An easy one

[BobL]

Bob, I know that the history of the war of independence and it's aftermath was pretty damned complex.

The French were involved for several reasons ( the main being that they were French ). The Spanish also
stuck their beak in.

Now with both these countries having colonies in the West Indies and central/South America the US was
probably permitted to operate from one of those.

You are right it was complex.

With Independence the 'mericans were making a break from Europe and many European traditions so they decided not to choose any of the great European naval powers as their model. This was rather foolish as they should have chosen the British model as the British ruled the seven seas and the USA would have risen to naval supremacy very quickly as they already had many sailors with british naval experience. Combined with a distinct lack of willingness to pay any taxes (what's changed) they had no navy at all to speak of for many years. As a result the Canadians (with obvious british support) were able to come down to Maryland in 1812 and burn down the white house.

The first I heard of this was in Herman Melville's (who also wrote Moby Dick) book about the two years he spent aboard a US man-o-war in the 1850's. The level of cruelty aboard ships was very high (much higher than british and french navy) so apart from officers that had few volunteers, men were pressed into service (often by stopping ships from other countries and on taking any sailors who were US citizens) and most the sailors became or were alcoholics and only stayed aboard because of the daily rum ration. After publishing his book he was called a traitor but along with a concerted newspaper campaign many of the naval brutalities were removed.

[cava]

And the answer is?

[BobL]

The same country that laid siege to Vienna in 1682.

[artme]

Well blow my foot off!

I completely misread your question Bob!!

Fancy that! Basing their Operations on the style of the Ottoman Empire!!

[Mutawintji]

Wow ... Never would have guessed !!!!!