Maybe . . . DuQuense
But allowing proto-Vikings/Saxons to land and ravage the coastal holdings of the Romano-Britons is not a very wise idea. You are thinking of communications and movement from a 20th century point of view. In 400s Britain, the back of a horse, a marching man, or a fast galley/sailing ship is the fastest way to move or communicate. Attacks on coastal regions means either garrisoning them, as the Romans did in the 200-300s, when the Classis Britannica was reduced to nothing, (see Saxon Shore forts) or evacuate those regions permanently.
If you evacuate those regions, then you have to feed refugees for a indeterminate time. This would take away from your ability to build any kind of disiplined force. It also means that your merchant marine will take serious loses, and that means that your revenues will diminish. If you have a navy, you can have what the Scandanavian Navies had in WW1 and after: coast defence ships. Or look at what Alfred the Great did, when faced with Viking longships. I guess i just think that ships are a better defense, initially at least, than cavalry....
A few good naval quotes
"The Athenians will defend their city with a wooden wall."
Themistocles
"I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea."
1801
John Jervis,
Admiral St. Vincent
"It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."
President George Washington, 15 November 1781, to Marquis de Lafayette.
"A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace."
President Theodore Roosevelt, 2 December 1902
I wonder, does anyone know if an entire transport convoy has ever been caught on the surface and forced to surrender? I am a generalist student of history, and many small actions and wars I may know very little of (such as the South American Wars 1810-1950.)
But allowing proto-Vikings/Saxons to land and ravage the coastal holdings of the Romano-Britons is not a very wise idea. You are thinking of communications and movement from a 20th century point of view. In 400s Britain, the back of a horse, a marching man, or a fast galley/sailing ship is the fastest way to move or communicate. Attacks on coastal regions means either garrisoning them, as the Romans did in the 200-300s, when the Classis Britannica was reduced to nothing, (see Saxon Shore forts) or evacuate those regions permanently.
If you evacuate those regions, then you have to feed refugees for a indeterminate time. This would take away from your ability to build any kind of disiplined force. It also means that your merchant marine will take serious loses, and that means that your revenues will diminish. If you have a navy, you can have what the Scandanavian Navies had in WW1 and after: coast defence ships. Or look at what Alfred the Great did, when faced with Viking longships. I guess i just think that ships are a better defense, initially at least, than cavalry....
A few good naval quotes
"The Athenians will defend their city with a wooden wall."
Themistocles
"I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea."
1801
John Jervis,
Admiral St. Vincent
"It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."
President George Washington, 15 November 1781, to Marquis de Lafayette.
"A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace."
President Theodore Roosevelt, 2 December 1902
I wonder, does anyone know if an entire transport convoy has ever been caught on the surface and forced to surrender? I am a generalist student of history, and many small actions and wars I may know very little of (such as the South American Wars 1810-1950.)
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