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 Haighus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
During the Civil War the US Navy was briefly the largest Navy in the world, even larger than the Royal Navy. Then it was drawn down.

By numbers or tonnage? The craft used in the US civil war had a large proportion of coastal or riverine vessels (like Monitor), whereas the Royal Navy obviously had a preponderance of large, ocean going ships to police its thalassocracy (like... Warrior, to keep the ironclad comparison going).

IDK about tonnage. The Union built its navy massively in order to fully patrol and enforce the blockade of southern ports and intercept any blockade runners at sea. At the start of the war the fleet was something like 40ish ships. By the end there were nearly 700 commissioned vessels. The Royal Navy, at this same time, was something like 200ish commissioned vessels.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
During the Civil War the US Navy was briefly the largest Navy in the world, even larger than the Royal Navy. Then it was drawn down.

By numbers or tonnage? The craft used in the US civil war had a large proportion of coastal or riverine vessels (like Monitor), whereas the Royal Navy obviously had a preponderance of large, ocean going ships to police its thalassocracy (like... Warrior, to keep the ironclad comparison going).

IDK about tonnage. The Union built its navy massively in order to fully patrol and enforce the blockade of southern ports and intercept any blockade runners at sea. At the start of the war the fleet was something like 40ish ships. By the end there were nearly 700 commissioned vessels. The Royal Navy, at this same time, was something like 200ish commissioned vessels.

Fair. That is a LOT of vessels!

While a lot were coastal vessels, a lot of them were still full sized ocean-going vessels. They had to enforce the blockade along the entire coast from Texas to Virginia.

A lot of them may have been privateers, trade ships commissioned into the navy for the duration and then released.

 Haighus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
During the Civil War the US Navy was briefly the largest Navy in the world, even larger than the Royal Navy. Then it was drawn down.

By numbers or tonnage? The craft used in the US civil war had a large proportion of coastal or riverine vessels (like Monitor), whereas the Royal Navy obviously had a preponderance of large, ocean going ships to police its thalassocracy (like... Warrior, to keep the ironclad comparison going).

It wasn't larger, just more powerful. It had more ironclads in 1865 than everyone else, I think. Of course, they were only fit for coastal waters, but since the US had no overseas possessions, that was just fine.