Questions on US Navy, 1865-1875

raharris1973

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In April 1865 the US had a big navy, in terms of numbers of vessels & sailors, and had a blockade of the south. It's navy had some good firepower and armor protection. But what was the operating range of its main fleet units?

Was the US Navy capable of only operating in strength only in the immediate vicinity of the US (an area roughly analogous to the modern EEZ, pictured in the attached map), or was it capable of exerting power against another western fleet in a somewhat wider area, including the EEZs around Cuba, Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, Haiti, and other parts of the Caribbean.

How much of whatever US naval power and reach existing in April 1865 was still around by:

October 1865
October 1867
October 1868
October 1869
October 1870
October 1873

What was going on with the Spanish, French and British fleets over this same period of time between April 1865 and October 1873 ?

Looking back on an earlier time, how did the naval power of the United States compare with that of Spain and France in the years 1853-1860?

eez852_0.png
 
Was the US Navy capable of only operating in strength only in the immediate vicinity of the US (an area roughly analogous to the modern EEZ, pictured in the attached map), or was it capable of exerting power against another western fleet in a somewhat wider area, including the EEZs around Cuba, Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, Haiti, and other parts of the Caribbean?

The USN was heavily weighted to "brown water" vessels, but had plenty of ocean-going warships. It could project considerable strength anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean.

Against a European fleet - only Britain was capable of projecting substantial naval power everywhere, and British dominion of the seas was beyond challenge, except in some other countries' coastal waters.
 

raharris1973

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So Rich, if it came to a Franco-American war of the Mexican Empire, the French Navy would get beaten like a drum just as surely as the French Army?
 
France fighting the USA in Mexico is at the wrong end of a very long logistical tail. The USA would not be any better if they were fighting France in Spain or Italy. Especially in the Caribbean the US Navy will eat the French for lunch, and if they get any monitor types based in Texas along the coast...
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Western navies in the 1860s-70s:

In April 1865 the US had a big navy, in terms of numbers of vessels & sailors, and had a blockade of the south. It's navy had some good firepower and armor protection. But what was the operating range of its main fleet units?

Was the US Navy capable of only operating in strength only in the immediate vicinity of the US (an area roughly analogous to the modern EEZ, pictured in the attached map), or was it capable of exerting power against another western fleet in a somewhat wider area, including the EEZs around Cuba, Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, Haiti, and other parts of the Caribbean.

How much of whatever US naval power and reach existing in April 1865 was still around by:

October 1865
October 1867
October 1868
October 1869
October 1870
October 1873

What was going on with the Spanish, French and British fleets over this same period of time between April 1865 and October 1873 ?

Looking back on an earlier time, how did the naval power of the United States compare with that of Spain and France in the years 1853-1860?

In a general sense, all the Western navies were in the middle of the transitions stemming from the impact of the industrial revolution; steam replacing sails, composite and then iron hulls replacing wood, rifled and shell guns, armored (ironclad) warships, etc. The navies were also increasingly professionalized, first in terms of their officer corps and then enlisted ranks; obviously, these developments were at different stages of adoption across the various navies, but they were general.

All in all, the RN was by far the largest, but both the French and USN had adopted and adapted various technical developments before the RN did, largely because the larger amount of sunk costs in terms of the RN's fleets - the French built wooden-hulled steam battleships from the keel up before the British did, and seagoing ironclads as well; there were at least two "building races" in this era for capital ships where the French set the pace, initially.

In terms of their relative shares of world manufacturing output, Kennedy lists the major powers as follows, in 1860 and 1880 (this is relative to the UK in 1900 as 100 %):

UK - 19.9/22.9
FR - 7.9/7.8
US - 7.2/14.7
RU - 7.0/7.6
GE - 3.5/4.9
AE - 4.2/4.4
IT - 2.5/2.5
JE - 2.6/2.4

The relative expansions (or lack thereof) of the eight powers over the 20 year period is pretty interesting. The US rose from the third spot to the second, for example, and its relative share rose pretty substantially, while France dropped to third and its relative share actually declined.

