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 22:09:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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1693 times
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In lugnet.pirates, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
> 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.
I just pulled my copy of 'Conway's The Line of Battle' off the shelf,
realizing I should have looked earlier on this subject. Apparently, the
French *invented* the mortar ship back in the mid 17-century. The book
wasn't too specific on the 1790s period, but they had 2 commissioned during
the American Revolution and converted four more at that point.
They also started arming a strange breed of corvettes with 42-pdrs (I'm
assuming carronades on this one) and a single 12 inch mortar in the mid
1790s, and built small cross channel mortar boats with 7 inchers. These
weren't meant for heavy seas.
All in all, it seems likely that the French would have had at least one
conventional Ketch in commision at any given time.
Kenneth Tam
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | 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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