Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

Only just got round to reading this thread - work has been a killer but I find it amusing you 'Yanks' think us British were losing.
Admittedly the initial stages of the War of 1812 were bad but I think you are missing the points of how the RN changed tactics to deal with the Privateer threat.

Also didn't HMS Shannon on the 1st June 1813 capture the USS Chesapeake in 11 minutes?
Lyonheart you mention the extra prizes in 1814 but in 1815 the USS President (flagship of the American navy) was defeated and subsequently re-used by the RN. She was renamed HMS President and the name is still on the RN ship's list So from the point of view of prestige who had the last laugh?

Britain considered the entire 1812-1814/15 war an irritant because it appeared America (Jefferson / Madison) were supporting a despot (Napoleon) who wanted to dominate all of Europe; therefore their focus was Europe and the only objective for Britain in the North Americas was not for any Canadian territory to fall to America. No extra forces were dispatched to prevent this, instead local assets were to be used.

Lyonheart your comments about the Ghent Conference forgot this information:

"The decisive event of the war was the abdication of Napoleon in April, 1814. This gave the British the option of increasing their military effort to secure a decisive victory. But the Duke of Wellington’s army remained in Europe, sending a few regiments to facilitate the capture of Washington. The British focus on Europe remained absolute from 1803 to 1815: securing a peaceful, stable and durable settlement on the continent was far more important than the Canadian frontier.

Even when the British agreed to negotiate with the U.S., the discussions at Ghent remained entirely subordinate to the main diplomatic gathering at Vienna. Eventually the British offered a status quo ante bellum peace, without concession by either side: the Treaty of Ghent ignored the Orders in Council, the belligerent rights and impressment. By accepting these terms the Americans acknowledged the complete failure of the war to achieve any of their strategic or political aims. Once the treaty had been signed, on Christmas Eve 1814, the British returned the focus to Europe.

The wisdom of their decision soon became obvious: Napoleon returned to power in 1815, only to meet his Waterloo at the hands of Wellington. Had the U.S. stayed in the war, the army that defeated Napoleon might have been sent to America. Anglo-American relations remained difficult for the next fifty years, but when crises erupted over frontiers and maritime rights, British statesmen subtly reminded the Americans who had won the War of 1812, and how they had won it. In case any doubt remains the results were written in stone all along the American coast. Between 1815 and 1890, American defence expenditure was dominated by the construction of coastal fortifications on the Atlantic seaboard."

This quote is directly from a British perspective of the war of 1812.

Britain never committed more than 5-7% of her total military power to the war of 1812. The vast majority of the fleet was engaged in ensuring the French didn't try anything sneaky - the last time they tried a wee little battle called Trafalgar was the result.
Another point; didn't Washington DC get burnt by second string battalions / native troops?
If Britain had sent her first line regiments to 'teach you damn Americans a lesson' you'd be drinking tea in Boston
Before you say that would have been easily beaten - just remember these troops had not only fought an extremely mobile and successful campaign they were lead for the most part by commanders who knew how to fight and win. Wellington even with his faults knew how to get the best out of his troops and more importantly knew when to press an engagement and when not too. Many may argue this but Wellington had learnt his lessons well in India and then his later campaign up through the Peninsula.

The fact remains Britain concentrated on the war in Europe and not the side show of America.

lyonheart wrote:Hello RunsForCelery!

"Wow! Cool! Neat!"

Thanks very much for such an exposition on so many aspects of commerce warfare, it's fascinating.

The fate of the USS Essex immediately came to mind early in your comparison and I notice the USS Firefly, Captain Porter's next command, seems far closer to your Desnari commerce raiding schooner as it was a 300 ton brig of just 14 guns only 109 feet long etc.

However, I was under the impression that American privateers were still quite a nuisance in 1814, even in the Irish Sea; to wit tripling or quadrupling British marine insurance rates, if insurance could be found, due to greater losses than during just the Napoleonic wars [~1811, before the American 1812 war] while the rest of Europe was benefiting from the peace and resumption of trade, generating some internal political pressure to end the American war quickly, that among other things privateers had captured something like ~1350 ships, nearly all merchants and something like 24,000+ prisoners, roughly 4 times what the US Army captured, and while that may have been only ~2.5% of the British merchant fleet, it was far better than anyone else had ever done in tweaking the British Lion's tail.

