As of November 2020, there are 76 operational commissioned ships in the Royal Navy, plus 13 ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. There are also five Merchant Navy ships available to the RFA under a private finance initiative. As the seaborne branch of HM Armed Forces, the RN has various roles.
About Royal Navy in brief
The Royal Navy is the United Kingdom’s naval warfare force. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century. From the mid 18th century, it was the world’s most powerful navy until the Second World War. As of November 2020, there are 76 operational commissioned ships in the Royal Navy, plus 13 ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. There are also five Merchant Navy ships available to the RFA under a private finance initiative. As the seaborne branch of HM Armed Forces, the RN has various roles. The RN has stated its 6 major roles as detailed below in umbrella terms. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord who is an admiral and member of the Defence Council of the UK. The Royal Navy operates from three bases in the UK where commissioned ships and submarines are based: Portsmouth, Clyde and Devonport. It is the largest operational naval base in Western Europe, as well as two naval air stations, RNAS Yeovilton and RNAS Culdrose where maritime aircraft are based. It was formally founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, though the Kingdom of England and its predecessor states had possessed less organised naval forces for centuries prior to this. Unlike some European states, England did not maintain a small permanent core of warships in peacetime. England’s naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilization of fleets when war broke out was slow. The lack of an organised navy came to a head during the 1069 invasion and ravaging of England by Jarl Osborn and his sons.
The first major battles at sea at the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War were the Battle of Sandwich in 12-17-17. The battle emphasised the importance of sea power in the early medieval period. In the 11th century Aethelred II had an especially large fleet built by a national levy, and this continued for a time under Edward the Confessor, who frequently commanded fleets in person. In this period, English naval power waned and England suffered naval raids from the Vikings from 1069 to 1083. The Battle of the Sandwich in 1912 was one of the most important naval battles of the English and Scottish Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. This was the first major battle at sea in which the French landed unopposed at Sandwich and left King John’s flight to Winchester and later later that year that year left the Earl of Pembroke as regent of England. In 1216, King John was able to marshal his ships to fight the French in the battle of Sandwich, which emphasised sea power at the start of the Hundred Years’ War. In 1912, the Battle of Sandwich was won by King John’s son John, who was later killed by the French at the Battle of Winchester and left the Empire of England. The Battle of Sandwich was one of the major naval battles at the beginning of the First World War, which was won by the English.
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This page is based on the article Royal Navy published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
