The War of 1812 and the US Navy

I'm going to give you a hypothetical situation to think about: what if an Iranian frigate took - destroyed - a U.S. frigate?

Now, I'm aware of the attack on the U.S. Cole several years ago - and this is not what I'm driving at. Some crewmen died in that attack, but the Cole survived, was repaired, and returned to service in the U.S. Navy. As shocking as the attack was, the Cole wasn't destroyed, and she wasn't taken. But what if an Iranian frigate took a U.S. one?

In 1812, the United States of America declared war on England. The reasons for this are long and complex (as is so often the case on war) and are beyond the point of this post, but the outcome of the war arguably marked the entrance of the U.S. onto the world stage.

Before the war, the U.S. was merely a loose group of former colonies - a third-rate nation at best. They possessed little in the way of a navy, with 19 vessels, of which 16 were actually in service. Seven of these were frigates, with the remainder being smaller vessels such as brigs and sloops. England's navy (the Royal Navy) possessed over 600 in-service vessels, of which about 175 were ships of the line - a class of ships that would eventually come be known as battleships, and which were larger and heavier than the frigates that formed the largest ships in the American navy. So on paper, there was no contest: the American navy would be lucky to capture a few British merchantmen before being captured itself, or at best bottled up by Royal Navy blockade.(1)

The course of history also seemed to be against the Americans. For the past 20 years, the Royal Navy had routinely routed every enemy it had faced. Nelson's victory at Trafalgar(2) had been notable only for the scale of the victory; the Royal Navy simply won and won, even when outmanned and outgunned. It was a foregone conclusion that the war at sea would be swiftly over, with England victorious.

It was with supreme confidence, therefore, that Captain Dacres of the HMS Guerriere met the USS Constitution (Captain Hull) on August 19th, 1812. He addressed his men, saying that he exepcted them to beat the Constitution in 30 minutes, and that he would be "offended with them if they did not do their business in that time." Dacres was not too far off in the length of the battle (Constitution ceased firing less than 25 minutes after she opened fire at 6:05pm) but he was wrong in his prediction of its outcome: Constitution destroyed the Guerriere, so badly shattering her that she was worthless as a prize and had to be burned so as not to be a menace to navigation. Besides their frigate, the British lost 23 killed, plus another 56 wounded. American casualties were seven killed, and seven wounded.

Let me pause here to see if I can put this in modern terms. England no longer rules the waves - if anyone does, I suppose it is America. So again, what would we think if, say, an Iranian frigate engaged a U.S. frigate - and destroyed her in less than half an hour?

Of course, this only begins to approach the reality of what happened in the War of 1812, because the U.S. Navy hasn't spent twenty years defeating every other armed nation on earth. If the U.S. Navy were to tomorrow take on, say, the combined English and German navies, I don't know who would win. And, of course, not only did the Constitution take the Guerriere on August 19th, but a little over two months later the USS United States took the HMS Macedonian. And then on December 29th, Constitution met and took the HMS Java. The United States, an infant nation with an insignificant navy, met and smashed the forces of the most powerful international force in the world. The world took notice.

[EDIT, 1 OCTOBER 2009: A friend of mine recently pointed out that if Iran were to successfully attack an American warship in any meaningful way, their joy would be short-lived: "I think Iran would regret their victory. The 19th century Royal Navy, for all its immense power had nothing like a B-52 or, heaven forbid, the U.S.S. Tennessee." I think he's correct, and that's part of my point, since England in 1812 felt similarly confident about any naval clash they had with the U.S. So my point is this: England in late 1812 was shocked by the American successes, as shocked as America would now be if its navy repeatedly lost to the Iranians.]

(1) This disparity is lessened by the fact that England was then also embroiled in the Napoleanic wars, which placed great demands on her navy, but the fact remains that the Royal Navy was much more powerful than the U.S. Navy, with larger, heavier ships and greater reserves of men and materiel.
(2) Nelson, with 27 ships of the line, trounced a combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships of the line, sinking one and capturing 17 while losing none of his own.

Sources:
* Battle of Trafalgar: Grant, R. G. Battle at Sea: 3,000 Years of Naval Warfare. DK Publishing, New York. 2008 @ pp 188-189.
* War of 1812:
- relative strength of the Royal and American Navies: Toll, Ian W. Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy. Norton, New York. 2006. @ pp 331-333.
- Constitution:Guerriere engagement: Toll (ibid) @ pp 347-354.
- Constitution:Java engagement: Toll (ibid) @ pp 375-380.
- United States:Macedonian engagement: Toll (ibid) @ pp 360-365.

Cross-posted on main page