Granted that reducing many of the privateer shipyards was one reason for the RN's ongoing Chesapeake Bay campaigns [echoed on Safehold], and the RN captured about half of the privateers or ships with 'letters of marque' [which were very easy for a merchant captain to get] most prizes were taken by 10% or less, echoing U-Boat experience.

Thus despite the end of Napoleon and the RN's ability to concentrate on the US, our privateers were still harassing British shipping even as Washington was being burned; Lloyd's reported 2 US Navy warships and several privateers had captured 108 British prizes that month alone, including even in the Thames estuary, with the year's total at or near the 400 of 1813, more than the 300 of 1812, though that was in just over 6 month's.

While news of the Treaty of Ghent reached most of the US by February 1815, the last privateers didn't return until June, with another 250 prizes for that near half-year!

So while the RN may have considered it successfully protected most of its convoys, losses to privateers were at best only about 1% in any single year; it obviously could have been much worse, pushing Britain to get the rest of Europe to condemn and end the practice in 1856.

L

Well, I thought it was more a "draw" than a win for either side.

Of course, the fact that you guys were more concerned about Napoleon was a definite help.

Thrandir wrote:Only just got round to reading this thread - work has been a killer but I find it amusing you 'Yanks' think us British were losing.
Admittedly the initial stages of the War of 1812 were bad but I think you are missing the points of how the RN changed tactics to deal with the Privateer threat.

Also didn't HMS Shannon on the 1st June 1813 capture the USS Chesapeake in 11 minutes?
Lyonheart you mention the extra prizes in 1814 but in 1815 the USS President (flagship of the American navy) was defeated and subsequently re-used by the RN. She was renamed HMS President and the name is still on the RN ship's list So from the point of view of prestige who had the last laugh?

Britain considered the entire 1812-1814/15 war an irritant because it appeared America (Jefferson / Madison) were supporting a despot (Napoleon) who wanted to dominate all of Europe; therefore their focus was Europe and the only objective for Britain in the North Americas was not for any Canadian territory to fall to America. No extra forces were dispatched to prevent this, instead local assets were to be used.

Lyonheart your comments about the Ghent Conference forgot this information:

"The decisive event of the war was the abdication of Napoleon in April, 1814. This gave the British the option of increasing their military effort to secure a decisive victory. But the Duke of Wellington’s army remained in Europe, sending a few regiments to facilitate the capture of Washington. The British focus on Europe remained absolute from 1803 to 1815: securing a peaceful, stable and durable settlement on the continent was far more important than the Canadian frontier.

Even when the British agreed to negotiate with the U.S., the discussions at Ghent remained entirely subordinate to the main diplomatic gathering at Vienna. Eventually the British offered a status quo ante bellum peace, without concession by either side: the Treaty of Ghent ignored the Orders in Council, the belligerent rights and impressment. By accepting these terms the Americans acknowledged the complete failure of the war to achieve any of their strategic or political aims. Once the treaty had been signed, on Christmas Eve 1814, the British returned the focus to Europe.

The wisdom of their decision soon became obvious: Napoleon returned to power in 1815, only to meet his Waterloo at the hands of Wellington. Had the U.S. stayed in the war, the army that defeated Napoleon might have been sent to America. Anglo-American relations remained difficult for the next fifty years, but when crises erupted over frontiers and maritime rights, British statesmen subtly reminded the Americans who had won the War of 1812, and how they had won it. In case any doubt remains the results were written in stone all along the American coast. Between 1815 and 1890, American defence expenditure was dominated by the construction of coastal fortifications on the Atlantic seaboard."

This quote is directly from a British perspective of the war of 1812.

