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Did France EVER have a chance against Britain at sea?


Destraex

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This is rather off topic and kind of out of the time scale, but I wonder how much the experience of losing a lot of the battles they fought in the 17th Century gave the British an edge in their (for lack of a better term) operating procedures, where the effect of all those defeats made the British streamline their running of the Navy, as opposed to the French Navy which hadn't spent so much time being beaten and having to find ways to streamline the way they worked in order to improve their operations.

Just a thought, feel free to let me know if I'm wrong or misguided, it's just a little theory I've had about the Royal Navy for a while now...

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I see. So the French were awesome in the 17C? Dominating the English?

 

Whom are you asking this inquiry to? 

 

If in relation to my post, certainly not.  Britain dominated the seas, by virtue of their massive fleet.  In a ship v. ship (1v1) fight between a French captain and a British captain...I would suggest slight edge Britain (based on my limited reading), but nothing that would imply dominating.  Both answers to your question, depending if it is in relation to overall fleet versus individual ship.

 

 

Which is too bad, as I'm going to play french.  Now I've got to rewrite history...and my penmanship really sucks!

 

 

 

(EDIT:  sry, I guess my post was more in relation to the 18th century....I didn't read up on the 17th ...1600s, yes?  After a reread, I figured you mean a different time period)

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When you get to the Napoleonic war it will interesting to hear what he says.

The common wisdom is that the French navy's only proper mission should have been to convey French troops across the channel for an invasion.

There were many reasons they didn't manage it... logistics, lack of focus from Napoleon himself,...

Please let us know what he says.

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I take moderate issue with the idea that the French built better ships.

 

The key question is better ships for what. French ships, including those captured by the RN, were regarded as better sailors. However British ships, as they were more heavily built and because of other design compromises, were better able to stow provisions and stand long months at sea in the unforgiving North Atlantic. But yes, many RN Captains preferred French built ships - but then they weren't paying the bills for their upkeep!

 

So in battle a French ship might be marginally better off in terms of sailing but a British ship was more likely to be there for the battle after sitting outside an enemy port for months - or at least it would cost less to keep outside that port. It would also be moderately more able to take damage.

 

The same sort of thing is seen at Jutland. The German ships are sometimes regarded as 'better', without considering that they were designed for action in the North Sea only, whilst the British ships were designed to cruise and fight globally, which led to key differences in their design.

 

This is a key issue with analysing weapon systems. 'Best' is a very slippery concept and means nothing without context. Often the important bits of that context are things that a lot of people don't consider.

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Of course France had a chance agains Britain.

If we the Dutch could kick their asses 100 years earlier despite often bad odds the French must certainly have had their chances ;)

In 1672 & 1673, yes... Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter fought on equal terms in several battles with France & England (allies at the time), dispite being badly outnumbered. In the process, he poisoned relations between France / England...as public perception blamed the French navy for failing to share equally in the great battles of the war, Solbay (28 May 1672) and the Texel (11 August 1673). [in the latter battle, sixty Dutch ships of 40 or more guns held their own against eighty-six British and French ships of similar size.]

The book goes on a bit more. TL;DR it was not sustainable, and the greatest admiral of that century (de Ruyter) is mortally wounded in battle. That war ends in 1678 with Netherlands / Spain essentially losing (fun to note that England was not in the war by this point, and was actually on the verge of JOINING against France prior to the treaty of Nymwegen (Nijmegen) being signed).

So I guess we can conclude that France beat Dutch :P not my true conclusion... de Ruyter was amazing. Able to win the battles, but not a sustained war against larger fleets.

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Though I've little to report on "massive successes" at sea for France, I can say that it seems to be that the French Army was very impressive. On continental Europe, they seemed a terror, that often required multi nation alliances to stop them.

While some may disagree, history would suggest that there was a financial choice that often decided that France can only be great at one or the other... Navy or Army.

Army always won out.

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This has annoyed me that Britain wins everything but still french all the way

 

Yes they had a chance historically in certain times and situations, remember this is a Naval game where everyone has a chance :) balance is down to the players to strive for.

