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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Wed, 27 Mar 2002 08:11:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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1274 times
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In lugnet.pirates, Kenneth Tam writes:
> > 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.
>
> 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.
Later gunboats were also designed for river penetration and close-in
assault and, frankly, terror operations against foes without similar
capability. The earlier definition seems like the more piratical one,
though. :D
> > Hmmm... like the ill-fated Political Officer aboard the Red October?
>
> The very same!
Political commissars and citizen officers--ideologues--were common
among the "operations units" of totalitarian (or wannabe-totalitarian!)
states. They were less needed in the armies after 1795, because France
was on the attack and the citizen-army's morale was extremely high.
Not so the navy!
> > 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"....
>
> Well, I have a feeling that after the Nile, the French would have been
> willing to commission just about anything into the service. Bonaparte might
> have particularly liked the idea of a mortar ship (being an artillery
> officer and all) so if a British ketch happened to get cornered they
> probably would have captured and commisioned her. That or built their own.
I'm not aware of any seaborne sieges that used French ketches.
I've never even heard of any plans to use them in the cross-
Channel invasion.
> Whatever the case, the times were chaotic -- there's no shortage of ways to
> get a French Bomb into action. If it's part of a Mediterranean squadron, you
> could have it menacing Malta or something to that effect.
Not likely; Malta first came (IIRC) under French guns when Napoleon's
entire fleet appeared off the coast. The Knights didn't last long at all.
At that point, Malta became French; I believe it remained so until it
passed into British hands.
> > 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 :-)
>
> Ahhh, uniqueness! My evil schemes strive for the very same... though I won't
> be getting a flying squadron out of them.
You've seen my wee little bomb ketch, yes? I've got a big ol' siege
mortar on board (do a ng search for "siege mortar" and the pic addies
might be handy). It needed a 16-wide one-midsection hull for full
traverse, though.
best
LFB
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: French Navy Ranks
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| (...) Quite right. Napoleon never had a grasp of the Navy. I mean, embarking his Grand Armee into light vessels and trying to get out of port in the space of a few hours... those 'send the army on porpises' made more sense, for crying out loud! (...) (23 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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| (...) 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 (...) (23 years ago, 27-Mar-02, to lugnet.pirates)
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