Britain never committed more than 5-7% of her total military power to the war of 1812. The vast majority of the fleet was engaged in ensuring the French didn't try anything sneaky - the last time they tried a wee little battle called Trafalgar was the result.
Another point; didn't Washington DC get burnt by second string battalions / native troops?
If Britain had sent her first line regiments to 'teach you damn Americans a lesson' you'd be drinking tea in Boston
Before you say that would have been easily beaten - just remember these troops had not only fought an extremely mobile and successful campaign they were lead for the most part by commanders who knew how to fight and win. Wellington even with his faults knew how to get the best out of his troops and more importantly knew when to press an engagement and when not too. Many may argue this but Wellington had learnt his lessons well in India and then his later campaign up through the Peninsula.

The fact remains Britain concentrated on the war in Europe and not the side show of America.

lyonheart wrote:Hello RunsForCelery!

"Wow! Cool! Neat!"

Thanks very much for such an exposition on so many aspects of commerce warfare, it's fascinating.

The fate of the USS Essex immediately came to mind early in your comparison and I notice the USS Firefly, Captain Porter's next command, seems far closer to your Desnari commerce raiding schooner as it was a 300 ton brig of just 14 guns only 109 feet long etc.

However, I was under the impression that American privateers were still quite a nuisance in 1814, even in the Irish Sea; to wit tripling or quadrupling British marine insurance rates, if insurance could be found, due to greater losses than during just the Napoleonic wars [~1811, before the American 1812 war] while the rest of Europe was benefiting from the peace and resumption of trade, generating some internal political pressure to end the American war quickly, that among other things privateers had captured something like ~1350 ships, nearly all merchants and something like 24,000+ prisoners, roughly 4 times what the US Army captured, and while that may have been only ~2.5% of the British merchant fleet, it was far better than anyone else had ever done in tweaking the British Lion's tail.

Granted that reducing many of the privateer shipyards was one reason for the RN's ongoing Chesapeake Bay campaigns [echoed on Safehold], and the RN captured about half of the privateers or ships with 'letters of marque' [which were very easy for a merchant captain to get] most prizes were taken by 10% or less, echoing U-Boat experience.

Thus despite the end of Napoleon and the RN's ability to concentrate on the US, our privateers were still harassing British shipping even as Washington was being burned; Lloyd's reported 2 US Navy warships and several privateers had captured 108 British prizes that month alone, including even in the Thames estuary, with the year's total at or near the 400 of 1813, more than the 300 of 1812, though that was in just over 6 month's.

While news of the Treaty of Ghent reached most of the US by February 1815, the last privateers didn't return until June, with another 250 prizes for that near half-year!

So while the RN may have considered it successfully protected most of its convoys, losses to privateers were at best only about 1% in any single year; it obviously could have been much worse, pushing Britain to get the rest of Europe to condemn and end the practice in 1856.

L

Drak,

Two long quotes so you can give us 3 lines?? Snip. Snip, Snip!

Hi Thrandir,

Be grateful you have the work.

I'm rather surprised you could take that attitude from RFC's, mine and other comments, but everyone is free to see things differently.

I spent more than 2 years in England, in case you're curious, but your somewhat uninformed arrogance brings back memories of some of the Brits I knew.

The fact the RN stopped impressing American sailors might be seen as the proof in the pudding, of the war's result; certainly the respect the RN treated the USN after the war speaks for itself, while you seem ignorant of one excuses given by the Brits is that they couldn't get the treaty approved in London if they accepted responsibility for starting the war, but I digress.

Perhaps you ought to review what Wellington said about fighting in America; in effect there was no way for England to win on land, or to really win the war.

Which is why he refused to take command of the British forces there; hmm if it was so easy, especially with second rate troops, I wonder why?

Possibly because he was obviously far wiser than the British government and your snide comments?

But then you left out the Battle of New Orleans where his brother in law [granted Wellington said he didn't have much in the way of brains] took several of those so superior veteran regiments of Spain and got thousands of them slaughtered for little purpose aside from a few handfuls of American militia and volunteers after the treaty had been signed, so perhaps that's why you overlooked it?

Hardly cricket, eh what?

Yup, drinking lots of tea in Boston, are we?

Right!

You need to do a bit more reading instead.