 

Important to remember:- Ability is different to Quantity.

 

Also remember that a lot of the general knowledge of the French sailing abilities has come from the massive amount of material based in the Napoleonic wars. 1799 onwards. This is quite late in the general timescale the game takes place in.

 

The French revolution 1787 - 1799 cost the lives of many of Frances naval leaders, admirals to captains as a result of links to the aristocracy or merely siding with the Royalists had them introduced to the guillotine one way trip of a life time. The quality of its naval officers was generally much reduced for many years to come as a result.

 

Prior to 1787 France had many more experienced leaders capable of giving challenging the British. However the cost of Frances land armies meant less funding for its Navy, and the British spent more on their navy with the intention of being larger than their next two rivals combined. So the pressure from a much larger British fleet led to fewer instances when the French could challenge it.

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Its not just how much money was being spent, it was how the spending was directed and controlled. The French, from my limited reading, seem to have been much less capable in this area than the British. At certain points the French Navy didn't actually know how much money was coming IN, let alone what was going OUT, and where and how. For all the problems with endemic corruption the Royal Navy had a pretty good handle on where the money was going. This was backed by a system (payment by Ticket) that allowed it to effectively borrow on its own account to handle peaks in necessary expenditure or troughs in money coming in. My understanding is that not only was the RN better funded, the funds it did have were better handled.

 

The French did have a plan to defeat the RN which might have worked if Napoleon had not been deposed prior to it coming to fruition. They were building a huge fleet, the idea being to defeat quality with quantity.

 

Finally, the RN never had things easy. Many of the battles they won were 'close run things' and that continued right to the end of the wars. The war at sea was won not by some magic, nor by 'throwing money at the problem' but by year after year of unrelenting effort, attention to detail, expenditure of blood and treasure, and a continuous pursuit of excellence.

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Though I've little to report on "massive successes" at sea for France, I can say that it seems to be that the French Army was very impressive. On continental Europe, they seemed a terror, that often required multi nation alliances to stop them.

While some may disagree, history would suggest that there was a financial choice that often decided that France can only be great at one or the other... Navy or Army.

Army always won out.

 

And Army always won out because the Emperor was an army man. Well, that's a big reason, anyway.

 

There's that perception these days about France always surrendering, but that's an extremely recent thing. Definitely after Napoleon, and I'd wager it's all from WW2 (which has some interesting parallels since France let their military stagnate while Nazi Germany continued building and training). Prior to that, their army at least dominated the continent. And they had several successful invasions of Britain as well, they're just not covered in this time period.

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In 1672 & 1673, yes... Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter fought on equal terms in several battles with France & England (allies at the time), dispite being badly outnumbered. In the process, he poisoned relations between France / England...as public perception blamed the French navy for failing to share equally in the great battles of the war, Solbay (28 May 1672) and the Texel (11 August 1673). [in the latter battle, sixty Dutch ships of 40 or more guns held their own against eighty-six British and French ships of similar size.]

The book goes on a bit more. TL;DR it was not sustainable, and the greatest admiral of that century (de Ruyter) is mortally wounded in battle. That war ends in 1678 with Netherlands / Spain essentially losing (fun to note that England was not in the war by this point, and was actually on the verge of JOINING against France prior to the treaty of Nymwegen (Nijmegen) being signed).

So I guess we can conclude that France beat Dutch :P not my true conclusion... de Ruyter was amazing. Able to win the battles, but not a sustained war against larger fleets.

 

Well I guess it depends what you call a sustained war. According to the history books there were 4 Anglo-Dutch wars. They all lasted some years and both the British and the Dutch won two each. I believe at least one of them was against a larger fleet (English/French vs Dutch).

 

By the way one of the reasons for the fourth one (1780-1784) was the fact that we Dutch supported the rebellion in the American colonies against English rule supplying the Americans with weapons and ammunition. America was an example for Dutch patriots who also wanted to have a more democratic form of government  :)

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Following/during the revolution France was the first country since Sparta to Nationally conscript its army from the masses, therefore it dwarfed every nation that supported just a professional volunteer army.

