Naval warfare

Anyway.

Last episode, we covered the War at Sea, with a particular focus on the French Corsairs, a strange and colorful corner of the war where the forces of free enterprise met with the ancient codes of maritime combat.

Before we close the book on privateering, I should mention that this was not an entirely one-sided business.

There were British privateers as well as Frenchmen, Americans, and Scandinavians.

The French would never mount another serious challenge to British naval supremacy in the Adriatic.

After the Battle of Pirano, fought on February 22, 1812, there was no longer any significant body of water on Earth where Napoleon or his allies could seriously challenge the Royal Navy.

Of course, this did not mean the war at sea was over.

The Corsairs continued their fight, the Danes and Norwegians were still carrying on their gunboat campaign in northern Europe, and the Americans would soon join the fray.

So much AI was used in this process.

And it's a cute little fantasy game with ships and steamships because my son fell in love with American Civil War and naval combat, for Marine Warfare.

A lot of fun, wild, really stupid history, part of naval history.

I love it so much.

Okay.

And one thing I remember about this game, big thing was, and people praised it for when it initially came out, was the naval combat.

So you said pretty much all that combat stuff, all that's still amazing, just like the first game.

Yeah, yeah.

And they really haven't changed that much.

Um, the controls are pretty much the same.

The only real differences to the naval combat are like the, the three sort of side missions I mentioned were viewing those sort of like adds like an extra tool to the ship that maybe wasn't in the original.

Um, you'd also get like a monkey or a cat that'll like hang out on the deck with you.

overall in the eyes of russia this is a high risk area it's an unsecure area it doesn't have forward control it knows that all the neighbors are keeping a very close eye on what it's doing and all the neighbors are seeing that their navy there is absolutely desperate

well and and to to talk about the level of of innovation that that ukraine has brought to to naval warfare uh we've got uh in my day This was something that a destroyer did, right? Here you have a navalized drone.

It looks the way it does because it's made of radar absorbing material.

You can see the architecture here and the angled panels, et cetera.

The heart of this whole Second Hundred Years' War was the Seven Years' War.

The British part of the Seven Years' War was then called the Maritime War, and the heart of the Maritime War was the winning of Canada, in which the decisive blow was dealt by Wolf.

We shall see presently how Navy and Army worked together as a united service in joint expeditions, by sea and by land, how Wolf took part in two other joint expeditions before he commanded the land force of the one at Quebec, and how the mighty empire-making statesman, William Pitt, won the day for Britain and for Greater Britain, with Lord Anson at the head of the Navy to help him, and Saunders in command of the front.

It was thus that the age-long vexed question of a Greater France or a Greater Britain in America was finally decided by the sword.

I'm your host, James Early, as always, and I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Audrey Rogers.

In our last episode, the second of a three-part miniseries on the Naval War, Audrey and I examined how the Continental Navy and hundreds of American privateers waged a relentless campaign against British commerce, forcing the Royal Navy to divert valuable ships to protect merchant convoys.

We then explored the dramatic impact of the American victory at Saratoga, which persuaded France to enter the war and transform the revolution into a global conflict.

Finally, we followed the extraordinary exploits of John Paul Jones, from his daring raids on the British Isles to his legendary victory over HMS Serapis in one of the most celebrated naval battles of the Revolutionary War.

This week, we will continue to follow American, British, and French soldiers through the end of the Naval Revolutionary War.

We will see how crucial the French Navy was to the French-American victory over the British at Yorktown.

We'll also discuss how the naval war continued after Yorktown and how the British Navy dealt its French counterpart a major blow at the Battle of the Saints.

Audrey's going to kick it off this time.

Yeah

... naval warfare.

Found the rule set.

Yeah, it's cool.

Technically, technically the Flames of War is a full army.

Oh.

The Naval Warfare is a full army, and the V- the, the World War II ships I think is a full army, or it might be close.

Okay.

there was little question regarding Jones's courage or his professional skill.

Now, while American ships continued their attacks on British commerce, events on land dramatically altered the course of the naval war.

As we mentioned several episodes ago, in October 1777, General John Burgoyne surrendered his entire British army at Suratoga.

The victory represented the greatest American military success of the war to that point, but its most important consequences were diplomatic rather than military.

France's entry into the war had already altered the balance of power, but in 1779 and 1780, as we touched on earlier, two additional European nations, Spain and the Dutch Republic, would also join the conflict.

What had begun as a rebellion in Britain's American colonies was, as we have said, becoming a worldwide war, stretching the Royal Navy across multiple oceans and setting the stage for the decisive naval campaigns that would ultimately determine the fate of the revolution.

It is to those decisive campaigns that we will turn in our next episode, which will be the third of three parts of this naval war miniseries.

Before we wrap up, though, Audrey, you have any final thoughts?