I don't believe anyone said Britain was losing, but suffering losses out of all proportion to the relative effort America was making was quite enough for Britain to push through the ban on privateers forty years later for just some unknown reason.

Of course the fact the British continued to support the Barbary pirates shows the RN's moral superiority until the USN's post war visit indicated they were no longer useful to harassing other people's trade meant they had lost their usefulness and time to eliminate them but somehow the admiral didn't understand that or perhaps it was just all for show.

Then there's the British government's support of slavery through its smuggling weapons and building ironclads for the confederacy because it was British policy to split the US, recognizing it as a greater thereat than any nation in Europe than might have had some hostility in our joint relations over that 50 years you mentioned.

No one here was was mentioning the RN's embarrassing losses to a navy it outnumbered 40, 50, or 60 times until you brought it up; but then you didn't mention Decatur surrendered the President [hardly the USN's flagship] being rather outnumbered besides being rather damaged from running aground etc, but perhaps that's the British approach to objectivity?

The fact the RN copied her lines and built the HMS President in 1829 ten years later almost 40 years after her design, might indicate how much RN designers had to learn.

Following them indicates her superiority over the RN's specially built frigates [including the ones built out of fir] 'to answer' the American 44's, or all the cut down razee's; ie the 74 gun ships of the line with their upper gun deck removed to try to match the American frigate's speed and handiness were all much less effective if not outright failures, quite aside from all those expenses being several times that of the USN's first frigates the RN so denigrated at the time, fulfilling their designer's intent; but RFC could wax strong in detailing where the RN doubled gun deck frigates came from far better than I.

Regarding the loss of the Chesapeake, the 'bad luck' ship of the USN shows just how desperate you and the RN are and were on the subject.

If you want to equate Brooke's 7 years of training his "Shannon's to a level unmatched in the RN [probably for decades if not longer] to Lawrence's less than week in command of a untrained and even mutinous crew [some wanted prize money before they left port] without mentioning such little details, or the fact the RN didn't learn from Brooke's example, says more about your objectivity and fairness on the subject than I can spare here.

Given your attitude reflects the arrogance the British demonstrated for decades after the war, inventing whole episodes where the US frigates ran away from the fearless RN; is it any wonder that the RN finally chose Teddy Roosevelt's two volume scholarly refutation of so many of their lies as their first official text on the war, because there were still no objective British books on the subject almost 70 years later?

I could review other examples of unwarranted British arrogance, but Corelli Barnett for one, already did a great job of explaining how and why Britain has screwed up almost everything for the past 150 years or so; or we could review the fears expressed in London by the visit of the USS Miantonomoh after the civil war, quite entertaining!

The war of 1812 should have been a sideshow compared to the existential threat of Napoleon; the fact that it was far more excruciatingly painful publicly and strategically for the world's then nominal superpower than the government thought indicates just how inaccurate and arrogant it's foolish dismissal of Americans complaints were, but then you didn't say that, did you?

Of course, admitting Britain might be wrong isn't British!


L

Thrandir wrote:Only just got round to reading this thread - work has been a killer but I find it amusing you 'Yanks' think us British were losing.
Admittedly the initial stages of the War of 1812 were bad but I think you are missing the points of how the RN changed tactics to deal with the Privateer threat.

Also didn't HMS Shannon on the 1st June 1813 capture the USS Chesapeake in 11 minutes?
Lyonheart you mention the extra prizes in 1814 but in 1815 the USS President (flagship of the American navy) was defeated and subsequently re-used by the RN. She was renamed HMS President and the name is still on the RN ship's list So from the point of view of prestige who had the last laugh?

Britain considered the entire 1812-1814/15 war an irritant because it appeared America (Jefferson / Madison) were supporting a despot (Napoleon) who wanted to dominate all of Europe; therefore their focus was Europe and the only objective for Britain in the North Americas was not for any Canadian territory to fall to America. No extra forces were dispatched to prevent this, instead local assets were to be used.

