Blockade logistics predated steam navies

British sustainment history reaches back beyond coal and oil to the long blockade tradition of the Napoleonic era. Ships held on station still needed regular deliveries of food, drink, and naval stores. Those supply runs allowed a blockade to persist instead of ending whenever a warship exhausted what it had loaded in port. Propulsion changed the cargo and delivery problem, but the navy still depended on an organized chain of support.