Talk:Commerce raiding

Untitled
All major powers do commerce raiding. However, most of the time, they are so successful (for example, Britain in WWI) that all commerce with the lesser power ends almost immediately. World War II in the Pacific was an exeception due to the extreme supply lines.


 * Not sure I entirely agree with that. Britain in WWI ( and the Union in the American civil war ) imposed a blockade on Germany. German shipping which approached the blockade could be seized ( not in theory sunk on sight ) and neutral ships could be searched for contraband. Since this is legal in international law it is not commerce raiding, but the difference is small and POV. 145.253.108.22 13:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

When did the change occur between capturing merchant ships and sinking them? Capture was the rule in the early 1800's, and seemed to continue during the American Civil War, but during the world wars merchants started getting sunk instead. It would be great if this could be worked into the article. Therealhazel 09:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Forwarding
Could we forward from guerre de course? That's what I looked this up under and came up with nothing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cpt ricard (talk • contribs) 02:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

Steel crazy
I deleted "(the US Navy commenced steel construction in 1883)" as too U.S.-centric. Trekphiler 04:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Mahan's view
"Commerce raiding was heavily criticised by the naval theorist A.T. Mahan, who regarded it as a distraction from the destruction of the enemy's fighting power."

Coming in the introductory section in particular, I find this to be deeply misleading. To quote from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783, "...this commerce destroying, to use our own phrase, must, if in itself successful, greatly embarrass the foreign government and distress its people. Such a war, however, cannot stand alone; it must be supported, to use the military phrase; unsubstantial and evanescent in itself, it cannot reach far from its base.... Failing such support, the cruiser can only dash out hurriedly a short distance from home, and its blows, though painful, cannot be fatal." Chapter II - Section: "Military value of commerce destroying"; Emphasis in original.

As the above quote shows, greatly supported throughout his book, Mahan believed commerce raiding to be an incredibly effective tool. However, it needed the support of a powerful navy to be sustained and ultimately fatal to an enemy's interest. Thus, "commerce raiding was heavily criticised by ... Mahan" is deeply misleading, and is a very common (and oft-repeated uncritically) misperception. Perhaps "commerce raiding as the sole naval policy of a nation was heavily criticised by Mahan as ultimately indecisive in warfare" would be a better way of putting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.218.154.17 (talk) 17:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Commerce raiding. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081121201756/http://www.hydrogencommerce.com/zepplins/zeppelin6.htm to http://www.hydrogencommerce.com/zepplins/zeppelin6.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 03:41, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Commerce raiding. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110321233336/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com:80/ondina.html to http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/ondina.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:52, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Commerce raiding. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj11n1/cj11n1-8.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110321090442/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/u-boatindia.html to http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/u-boatindia.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 20:25, 15 December 2017 (UTC)