Lyonheart your comments about the Ghent Conference forgot this information:

"The decisive event of the war was the abdication of Napoleon in April, 1814. This gave the British the option of increasing their military effort to secure a decisive victory. But the Duke of Wellington’s army remained in Europe, sending a few regiments to facilitate the capture of Washington. The British focus on Europe remained absolute from 1803 to 1815: securing a peaceful, stable and durable settlement on the continent was far more important than the Canadian frontier.

Even when the British agreed to negotiate with the U.S., the discussions at Ghent remained entirely subordinate to the main diplomatic gathering at Vienna. Eventually the British offered a status quo ante bellum peace, without concession by either side: the Treaty of Ghent ignored the Orders in Council, the belligerent rights and impressment. By accepting these terms the Americans acknowledged the complete failure of the war to achieve any of their strategic or political aims. Once the treaty had been signed, on Christmas Eve 1814, the British returned the focus to Europe.

The wisdom of their decision soon became obvious: Napoleon returned to power in 1815, only to meet his Waterloo at the hands of Wellington. Had the U.S. stayed in the war, the army that defeated Napoleon might have been sent to America. Anglo-American relations remained difficult for the next fifty years, but when crises erupted over frontiers and maritime rights, British statesmen subtly reminded the Americans who had won the War of 1812, and how they had won it. In case any doubt remains the results were written in stone all along the American coast. Between 1815 and 1890, American defence expenditure was dominated by the construction of coastal fortifications on the Atlantic seaboard."

This quote is directly from a British perspective of the war of 1812.

Britain never committed more than 5-7% of her total military power to the war of 1812. The vast majority of the fleet was engaged in ensuring the French didn't try anything sneaky - the last time they tried a wee little battle called Trafalgar was the result.
Another point; didn't Washington DC get burnt by second string battalions / native troops?
If Britain had sent her first line regiments to 'teach you damn Americans a lesson' you'd be drinking tea in Boston
Before you say that would have been easily beaten - just remember these troops had not only fought an extremely mobile and successful campaign they were lead for the most part by commanders who knew how to fight and win. Wellington even with his faults knew how to get the best out of his troops and more importantly knew when to press an engagement and when not too. Many may argue this but Wellington had learnt his lessons well in India and then his later campaign up through the Peninsula.

The fact remains Britain concentrated on the war in Europe and not the side show of America.

lyonheart wrote:Hello RunsForCelery!

"Wow! Cool! Neat!"

Thanks very much for such an exposition on so many aspects of commerce warfare, it's fascinating.

The fate of the USS Essex immediately came to mind early in your comparison and I notice the USS Firefly, Captain Porter's next command, seems far closer to your Desnari commerce raiding schooner as it was a 300 ton brig of just 14 guns only 109 feet long etc.

However, I was under the impression that American privateers were still quite a nuisance in 1814, even in the Irish Sea; to wit tripling or quadrupling British marine insurance rates, if insurance could be found, due to greater losses than during just the Napoleonic wars [~1811, before the American 1812 war] while the rest of Europe was benefiting from the peace and resumption of trade, generating some internal political pressure to end the American war quickly, that among other things privateers had captured something like ~1350 ships, nearly all merchants and something like 24,000+ prisoners, roughly 4 times what the US Army captured, and while that may have been only ~2.5% of the British merchant fleet, it was far better than anyone else had ever done in tweaking the British Lion's tail.

Granted that reducing many of the privateer shipyards was one reason for the RN's ongoing Chesapeake Bay campaigns [echoed on Safehold], and the RN captured about half of the privateers or ships with 'letters of marque' [which were very easy for a merchant captain to get] most prizes were taken by 10% or less, echoing U-Boat experience.

Thus despite the end of Napoleon and the RN's ability to concentrate on the US, our privateers were still harassing British shipping even as Washington was being burned; Lloyd's reported 2 US Navy warships and several privateers had captured 108 British prizes that month alone, including even in the Thames estuary, with the year's total at or near the 400 of 1813, more than the 300 of 1812, though that was in just over 6 month's.

While news of the Treaty of Ghent reached most of the US by February 1815, the last privateers didn't return until June, with another 250 prizes for that near half-year!

