We all know that in SP navies aren’t quite so handy but I was wondering if anyone had had any thoughts of the role of Naval warfare in MP. My experiences are fairly limited and I was wondering if anyone had any comments/ pointers on or beyond these.
1)With the very limited numbers of troops that one can build abroad now, it seems to me that colonial warfare requires a fleet to reinforce armies abroad.
2)Naval warfare is fairly limited prior to being able to blockade
3)Prior to the full development of colonies naval warfare is only likely between England and France and the Ottomans and Venice. Both would require full time players for this to happen.
4)Due to the time that it takes to build fleets, their often high cost, that one has to maintain large fleets in the anticipation of a naval conflict.
I have had 2 significant naval conflicts.
The first was with the Dutch versus Spain on two fronts in the 1670’s, one in the channel, where a large Spanish fleet totally destroyed my smaller Dutch fleet. About 120 warships were involved. The second front was war in the East Indies where a small Dutch fleet of 15 vessels destroyed 2 same sized Spanish fleets allowing the almost total removal of the Spanish in the far east.
The second was perhaps more interesting. A Franco-English alliance versus Spain in the 1730’s/ 40’s. With better leaders and Naval tech the Anglo-French fleet blockaded the Spanish fleet in Spain allowing smaller French fleets to capture 5 Caribbean islands and supply about 60K of troops over 4 years to fight against Spanish armies in Mexico. The Spanish fleet eventually escaped during a lull in the blockade but played no part in the rest of the conflict. There wasn’t a single naval engagement despite that all three nations had massive fleets. But the result of the war allowed France to avoid having to invade Spain en masse and incur massive attrition and at the same time fight a long war in the Americas without interference.
I have seen another where the British were able to help themselves to Russian colonies in the Far East and Americas without any resistance as the Russian fleet and tech was non existent.
I would be interested to hear of others experiences of naval conflict and whether they have managed to implement an economic blockade of any sort against an opponent.
1)With the very limited numbers of troops that one can build abroad now, it seems to me that colonial warfare requires a fleet to reinforce armies abroad.
2)Naval warfare is fairly limited prior to being able to blockade
3)Prior to the full development of colonies naval warfare is only likely between England and France and the Ottomans and Venice. Both would require full time players for this to happen.
4)Due to the time that it takes to build fleets, their often high cost, that one has to maintain large fleets in the anticipation of a naval conflict.
I have had 2 significant naval conflicts.
The first was with the Dutch versus Spain on two fronts in the 1670’s, one in the channel, where a large Spanish fleet totally destroyed my smaller Dutch fleet. About 120 warships were involved. The second front was war in the East Indies where a small Dutch fleet of 15 vessels destroyed 2 same sized Spanish fleets allowing the almost total removal of the Spanish in the far east.
The second was perhaps more interesting. A Franco-English alliance versus Spain in the 1730’s/ 40’s. With better leaders and Naval tech the Anglo-French fleet blockaded the Spanish fleet in Spain allowing smaller French fleets to capture 5 Caribbean islands and supply about 60K of troops over 4 years to fight against Spanish armies in Mexico. The Spanish fleet eventually escaped during a lull in the blockade but played no part in the rest of the conflict. There wasn’t a single naval engagement despite that all three nations had massive fleets. But the result of the war allowed France to avoid having to invade Spain en masse and incur massive attrition and at the same time fight a long war in the Americas without interference.
I have seen another where the British were able to help themselves to Russian colonies in the Far East and Americas without any resistance as the Russian fleet and tech was non existent.
I would be interested to hear of others experiences of naval conflict and whether they have managed to implement an economic blockade of any sort against an opponent.
