WI Britain targetted gunpowder supplies

We need to do this across many hundreds of miles of poor roads in all weathers and in all seasons. The better wagon and barge routes being known to our enemies.[/B]


American armies moved faster than American ones. There was also a lot of gunpowder bought through the Dutch, either directly or in the Caribbean. So it wasn't quite "depending on the whims of a foreign king."

But yea, Americans were awesome to risk that kind of struggle for liberty.


My snarkiness was generated by the fact that I suggested they defeat the French navy in the atlantic to prevent the vast quantities of free gunpowder being shipped, which isn't the same things as blockading American ports at all.


Defeating the French fleet, even if possible, doesn't mean that gunpowder is no longer shipped.

As for the British military: apparently the force it deployed to Long Island in 1776 was the largest one it deployed overseas before WW1. Hrm.
 
The way they were used OTL, in other words.

The problem is when there is nowhere you can afford to give up.

Home waters obviously can't be given up. And neither set of colonies is something you want to forfeit. I think, in terms of the empire's good, Britain came out if not ahead, at least as well be expected to as it could with what it had from 1775 on.
I am definitely of the opinion Britain should have ditched the colonies as soon as they turned stroppy and long before the revolt; leaving them to whatever fate. But that would be another thread and would be a betrayal of the trust of the Loyalists and the Kings government's duty to protect them. The true solution to the problem would be to bring forward the Great Reform Act by half a century.

The thread's postulate is how a military solution could be achieved by targetting a clear insurgent weakness but political problems ultimately require a political solution and that did not happen.
 
The thread's postulate is how a military solution could be achieved by targetting a clear insurgent weakness but political problems ultimately require a political solution and that did not happen.

Well, for this discussion's sake, I'm ignoring the political part. The military part is daunting enough.

I think if Britain focused on North America and not the Caribbean, it might not come out ahead in that theater, and it would definitely not in the Caribbean.

I think the gunpowder situation isn't quite as critical as you painted in the post before this, also.

The truth is, both sides are facing a really, really tough (for different reasons) military fight. The British don't have the quantity forces to overwhelm the rebels, and the rebels don't have the quality (and rarely comparable quantity) of forces to overwhelm the British.

There's a reason it lasted six years, and it wasn't for lack of determined men doing their best - although it can be argued that a little (or a lot) more of that on Howe's and Clinton's part would have gone a long way, on the scale of the men eating alligator in the race to the Dan River, it was not lost by weak men.

And while the British have ample supplies in a way the colonists don't, they also have to ship the vast majority of them across the same capricious ocean.

Logistics, frankly, were cut out to ensure stalemate.
 
Read Kevin Phillips "1775 A Good Year for Revolution" especially chap 11 & 12 on the global arms trade and smuggling it explains a lot about why Englands attempts to cut off the colonists powder supplys didn't work. Also the book is an interesting read that throws light on parts ofthe revolution usally ignored.
 
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