Bille advocated using gunboats against a Royal Navy that Denmark-Norway could not match ship for ship. The proposal treated small coastal craft as a logical answer to strategic inferiority rather than a replacement line-of-battle fleet. The comparison with American policy around the War of 1812 shows how different governments reached similar low-cost coastal answers when confronted by stronger ocean-going fleets.
Notable Point · 1:17:03-1:18:05
Bille's gunboats as an asymmetric naval strategy
Steen Andersen Bille advocated gunboats as a practical response to British sea power, an approach also used in American policy around the War of 1812.