Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces (and is therefore known as the Senior Service). From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s. In World War II, the Royal Navy operated almost 900 ships. During the Cold War, it was transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, its role for the 21st century has returned to focus on global expeditionary operations.

Royal Navy in Days of Infamy
Britain was engaged in a life and death struggle with Nazi Germany when the Japanese entered World War II. Completely unprepared in the Far East, the Royal Navy lost the Repulse and the Prince of Wales to an air attack, forcing the Royal Navy all the way back to Ceylon.

The Royal Navy's fortunes were further dashed when Admiral Chuichi Nagumo launched a daring raid that sank the Hermes, ending all hope of any kind of offensive in the Indian Ocean.

Royal Navy in Ruled Britannia
In 1588, the Royal Navy was defeated by the Spanish Armada. The Armada was thus able to proceed to the Netherlands where it rendezvoused with the Spanish army, and the army was able to land in Britain unopposed and conquer England. However, ten years later, the Royal Navy redeemed itself by destroying several Spanish ships during Robert Cecil's rebellion to restore Queen Elizabeth.

The 19th Century
During the nineteenth century, the Royal Navy was the world's premier navy. In 1862, it helped bring about an end to the War of Secession by threatening to break the US Naval blockade of the South with the help of the French Navy.

In 1881 during the Second Mexican War, the Royal Navy was the major Naval Force in North America. It launched the first strike of the war at sea when a small fleet based in Toronto attacked the Great Lakes cities of Rochester, Cleveland and Buffalo. As the war dragged on, the Royal Navy attacked the major port cities of New York, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco. After these attacks, the US Navy was decimated and confined to ports for the remainder of the war.

The Great War
By the early 20th Century its reputation began to suffer. At the begining of the Great War the U.S. Navy easily took the Sandwich Islands from it, and held its own against the combined might of British and Japanese naval forces throughout the remainder of the war. Their only victory in the Pacific was up in Vancouver, where with help from the Canadians and the Japanese, they bottled up the Seattle Squadron of the US Pacific Fleet. The Royal Navy managed, with great difficulty, to contain the German High Seas Fleet, And the US Atlantic Fleet, but was defeated in the South Atlantic by a joint Central Powers force of American, Chilean, and Brazilian ships. This allowed the Central Powers to cut British supply lines to Argentina, thus forcing Britain out of the war.

The Interbellum
Though no longer the world's premier naval power, the Royal Navy remained a major naval force throughout it's empire. As the 1920s began, the Japanese began to increase it's power in the Pacific by acquiring the colonies of the Dutch East Indies and Indochina. Although no longer strong enough to contest these acquisitions, the Royal Navy was still powerful enough to prevent the Japanese from taking theirs. In Ireland, the Royal Navy also smuggled weapons across to the rebels in the northern part of the country, much to the frustration of the Irish.

After Winston Churchill came to power in the early 1930s, the Royal Navy began a rearmament program, building it's own aircraft carriers. Although the resurgence of power came at a cost, by a reduction of it's strength in the Pacific.

The Second Great War
When the Second Great War began in 1941, the Royal Navy's prime opponent was the German High Seas Fleet, but they still had occasional clashes with the US Atlantic Fleet, as they smuggled weapons into Canada. The War for the Royal Navy got off to a promising start against the US, when they took Bermuda away from the United States in a daring feint using the carrier, Ark Royal.

This helped contain the US Atlantic Fleet and allowed the RN to concentrate on the Germans in the Baltic. In early 1943, they finally won a major victory over the German fleet. However, by then, the war in North America was turning in favour of the US, and so was the Naval war in the Pacific. After their defeat at Midway, the Japanese abandoned their war with the US, and attacked the Royal Navy's Pacific Fleet, defeating them and taking Malaya, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Faced with defeat in the Pacific, and a resurgent threat from the US Atlantic Fleet, the Royal Navy was forced to try for a decisive fleet engagement against the US Navy and was decisively defeated in the North Atlantic. This lose allowed the US to retake Bermuda, and the Caribbean. The Royal Navy also failed to keep US warships from smuggling weapons into Ireland to support the Irish resistance movement, while their own efforts in Canada were closed off.

As 1943 drew to a close and 1944 began, the German Navy started turning up their submarine war against the British Merchant Fleet. However, the German superbombs forced England to seek an armistice and the Royal Navy remained intact.

Royal Navy in The Guns of the South
Despite all the experience the United States Navy had gained during the Second American Revolution and increase of size, the Royal Navy was still able to soundly defeat their US counterpart, and bombard the New York and Boston harbors, setting off huge fires there in retaliation for the loss of Ottawa.

Later, as the war turned against the British, the Royal Navy was able to blockade the United State's eastern seaboard, much more heavily than the US had done to the Confederacy, reducing the US merchant fleet to desperate straits. Despite this victory, it was doubtful that England would ever get the Canada's back.

Royal Navy in The War That Came Early
When war broke out in 1938, the Royal Navy was the strongest Navy in the world. However, due to the small size of the Kriegsmarine, the Royal Navy could only blockadge Germany and hunt U-Boats.

The Royal Navy's first big challenge was during the Invasion of Norway. Although they were able to protect their troop transports, from the Germans, they proved unable to prevent the Germans from landing their own troops. As the campaign raged, it became clear that the RN was simply better than the Kriegsmarine, sinking nearly a dozen German destroyers, and a couple of cruisers, losing only a few destroyers and a carrier. In spite of these losses, the Royal Navy did not lose control of the North Sea and contained the Kriegsmarine, but their Naval air arm wasn't on par with the Luftwaffe, and they were unable to provide proper air support for the infantry.

Royal Navy in Worldwar
The Royal Navy had been waging the Battle of the Atlantic, engaging both the German, Italian, and the Japanese Navies when the Race invaded in mid 1942. Like many other navies, the Royal Navy was forced into the background, and was mainly used to ferry VIP's around the globe by submarine.

During the rest of the war, the Royal Navy's prime task was keeping the supply lines from England, through the Mediterranean to the Middle East, and India open.