Message from @Dubdogelmo
Discord ID: 636260265868001281
That idea of preferring a ship be sunk than scrapped dates back nearly 200 years on this side of the Atlantic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Ironsides_(poem)
American "history" lmao
No such thing
He says as the UK scraps would-be historical sites, while the Old Statehouse in Boston still stands from the days of the Boston Massacre
I love how Yanks get so proud of the frigates like the USS constitution when their navy was literally just those 3 frigates
6, though the real thing to be proud of is the 33-0 battle record on Connie
HMS Shannon hoves into view
Yeah the constitution was a really good design, but not good enough to hold a candle to the RN of the time
It was successful enough to outrun what it couldn't outgun or outgun what it couldn't outrun, and indeed as shown by the 57-hour chase involving 5 smaller Royal Navy ships, they could even outrun ships that were SUPPOSED to be able to outrun them
Basically the interwar UK battlecruiser doctrine
Yeah it was a fine ship, but there is a mystique around those ships that aint really justified
They DID pull experimental designs that proved to work, like the diagonal braces in the hull
e.g a really well managed RN frigate like the Shannon managed to beat the USS Chesapeake
Otherwise, they didn't, and weren't designed to, compete with ships of the line
hence their speed
and razees were shown to handle them well
They only did so well because the cream of the RN were in Europe dealing with Napoleon
presumably being manned by the sailors the UK had to impress into service due to lack of domestic manpower
which is the biggest reason the US even got involved to begin with
I mean they probably wanted a land grab in Canada whilst Britain was distracted
That was a minor factor among those who wanted to expand, which was still a comparatively fringe idea by that point given that the Louisiana Purchase was only made a decade prior
One attempt was already made at ~~Canada~~ British North America in the Revolutionary War, in which the southern Quebecois were sympathetic, but the northern Quebecois were less interested, to say the least
You can tell how significant impressment was as a factor by the fact that a Quasi-War was also started with France, which by this point had no further territory within American reach
That was the one led by Monrgomery if i remember right
TL;DR, don't fuck with American ships
Fucking with American ships in various capacities was what led the US to get involved in the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II
Yeah dont fuck with American ships or you may have to come and burn the capital city down
And then retreat in the face of an overwhelming American force of literally nobody
because **ANNUIT COEPTIS**
I mean Admiral Cockburn was an absolute lad
And the tornado-spawning hurricane that tossed British artillery and damaged ships while putting out their fires was an even bigger lad
Went to the office of a newspaper that chatted shit about him to take all their letters so they couldnt print his name
Then spend the night working his way through the neighbourhood's women
As god himself destroys the rest of Washington DC
Nah, that storm saved the city
extinguished the fires, expelled the invaders, and allowed for its reconstruction from the burned stone up
'expelled the invaders'
It forced a retreat
They left because they had already drank through the presidents wine supply
It had tossed artillery, damaged British ships, killed some British soldiers, and forced a retreat