So while the RN may have considered it successfully protected most of its convoys, losses to privateers were at best only about 1% in any single year; it obviously could have been much worse, pushing Britain to get the rest of Europe to condemn and end the practice in 1856.

L

Goodness, Lyonheart...

Allow the poor Brits their illusions. Go chill out with an Old Tillman or something...

Don

Eh, I didn't suggest killing them off , just leave more of them out of the dramatis personae ... 90+% of everyone mentioned in the books are already left out; all I meant was "why not increase it to 93+% for one book and put a nail in the tech-base coffin?"

Nick wrote:Exactly!

Nick wrote:

hvb wrote:What? You mean write books without a coherent plot?
(really I have no idea what the phrase "doing a George R. R. Martin" means, could someone clue me in here?)

No, I was just using the opportunity to comment on the overlong list of characters that seem to eat up two-three chapters worth of page count in each and every book.

I think in this context "doing a George R. R. Martin" would be killing off a significant number of primary characters in a single book. And while RFC has shown that he's willing to say farewell to well established characters when the story dictates, we don't want to encourage him to off them in job lots just to make the list of characters shorter.

<snipped the entire set of long quotes, 'cause I don't want to be mean to people and tie up too much of their bandwidth>

Good thing we're only talking about British arrogance here Lyonheart. We wouldn't want to mention that the Americans got their assed kicked everywhere on the northern frontiers - Quebec, Niagara, Detroit surrendered without a fight, or that President Madison hadda cut and run. You burned York (good riddance) we (yeah, British born Canadian here) burned Washington.

Keith_w wrote:<snipped the entire set of long quotes, 'cause I don't want to be mean to people and tie up too much of their bandwidth>

Good thing we're only talking about British arrogance here Lyonheart. We wouldn't want to mention that the Americans got their assed kicked everywhere on the northern frontiers - Quebec, Niagara, Detroit surrendered without a fight, or that President Madison hadda cut and run. You burned York (good riddance) we (yeah, British born Canadian here) burned Washington.

Hey guys - speaking as an arrogant Brit, I feel that this is getting a bit heated and unpleasant... perhaps we should take a step or two backwards, breath deeply...

BTW, slightly changing the subject have you noticed how arrogance is nowadays deemed to be the great sin
For example, here in RFC's works, Charis and COGA regularly swap this publicly & privately, as does Manticore, Haven & the Solarian League... I wonder why.

isaac_newton wrote:

Hey guys - speaking as an arrogant Brit, I feel that this is getting a bit heated and unpleasant... perhaps we should take a step or two backwards, breath deeply...

Speaking as an arrogant American, I must say that you are quite persuasive and kind.

My personal experience has been that I have become friends with every Northern Irish person I've met, and the same is true of every Scottish person. Sad to say, although I've found I've befriended the vast majority of English people I've met, it hasn't been universally the case. I blame myself. I eagerly await my first Welsh friend. I'm unable to say about any of the farther-flung regions of the UK.

As far as our respective nations, I have to say that the UK has been a stalwart friend for many years, and we really owe it to ourselves to take your side on some issues even when we suspect that yours might not be the best way. Otherwise we're not being at all stalwart.

~Tonto

isaac_newton wrote:Hey guys - speaking as an arrogant Brit, I feel that this is getting a bit heated and unpleasant... perhaps we should take a step or two backwards, breath deeply...

BTW, slightly changing the subject have you noticed how arrogance is nowadays deemed to be the great sin
For example, here in RFC's works, Charis and COGA regularly swap this publicly & privately, as does Manticore, Haven & the Solarian League... I wonder why.

Tactically, arrogance leads to surprise. After all if one is arrogantly certain that one sees accurately, surprise is that much more powerful should one be wrong. Also, there is an element of arrogance in bigotry. Thinking individuals could avoid being bigots if they did tested their beliefs on occasion. Arrogance would reduce the desire to test one's belief.

All in all arrogance places an inappropriately high value on one's own opinion to the exclusion of others. That is not a good thing at all if one wishes to navigate our modern world successfully.