Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the United Kingdom's principal naval warfare force. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, it is the oldest of the armed services and is known as the Senior Service. During the 17th century the Royal Navy competed mostly with the Dutch Navy and in the 18th century with the French Navy for world supremacy. From the late 18th century until the mid-1940s it was the most powerful navy in the world, being surpassed by the US Navy after World War II. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power during the 17th, 18th, 19th and first part of the 20th centuries. In the course of the 17th century, the Navy completed the transition from a semi-amateur Navy Royal fighting in conjunction with private vessels into a fully professional institution, a Royal Navy due to the permanent end of the threat to English shipping from the Barbary corsairs. Its financial provisions were gradually regularized, it came to rely on…

The Battle of the Atlantic is Canada’s greatest contribution to the victory of World War II. Firstly, the Royal Canadian Navy successfully defended the supplies being transported over to Britain while they were in battle against Germany. Secondly, various Canadian organizations cooperated in order to improve battle conditions when the Royal Canadian Navy reached the brink of failure. Finally, the Royal Canadian Navy made many improvements to crews and vessels. Canada’s naval force,…

HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, ordered in 1758, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765. She is best known as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She was also Keppel's flagship at Ushant, Howe's flagship at Cape Spartel and Jervis's flagship at Cape St Vincent. After 1824, she served as a harbor ship. In 1922, she was moved to a dry dock at Portsmouth, England, and preserved as a museum ship. She has been the flagship of the First…

Theeshand Philip Rajathasan 11 Becket History Coursework Q1 - 16 marks: Explain how useful these sources have been in informing you in your enquiry into the roles played by the Royal Navy in the war at sea in the two world wars. (Sources A-D) The Navy played an important role during WW1 as it protected the British Isles and its colonies. It was also used to blockade the ports of enemy countries, to try and stop supplies of food and other materials getting in. WW1 was largely a land based war,…

like these were oftentimes hung in museums and displayed publicly to improve Britain’s cultural identity and sense of nationalism (Hoock 568-569, 590-591). It can be argued that people saw paintings displaying decisive naval victories and then proceeded to further support the British government. According to N.A.M. Rodger, naval expenditures rose throughout the Napoleonic Wars (Roger 644-645). As such, it was vitally important for the British government to keep the citizens content with the…

advantage of America as if they were still under control, and captured any American sailors they could find. This atrocity to America was called impressment. Britain would force the captured sailors to serve in their Navy to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. Anyone who refused would be taken prisoner. A similar incident happened to the…

One major cause for the French and Indian War was the creation of the Albany Congress. The Iroquois Confederacy was a strong coalition of several Indian tribes. This made them a valuable asset towards the British as having them as an ally could result in an easier victory over the inevitable war against the French. This coupled along with issues over governance produced the assembly. Overall this assembly was a complete bust as Britain was scared the committee would overpower the royal…

One habit of the Royal Navy during the beginning of the 19th century, known as impressment, was to force crewmembers on American vessels to enlist in the Royal Navy by claiming them as English deserters, as there was at the time no way to distinguish Americans from British (Heidler). These acts constituted a military effort against the United States, which was at the time immoral because the United States was neutral, not a French ally. The British took their military pressure one step further,…

History shows that when faced with unpalatable choices and the reality of the environment-capability gap, leaders often cycle back to prior phases in the design process . The British Royal Navy confirmed this regression when they dismissed the findings of the 1924-1925 Newport simulations, which revealed superior advantage to carriers that could mass aircraft in repetitive pulses. Although, the Royal Navy lacked this capability, they discounted emerging doctrine from the US Marine Fleet…

battle was fought to determine European naval supremacy and would promptly halt Napoleon’s forces, preventing the impending French invasion of England (Adkins, 337). Trafalgar was won through the sheer force of overwhelming manpower, superior technology and firepower ability, and excellence of British organizational strategy. Not only were the British superior in every aspect of warfare but the disobedience and disorganization of French officers, as well as the maltreatment of the Spanish…