Jeune École treated torpedo flotillas as a deterrent

Jeune École's French advocates sought to deter a stronger enemy by making an approach prohibitively costly. The theory assumed that enough small craft could threaten the Royal Navy's capital ships and compensate for French weakness in battleships. Its underlying flaw was that the enemy also possessed torpedoes, guns, and the ability to maneuver. Rapid-firing guns attacked the launching platform, turning the torpedo into a driver of the destroyer-counterdestroyer cycle rather than a weapon that made battle fleets obsolete.