Thread 64489904

What if napoleon built a giant pontoon bridge over the channel to invade Britain? Would it have worked?

no

if such a structure could have been completed while also being combat effective, maybe, but neither are possible

>>64489904 (OP)
The largest navy in the world would have noticed.

>>64490075
Alexander the great did it at Tyre. Also Napoleon controlled the Dutch, I am sure they could polder in something between Calais and Dover.

Napoleon's era pontoon bridges were designed for crossing rivers (like the Danube or Berezina), which are relatively narrow, shallow, and have less powerful currents than the open sea. Building a bridge across a major strait would require an immense number of boats or barges. For context, a World War I-era pontoon bridge across the Thames, a much smaller distance, required 67 barges and was 833 yards long. A 21-mile pontoon bridge would have been an unprecedented feat of engineering for the time. Even modern pontoon bridges built for temporary military use are typically measured in hundreds of yards, not tens of miles. The English Channel is known for its strong currents, significant tidal range, and rough, unpredictable weather. A pontoon bridge is inherently unstable in open, rough water. Even a moderate storm would have likely ripped apart miles of the structure and drowned countless soldiers. A river pontoon bridge was twice broken by floating debris during Napoleon's crossing of the Danube in 1809, which suggests the Channel's relentless waves and debris would quickly prove fatal to the structure.

>>64490111
Based LLM user

>>64489904 (OP)
Even if it was mechanically possible for them to have achieved such a thing God would have struck it down, because he's British

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scz6zd1WDRs

>>64489904 (OP)
you need to control both sides of a river to throw one up. so if the french manage to land enough troops and supplies to throw one up they have landed enough men and equipment to just march on London.
also
>pontooning
>a30km wide sea channel
nigger we don't have the technology to pull that off

>>64490147
if God is a british then why does cold beer taste better?

>>64489904 (OP)
consider for a minute that they considered driving tanks at the bottom of the channel with a snorkel leading to the surface before they considered pontooning

>>64490156
Isn't British beer 'room temp' which is colder because the british isles are traditionally a cold rainy place?

Even Mulberry, designed with steel and modern engineering and equipped with breakwaters, was destroyed by the waves.

>>64490192
this bridge is still usable

>>64490161
No I have seen videos from the BBC of Brits heating up beer and even putting in spices like cinnamon. This was black and white stuff from the 50s.

a 34km pontoon bridge

>>64490108
Yeah OK anon, tell me how far Tyre was from the coast

>>64490156
Boiled beer > cold beer

>>64490161
Room temp is a bit lower here but thats not the reason
Ales are not supposed to be ice cold, only lagers

>>64490204
Mulled Cider

>>64490161
>Isn't British beer 'room temp'
All beer should be served cellar temperature unless it tastes so bad that it needs to be near-frozen to hide the taste

No beer is supposed to be ice cold. Low temperature tampers the flavors and taste. The "ice cold beer" is a marketing gimmick created by subpar brewing companies to hide their inferior product.

>>64490251
I swear I've made this exact post and someone has gone into the archives to copy-paste it

>>64490231
Boiled beer is but a slightly-alcoholic soup

>>64489904 (OP)
how about i build a ramp up to your ass. drive a lionel up there

>>64489904 (OP)
What if napoleon built a giant robot piloted by a whiny dweeb teenager to invade Britain? Would it have worked?

>>64490304
London would have just summoned its guardian giants to smash it up

What if Napoleon built two ironclads.

What if Napoleon sacked Ney before Waterloo?

>>64490129
They're stupid but usually not that wrong.

>>64489904 (OP)
It would have been such a massive engineering feat and huge economic boon the two countries would likely not even bother going to war because there's so much money to be made by the new trade options available by this bridge, and the fact that it would mean Napoleon is either using fearsome goth druid Magicks to bend nature to his will or that France had acquired better metallurgy and engineering abilities than we have in the modern day that it would imply that they could simply obliterate England with a nuclear strike if they wished since they clearly have a fucking time machine.
Please consider getting a vasectomy OP, we don't need you polluting the gene pool in the unlikely event you ever actually get laid.

>>64490410
>huge economic boon
brother it would block the fucking CHANNEL

>>64490412
Napoleon would just whatever cheese-smelling french witchcraft that allowed him to construct the pontoon to put a section that opens up to let ships pass

Anon pointed out the event was so impossible as to be beyond any degree of possibility

>>64490251
Ice cold beer is the only way to drink shitty beer. Do you have something against shitty beer? I could go for 30 ice cold Busch lattes right now.

>>64490161
When the room temp is about 50-55 F because it came out of a cellar and it's not piss disguised as beer it tastes good.

>>64490428
Why the fuck would you ever drink shitty beer? Drink vodka if you just want to get wasted.

>>64490529
It's like having a lacroix, but good.

>>64490108
gayboy Alex didn't have to deal with enemies that had cannons. Or ships with cannons.
Or, I dunno, the notoriously terrible weather in the english channel.

>>64489904 (OP)
Napoleon could have pumped dirt into both sides of the channel and emptied it out and it wouldn't have been any less retarded.

>>64490111
>For context, a World War I-era pontoon bridge across the Thames,

Why did they throw a pontoon bridge across the Thames?

>>64489904 (OP)
There were several ropes and chains that spanned the channel. It would be 100% possible. But a hilarious amount of deforestation to accomplish.

>>64490161
>room temp
Root cellar temperature

>>64491782
U wot

>>64490412
>alt-history fiction where France manages to defeat Britain and builds a massive dam/bridge, only to raise Doggerland again and discover ancient Atlantean artifacts

>>64490304
>>64490313
What if Napoleon dropped Australia on Britain?

What if they had floated the soldiers across with hot air ballons?

>>64489904 (OP)
I think with enough resources you could probably do it until the first storm pulled it apart.
By WW2 it would be a lot more practical if you could protect it from planes.


>>64490108
>Tyre
Throwing rocks in shallow water to cover a couple of hundred meters isn't the same.

>>64489904 (OP)
Pic is a WW2 Mulberry Harbour. A twenty mile long structure is going to get noticed.

>>64489904 (OP)
just send the grande armee in submarines instead

>>64491782
>There were several ropes and chains that spanned the channel.

BS, there is no way there were multiple 20+ mile chains and rope connecting England and France in the 1800's.

>>64491960
River mouth barriers like that existed. As anons have said you have to control both sides to do such things.

>>64489904 (OP)
Uhuh, and what's to keep Lord Nelson from simply trapping the French in the middle by shooting the bridge?

>>64489904 (OP)
The weather would turn and the waves would tear the pontoons apart. Assuming the brits didn't ram a Ship-of-the-line into it.

>>64492091
The opportunity to kill frenchmen trying to cross the bridge with grapeshot?

>>64491842
ISn't the colony normally dropped on Australia?