navy

navy A fleet of ships and its crew, organized for war at sea. In the 5th and 4th centuries Athens and Corinth relied on TRIREMES (galleys with three banks of oars) and high-speed manoeuvrable quinqueremes (five-banked galleys) were developed by the Macedonians. At the Battle of SALAMIS an Athenian fleet won a decisive victory over the Persians, established Greek control over the eastern Mediterranean, and the fleet remained the crucial basis of Athenian supremacy. The Roman empire, though essentially a land-based power, fought Carthage at sea in the First PUNIC WAR, and gained control of the Mediterranean.

Navies were needed to protect trading vessels against pirates: the BYZANTINE EMPIRE maintained a defensive fleet to retain control over its vital trade arteries. In England, King ALFRED created a fleet in the 9th century in defence against Scandinavian invasions. The CINQUE PORTS supplied the English navy from the 11th to the 16th centuries and it was organized and enlarged under successive Tudor monarchs. The Italian city-states kept squadrons of galleys and adapted carracks (merchant ships) to defend their ports against the Ottoman Turks and the Battle of LEPANTO saw a Christian fleet decisively beat the Ottomans. The 17th century saw naval reorganization in England under PEPYS, and the Dutch and French also expanded their fleets as trade and colonial expansion accelerated in the 18th century.

From the early Middle Ages the warship altered from being a converted merchant ship, modified by the addition of ‘castles’, fortified with land artillery, and manned by knights, into a specially armed vessel. By the 14th century ships were being fitted with guns and by the 16th century special warships were being built with heavy armaments. Success or failure in battle, however, was determined by tactical skill as all sailing ships were at the mercy of the wind.

At the time of the NAPOLEONIC WARS, naval vessels were sailing ships, built of wood and armed with cannon that fired broadsides. They engaged at close quarters and ratings were armed with muskets and handgrenades. Following the Battle of TRAFALGAR (1805), the British navy dominated the oceans of the world for a century. Change came slowly. Steam power replaced sail only gradually, while in 1859 the French navy poineered the protection of the wooden hull of a ship with iron plates (Iron clads). With the development of the iron and steel industry in the late 19th century, rapid advances were made in ship design and the armament of ships. At the same time the submarine, armed with torpedoes, emerged as a fighting vessel. When Germany challenged the supremacy of the British navy, the latter responded with the huge steel Dreadnought battleships (1906), equipped with guns with a range of over 32 km (20 miles). During World War I the German submarine (U-boat) fleet was checked by the CONVOY SYSTEM to protect Allied merchant shipping, but the major British and German fleets only engaged in the inconclusive Battle of JUTLAND (1916). Between the wars aircraft were rapidly developed and naval warfare in World War II was increasingly fought by aircraft from aircraft carriers, particularly in the great naval battles of the Pacific Campaign. Since World War II, the development of submarines armed with long-range nuclear missiles has reduced the number of surface ships and revolutionized naval strategy as submarines are difficult to detect and destroy. Most countries retain fleets of small, fast vessels for coastal patrol. The USA and the former Soviet Union, however, competed in the size and armament of their navies. The FALKLANDS WAR (1982) revealed the extent to which there remained a place for a conventional navy, but also showed how exposed surface ships were to missile attack. During the GULF WAR the navies of the Allied forces played an important strategic role. Six aircraft carriers provided launch sites from which air strikes against Iraqi ground targets were made.