but the vast majority had 50-100 crew. That's barely even a company of men. I'd also advise you to consider the following: when battalions were formed, they were formed from recruiting officers and NCOs rounding up enough men to form the companies that would serve under them. Therefore recruiting ended when those recruiters decided they had enough men. Generally this was done because the Army's General Staff had an idea of how many men they wanted to raise. Turning sailors into soldiers doesn't really boost France's military capacity, it just decreases the level of recruitment in the rest of the country on one occasion.

I'd also recommend you consider the idea that Napoleon needed until his navy was destroyed at Trafalgar to understand that he couldn't dominate the seas. In fact, it was after that that he realised, since he tried to abduct the entire Danish navy to recreate his navy in 1807, hence the whole British Copenhagen debacle.

Oh, and final point, naval artillery is useless to an army. The limbers are all wrong. The pieces would be near impossible to transport, and since they relied on the rolling of the ship to adjust angle, they'd be unable to adjust the cannon for distance at all.
 
The whole concept is a fleet-in-being. So long as your navy exists and can project power, the enemy has to react to it in some degree no matter how outnumbered you are.

Napoleon was smart enough to realize this.
 
The whole concept is a fleet-in-being. So long as your navy exists and can project power, the enemy has to react to it in some degree no matter how outnumbered you are.

Napoleon was smart enough to realize this.

Quite, it's like a nuclear deterrent. Doesn't matter if your nukes are old and rusty and you don't even know how to fire them. So long as your enemies think you have the power to use them, they have to spend a lot of resources making plans against the possibility - resources better spent elsewhere.
 
Does Napoleon have enough extra troops and kit to crush the Russians at Eylau? How about Portugal and Borodino?
A reduced or completely dissolved navy means the demand for coastal defense batteries has just gone through the roof. Thus, all/most heavy munitions (18 pounders on up) from the fleet and the associated gun crews will not be able to join the field armies (tah da! that's probably cut the useful number of men you'll get by a third).

Besides, is the french fleet even going to provide that many men all up? IIRC, at it's peak the RN had something in the order of 100,000 men enlisted. Thus, making the probably incorrect assumption that the french fleet demanded comparable manpower, yes it would free up a large number of men (neglecting garrison duty etc. for the moment). But even 100,000 men isn't all that significant.... it's a small fraction of what was deployed in the Russian campaign and equivilent to about a third of the french forces arrayed in Spain. As mentioned above, the need for coast defense probably inplies you're actually only talking 50-70,000 men free to join the field armies.
 
But 50000 men even on the low end there would be the equivalent of half the army Napoleon put on the field of Waterloo and as Wellington called it "It was a close run thing". In the Peninsular War most battles were between armies of less than 50000 men. Exceptions are Talavera, Bussaco, Torres Vedras, Salamanca, Vitoria, Pyrenees, Bidassoa, Nivelle, and Nive and the last five all took place in 1813-1814 after Wellington had already gotten across Spain to the borders of France. Place just 20000 men in that region and we now have fights where instead of outnumbering the French army at Vitoria 105000 to 60000 you now have a much closer fight of 105000 to 80000. Add 20000 men to the order of battle at Waterloo and I say Napoleon wins as he can leave an entire corps to hold off the Prussians when they appear on his right.
 
If that happened, Napoleon would've been locked up in some palace somewhere and someone else (on of his marshals?) would take his place, probably with lesser successes
 
But 50000 men even on the low end there would be the equivalent of half the army Napoleon put on the field of Waterloo and as Wellington called it "It was a close run thing". In the Peninsular War most battles were between armies of less than 50000 men. Exceptions are Talavera, Bussaco, Torres Vedras, Salamanca, Vitoria, Pyrenees, Bidassoa, Nivelle, and Nive and the last five all took place in 1813-1814 after Wellington had already gotten across Spain to the borders of France. Place just 20000 men in that region and we now have fights where instead of outnumbering the French army at Vitoria 105000 to 60000 you now have a much closer fight of 105000 to 80000. Add 20000 men to the order of battle at Waterloo and I say Napoleon wins as he can leave an entire corps to hold off the Prussians when they appear on his right.

Yes, but we wouldn't get a Waterloo ITTL. Nappy wouldn't have lasted long enough. He probably would've gone down as a minor note in history as a tinpot dictator; someone who had some interesting tactics but never managed to get very far due to incompetencies elsewhere (ie, no navy).
 
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