 

In essence you could compare the british and French naval and Army might as a having the opposite structure. Britains standing army was small but its navy huge, France had the reverse.

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Does real historic facts expect the quality aspects of the ships matter here?

 

The RN had OP crews, with aiming discipline, fire discpline, command structure, bigger number of experienced officers and good ships to support the above.

 

The French instead had a mechanical genious when talking about ship design, Noel Sane.They lacked everything else though compared to the RN.

 

Also the 2 nations had different firing philosophies that came exactly cause of the difference of crew training and discipline.The British were striking the hull of the ship cause of their OP fire discipline and the French the sails in order to mostly run away or force the british ships to surrender cause of destroyed masts.

 

All those are real facts, can't be denied.

 

But here is the game.The devs have to just replicate the ships as they were in reality in order to perform as such which is  the most important.Make a good game mechanism for everything that has to do with crew's ability to fight, sail and repair the ship.The naval commanding of ship lies only to the skill of the player as well as the crews training and experience so the conclusion is that here if the devs do their job right (seems the do till now very well) real history will mean nothing and maybe if the French classes of Temerrair 74's and Ocean classes are added and with crew training depending on the player decisions, i can't see why not choose the French instead of the RN.

 

Ofc that's my opinion.

Edited by Domestikos
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Revolutionary and Napoleonic France seems to be entirely dominated by Britain with every single battle being won by the British.

 

I am interested in hearing about the glimmer of hope, a spark. Anything that indicated the French could win against the British. 

 

I have asked here several times for any books or stories of French success and their is simply very little to tell in that regard.

 

Should it be possible to change that in this game? 

 

 

There is some "history is written by the winners" and some definite language bias going on in this.   For example, the distillation of RN ships' logs in James' Naval History is an excellent source.   But while it declares itself a list of "naval battles, single ship actions, notable sieges and dashing cutting-out expeditions", the editor's preface to the most accessible "epitomised" edition (1888) says explicitly:

 

"...it has been the object of the Editor to reduce the five volumes of this work into one by confining the narrative to those actions only for which a medal has been struck or a clasp issued."  By Britain, that is.

 

I'm with you in wanting to find the French side of the story (wish I was able to read French).    

 

We know many British ships were captured:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_captured_in_the_18th_century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_captured_in_the_19th_century

 

On the larger scale, I believe Sam Willis in The Glorious First of June argues that both sides can legitimately count that major battle as a victory, since the French kept the Brits away from their convoys carrying desperately needed grain, though they lost the SoL battle.   

 

There are examples of other engagements won by the French.  Here are two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grand_Port

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Les_Sables-d%27Olonne

Edited by Lt. Obiquiet
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The answer to the post question is YES. But they never exploited their victories or advantages.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beachy_Head_%281690%29

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lagos_%281693%29

 

Also sometimes training, discipline and better equipment have nothing to do with it....sometimes its just luck or fate. If the wind had not shifted halfway through the Battle of Barfluer, the French would have surely won. The loss of this ONE single battle by the French crippled their naval power for decades after. If they had won, history would be much different. It was the wind.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Barfleur_and_La_Hogue

 

They also made some HUGE mistakes... 7 SOTL (12 ships in all) lost on the reef lured there by the Dutch running into a fog

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Aves_archipelago

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_II_d%27Estr%C3%A9es

Edited by modernknight1
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These are excellent.  And good examples of how fate, so to speak, aka luck...plays a big role.

 

Though after 1690...from a pure naval power perspective:  Not alot.  But had tey won in those early years, 1690...Perhaps that would have changed the course of history.

 

We could ALL be speaking French in Canada, er, Nouvelle France

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Small problems:

a) Building new ships of unseasoned Wood, does result in BAD ships..

b )  "Ready in port"? Well, to become a good sailor, you need to be at sea and train, not in port and have your ship rot.

 

So beg to differ with those cited statements of yours.

Edited by CdrNexoe
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