In terms of the USN specifically, the decade between 1865-75 was pretty much a "show the flag" period; what money was available for defense was going into the Army for the frontier wars, and the USN was largely reliant on ships built during the Civil War emergency programs. This was sufficient, of course, because there were no major crises, but the expansion of the Navy in 1861-65 showed the potential.

As far as USN operations outside of the littoral, the USN operated quite sucessfully in the Gulf, Pacific, and Gulf of California in 1846-48, and had operated significant "short of war" squadron-sized operations in the Western Pacific and South America in the 1850s.

Here are a couple of useful links:

http://www.history.navy.mil/commemorations/civil war/civilwar-index.htm

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm

Best,
 
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raharris1973

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JE - 2.6/2.4

JE, the Japanese Empire's share shrinking from 1860 to 1880 - counter-intuitive, but then again Japan was opening up to more imports at this time, and local handicrafts may have been collapsing. And industrialization in the west was impressive at that time.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Same for the French, true?

JE, the Japanese Empire's share shrinking from 1860 to 1880 - counter-intuitive, but then again Japan was opening up to more imports at this time, and local handicrafts may have been collapsing. And industrialization in the west was impressive at that time.

Same for the French, true?

Look, these are macro-scale figures, but the trends are pretty clear. The US, for example, not only more than doubled its relative share, but in a period when overall, world-wide industrialization was growing, and there were major technological changes (iron to steel, for example) underway.

Kennedy is full of these very nifty charts, based on Bairoch; very useful to get an idea of the relative capabilities of the powers, especially in an era that doesn't get a lot of popular history attention.

And a paperback version of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is dirt cheap.

Best,
 
JE, the Japanese Empire's share shrinking from 1860 to 1880 - counter-intuitive, but then again Japan was opening up to more imports at this time, and local handicrafts may have been collapsing. And industrialization in the west was impressive at that time.

Shipbuilding on a progressive Western level wasn't much of a local handicraft in Japan in 1870-yes, they were industrializing but they had been a feudal society just 20 years ago. They even bought ironclads from the CSA.
 

TFSmith121

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Actually, Kōtetsu was purchased by Japan from the US,

Shipbuilding on a progressive Western level wasn't much of a local handicraft in Japan in 1870-yes, they were industrializing but they had been a feudal society just 20 years ago. They even bought ironclads from the CSA.

Actually, Kōtetsu was purchased by Japan from the US, not the rebels. She was in the hands of the USN. although not commissioned, from 1865 to 1868, when she was sold to the Japanese.

Best,
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Good point; which presumably also accounts for some

They lose the Franco-Prussian War an Alsace-Lorraine between the measurement dates, soyou'd expect an economic hit.

Good point; which presumably also accounts for some of the German growth.

The stagnancy or near-stagnancy in the figures for the Austrians and Italians is interesting as well.

Although the phenomenal growth in the US is what really jumps out.

Best,
 
OTOH Austria lost the war of 1866 and lost precious land(Venice - among the richer parts of the empire) to Italy - despite this it grew while italy with gaining in the meantime actually stayed the same.

But ral figures instead of shares would be more important. A per capita would also be nice.
 
JE, the Japanese Empire's share shrinking from 1860 to 1880 - counter-intuitive, but then again Japan was opening up to more imports at this time, and local handicrafts may have been collapsing. And industrialization in the west was impressive at that time.

A declining share doesn't require the Japanese to be suffering any kind of losses, it just requires that other powers be growing faster. This isn't that surprising when you consider the vast social transition that the Meiji Restoration engendered. It took a little bit of time before the real take-off occurred.
 

raharris1973

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The implication of every discussion of the Virginius affair of 1873 is that the relative US Naval position had basically cratered by then and then Spanish had a superior fleet, so America had no good military option to respond with.

Had the US already fallen behind Spain by the start of the Cuban Ten Years War in 1868-1869?

Leaving aside the issue of why the US would have cared, was the US Navy in 1865 and 1866 capable of intervening the assist the Peruvians against the Spanish fleet operating against them at the time?
 
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