I.

Introduction

British Navy, Britain’s maritime armed force, usually known as the Royal Navy. It shares joint responsibility, with the British Army and the Royal Air Force (RAF), for the defence of the United Kingdom and its dependent territories; provides a major part of the naval force of NATO; and carries Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent. It was the world’s most powerful navy until World War II, after which it was the world’s second-largest, after the United States Navy.

II.

Recruitment, Structure, and Training

In 2006 the Royal Navy employed about 37,500 personnel (of whom about 3,000 were women), including 6,000 Royal Marines. It deployed a total of 91 ships and submarines, including 3 Invincible-class aircraft carriers, and 182 aircraft. Until the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815, in times of war, men could be forced into service with the Navy by “press gangs”, which toured the public houses in Britain’s ports seeking likely candidates, especially former naval or merchant seamen. During World Wars I and II conscription was introduced. After 1945, it was continued as national service until 1960. Since then all members of the Royal Navy have been volunteers.

The Royal Navy’s surface fleet was augmented during World War I by an air arm of the service, and a submarine force, and it also transports the Royal Marines. From 1968, with the launch of the submarine HMS Resolution, carrying Polaris submarine-launched strategic (long-range) ballistic missiles (SLBM), the Royal Navy has carried Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.

A.

Training

Until 1996 naval officers were trained at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London, and subsequently at a new tri-service academy, first at Bracknell, and then permanently near Shrivenham, Oxfordshire. Ratings undergo initial training, and all ranks can attend specialist courses at a number of naval shore bases usually referred to as “stone frigates” within the Navy.

III.

History

The Royal Navy grew from Britain’s need to develop and to protect its commerce with other countries. Until the 20th century, the only way for Britain to trade with other nations was by sea (see British Foreign Policy Since 1800). Sources of raw materials and essential commodities were sought, which led to Britain acquiring a colonial empire. This too had to be protected.

When the war with Spain ended with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, this victory and subsequent maritime engagements with the Netherlands in the 17th century, and America in the 18th century, honed the Royal Navy’s skill at warfare and enabled the British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson to defeat the French Navy at Trafalgar in 1805. The 19th century saw the change from wooden to steel ships and the transition from sail to steam. It also saw the beginning of what became known as “gunboat diplomacy”, by which Britain could exert its considerable nautical power.

In the early years of the 20th century a naval arms race with Germany resulted in Britain developing the Dreadnought, an even larger and more heavily armed type of battleship.

IV.

The Royal Navy in World Wars I and II

Early in World War I the Royal Navy successfully engaged the German Navy in a number of small battles, but the main focus was on the British Grand Fleet and its German counterpart in European waters. When a major clash came in 1916, off Jutland, the outcome was inconclusive. Neither side achieved a decisive victory, but the German High Seas Fleet, heavily outnumbered, remained close to its bases for the remainder of the war. The Battle of Jutland can therefore be seen as a strategic rather than a tactical victory for the Royal Navy. In 1917, Germany failed to destroy, by submarine warfare, British and Allied shipping essential for food and other supplies. By April 1917 German submarines were destroying monthly about 875,000 tons of British and Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. Britain, however, rendered the German submarine campaign less and less effective by the adoption of a convoy system of screening fleets of merchant vessels with warships, especially destroyers and submarine chasers, and by the use of hydroplanes for spotting submarines and depth charges for destroying them. By late 1917, although large numbers of Allied ships were still being sunk, Germany began to sustain heavy losses in submarines. By the beginning of 1918 the German effort to end the war by submarine warfare had clearly failed.

Soon after the outbreak of World War II the Navy evacuated an expeditionary force of the British army from Dunkirk, following the German breakthrough to the French Channel ports. While the RAF was fighting the Battle of Britain, the Navy kept vital sea routes open. Until the Allied D-Day invasion of Europe in 1944 it was involved in protecting oil supplies from the Mediterranean, and supporting forces fighting in North Africa; protecting the supply routes out of the United States across the North Atlantic, (this became the Battle of the Atlantic); and protecting sea convoys en route to the Soviet Union after Germany invaded it in 1941. Royal Naval vessels also took part in operations against Japanese forces. In 1944, the British navy transported the Allied invasion forces across the English Channel, and kept them supplied until the invasion was well established on land.

V.

The Navy Since 1945

At the end of World War II the Royal Navy was the largest it had ever been, with 929 capital ships, 137 submarines, and 6,485 smaller craft. Its personnel numbered 864,000, including 74,000 women, and its 70 Fleet Air Arm squadrons deployed 1,336 military aircraft. However, when peace came in 1945 it brought a period of rapid change. The Cold War between the Western Allies, including Britain, and the Soviet Union prompted another arms race. In addition, the United States was committed to overseeing the decolonization of the globe.

Soon after the end of World War II Britain joined NATO and started to relinquish its empire. This led to a shift of emphasis for the Navy. Even though some surface ships, such as HMS Belfast, were used during the Korean War, aircraft carriers such as HMS Ark Royal, ordered towards the end of World War II, ceased to be quite so important as Britain’s overseas commitments were reduced. However, the quest for an independent nuclear deterrent resulted in Britain purchasing submarine-launched Polaris intercontinental ballistic missiles from the United States, and transferring the deployment of strategic weapons from the RAF to the Royal Navy in 1969. As the necessity for conventional weapons and surface ships lessened, during the 1960s and 1970s, defence reviews resulted in further reductions.

In 1982, in the Falklands War, some vessels due to be scrapped were reprieved, and even commercial liners were employed to transport the British Task Force to the South Atlantic.

VI.

The British Navy Since the 1990s

The problems experienced in the Falklands War did not prevent further cuts to the Royal Navy. However, despite the end of the Cold War in 1990, Britain has continued to update its strategic weapons. Four British-built Vanguard-class submarines entered service in 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2001. These each carry 16 US-made Trident intercontinental ballistic missiles, which can be launched from under the sea and which are armed with multiple independently targetable warheads capable of hitting any target on the globe. Britain’s nuclear forces are committed to NATO, but remain under the control of the British government. The Royal Navy has also begun to update its ageing fleet of Type 42 class destroyers with the launch, in January 2006, of HMS Daring, a Type 45 class destroyer. HMS Daring is due to come into service in 2009, and will be the first of six Type 45s.

The end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st century saw the Royal Navy employed in several troublespots around the world. In particular, it operated in the Gulf War, when it was part of the United Nations’ coalition to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, as well playing an essential role in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to both disarm that nation and depose the regime of Saddam Hussein (see War on Iraq). In both instances, its carrier-based aircraft, guided missiles, and minesweeping proved an invaluable support.

A significant change during the 1990s was the integration of women in the Royal Navy in line with the government’s equal opportunities policy. Formerly permitted only to join a separate Women’s Royal Naval Service, first raised during World War I and engaged only on clerical and administrative tasks ashore, there are now some 700 women at sea in surface ships, and there are also female pilots flying with the Fleet Air Arm.