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The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore the Senior Service). From the early 18th century to the middle of the 20th century, it was the largest and most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant power of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In WWII, the Royal Navy operated almost 600 ships. During the Cold War, it was transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the North Atlantic Ocean. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, its role for the 21st century has returned to focus on global expeditionary (blue water) operations.

The Royal Navy is the second-largest navy in NATO in terms of the combined tonnage of its fleet. Its global power projection capabilities are deemed second only to the United States Navy. There are currently 91 commissioned ships in the Royal Navy, including aircraft carriers, submarines, mine counter-measures and patrol vessels. There are also the support vessels of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.

The Royal Navy is a constituent component of the Naval Service, which also comprises the Royal Marines, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and associated reserve forces under command. The Naval Service had 38,710 regular personnel as of November 2006.

Selected battle

The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea that took place on 24 January 1915, during the First World War, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet. The result was a British victory, and German naval activity was reduced ou of a desire to avoid the loss of further ships. Additionally, the use of wireless intercepts to determine German battle plans demonstrated the usefulness of a new form of intelligence gathering. However, the battle exposed weaknesses in British communications and also revealed a fatal flaw in the design of battlecruiser magazines, which would result in the loss of three ships at the Battle of Jutland.

Selected ship

The RFA Oakleaf is a Leaf-class fleet support tanker of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Formerly the Swedish vessel MV Oktania built by A. B. Udevella, Sweden and completed in 1981, Oakleaf was added to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in 1986. As well as their role of replenishing warships at sea, support tankers perform the bulk movement of fuels between MOD(N) depots. The Oakleaf has three Leaf Class sisters - RFAs Brambleleaf, Bayleaf and Orangeleaf. All four were originally designed as commercial tankers and underwent major conversions to bring them up to RFA standards and equip them for naval support. These involved adding a considerable amount of electronics, both in communications and navigational aids, fitting two replenishment rigs and increasing the amount of accommodation.

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Captain James Cook FRS RN (27 October 1728 (O.S.) – 14 February 1779) was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer. Ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy, Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager, and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This allowed General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham, and helped to bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment both in his personal career and in the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages. Cook died in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779.

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Did you know...

• ...that the first British merchant marine ship lost to enemy fire since World War II was the Atlantic Conveyor, sunk by an Argentinian anti-ship missile during the Falklands War?
  
• ...that in the Battle of the Rice Boats in the American Revolutionary War, the militia of the Province of Georgia drove a squadron of the Royal Navy out of the Savannah River?
  
• ... that detachments of Royal Marines and of seamen from the Royal Navy were formed into Naval Brigades to undertake operations on shore in the Crimean War, the Second Opium War, the Indian Mutiny, the Zulu War and Boer War, and the Boxer Rebellion?
  
• ...that in the Frederica Naval Action of the American Revolutionary War, three galleys led by Georgian colonel Samuel Elbert (pictured) defeated a much stronger British force?
  
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