Subject:
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Re: French Navy Ranks
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.pirates
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Date:
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Tue, 26 Mar 2002 23:53:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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3218 times
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In lugnet.pirates, Kenneth Tam writes:
> > > IIRC, the British Navy would have had the ketch and the sloop under the
> > > command of Lieutenants, and the gunboats under the command of Midshipmen.
>
> Hmm... now I might be on the wrong page here, but I would always have
> expected only commissioned officers to command vessels -- at least in
> Britain. In other words, Commanders for the Brig and the Sloop (depending on
> the latter's size) and Lieutenants for the gunboats -- but that might depend
> on the size of the boats.
I'm considering a gunboat to be a large, sloop rigged open boat with a
single forward mounted cannon. I'm presuming it would probably be/could be
stowed aboard a larger vessel (1). Later gunboats were definitely larger
vessels, and would have been commanded by a higher rank.
Or maybe I'm getting my vessels and time periods confused...
> One thing I find about rank assignment of that
> period... it was Nuts! Didn't some of Nelson's ketches at Copenhagen have
> Captains in them?
>
> > I haven't seen too many references to French naval ranks in the
> > Napoleonic period. The "Piratic Era" might be better considered
> > ancien-regime; at least there, the ranks are standard. One of the
> > problems with the Revolution, Directory, Consulate, and Empire is
> > that rank systems and philosophies of rank were in flux (much as
> > they'd be in the Soviet military, where levelling was pursued far
> > too agressively).
>
> I also recall reading about citizen commisioners aboard ship.
Hmmm... like the ill-fated Political Officer aboard the Red October?
> I might be
> wrong here, but I think that certain Revolutionary governments -- well,
> mainly the Jacobins -- were prone to putting their own 'commisioners' on
> French warships to assure loyalty to the state. You know, 'attack or meet
> Madame Guiltinne'. Gotta love Robespierre and his chums, don't you? Anyway,
> that might be applicable if you're looking at a squadron in the earlier 1790s.
> Incidentally, did the French even commission Bombs?
Ummm.... I hadn't occured to me that they didn't actually have any... it was
a matter of "what interesting vessel could be made with this hull"....
> I don't recall reading
> about any, though the records I've come across seldom portray the French as
> comissioning much -- the unfair bias of history being what it is. Not too
> many give the Republican Navy its due -- hats off to you for doing so!
My motivation was mainly the torsos I had on hand (and on hand to
modify...), like the hull pieces I had to hand. And just to be a bit
different, of course :-)
Cheers
Richie Dulin
1. Although my brig's not large enough to do this comfortably.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: French Navy Ranks
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| (...) Aha! Makes sense to me! I've come across a number of instances where gun brigs and cutters were listed as gunboats, but that definition clears things up neatly. (...) The very same! (...) Well, I have a feeling that after the Nile, the French (...) (25 years ago, 27-Mar-02, to lugnet.pirates)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: French Navy Ranks
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| (...) Hmm... now I might be on the wrong page here, but I would always have expected only commissioned officers to command vessels -- at least in Britain. In other words, Commanders for the Brig and the Sloop (depending on the latter's size) and (...) (25 years ago, 26-Mar-02, to lugnet.pirates)
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