page_title: Navy
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Navy / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Flaggen-Zeremonie auf dem Flugzeugträger USS Nimitz (CVN-68) während eines Besuchstages von Freunden und Familien bei der Heimkehr im November 2003. English: 031103-N-6536T-003 Pacific Ocean (Nov. 3, 2003) -- USS Nimitz (CVN 68) crewmembers participate in a flag unfurling rehearsal with the help of family and friends on the ship’s flight deck during a relatives cruise (called a Tiger Cruise). The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and embarked Carrier Air Wing Eleven (CVW-11) are en route to San Diego, Calif., following an eight-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Elizabeth Thompson. (RELEASED) “This is a World Wide Web site for official information about the United States Navy. It is provided as a public service by the Naval Media Center. The purpose is to provide information and news about the U.S. Navy to the general public. All information on this site is public domain and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.” Picture prepared for Wikipedia by Adrian Pingstone in November 2003.
context_page_description: A navy or sea force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and other fields. The strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a country's shores. The strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies. The strategic task of the navy also may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Naval operations can be broadly divided between riverine and littoral applications, open-ocean applications, and something in between, although these distinctions are more about strategic scope than tactical or operational division.
  In most nations, the term "naval", as opposed to "navy", is interpreted as encompassing all maritime military forces, e.g., navy, naval infantry/marine corps, and coast guard forces.
context_section_description: Naval warfare developed when humans first fought from water-borne vessels. Before the introduction of the cannon and ships with enough capacity to carry them, navy warfare primarily involved ramming and boarding actions. In the time of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, naval warfare centered on long, narrow vessels powered by banks of oarsmen (such as triremes and quinqueremes) designed to ram and sink enemy vessels or come alongside the enemy vessel so its occupants could be attacked hand-to-hand. Naval warfare continued in this vein through the Middle Ages until the cannon became commonplace and capable of being reloaded quickly enough to be reused in the same battle. The Chola Dynasty of medieval Tamil Nadu was known as one of the greatest naval powers of its time from 300 BC to 1279 AD. The Chola Navy, Chola kadarpadai comprised the naval forces of the Chola Empire along with several other Naval-arms of the country. The Chola navy played a vital role in the expansion of the Chola Tamil kingdom, including the conquest of the Sri Lanka islands, Kadaaram (Present day Burma), Sri Vijaya (present day Southeast Asia), the spread of Hinduism, Tamil architecture and Tamil culture to Southeast Asia and in curbing the piracy in Southeast Asia in 900 CE. In ancient China, large naval battles were known since the Qin dynasty (also see Battle of Red Cliffs, 208), employing the war junk during the Han dynasty. However, China's first official standing navy was not established until the Southern Song dynasty in the 12th century, a time when gunpowder was a revolutionary new application to warfare.
  Nusantaran thalassocracies made extensive use of naval power and technologies. This enabled the seafaring Malay people to attack as far as the coast of Tanganyika and Mozambique with 1000 boats and attempted to take the citadel of Qanbaloh, about 7,000 km to their West, in 945-946 AD. In 1350 AD Majapahit launched its largest military expedition, the invasion of Pasai, with 400 large jong and innumerable smaller vessels. The second largest military expedition, invasion of Singapura in 1398, Majapahit deployed 300 jong with no less than 200,000 men.
  The mass and deck space required to carry a large number of cannon made oar-based propulsion impossible, and ships came to rely primarily on sails. Warships were designed to carry increasing numbers of cannon and naval tactics evolved to bring a ship's firepower to bear in a broadside, with ships-of-the-line arranged in a line of battle.
  
  The development of large capacity, sail-powered ships carrying cannon led to a rapid expansion of European navies, especially the Spanish and Portuguese navies which dominated in the 16th and early 17th centuries, and helped propel the age of exploration and colonialism. The repulsion of the Spanish Armada (1588) by the English fleet revolutionized naval warfare by the success of a guns-only strategy and caused a major overhaul of the Spanish Navy, partly along English lines, which resulted in even greater dominance by the Spanish. From the beginning of the 17th century the Dutch cannibalized the Portuguese Empire in the East and, with the immense wealth gained, challenged Spanish hegemony at sea. From the 1620s, Dutch raiders seriously troubled Spanish shipping and, after a number of battles which went both ways, the Dutch Navy finally broke the long dominance of the Spanish Navy in the Battle of the Downs (1639). 
  England emerged as a major naval power in the mid-17th century in the first Anglo-Dutch war with a technical victory. Successive decisive Dutch victories in the second and third Anglo-Dutch Wars confirmed the Dutch mastery of the seas during the Dutch Golden Age, financed by the expansion of the Dutch Empire. The French Navy won some important victories near the end of the 17th century but a focus upon land forces led to the French Navy's relative neglect, which allowed the Royal Navy to emerge with an ever-growing advantage in size and quality, especially in tactics and experience, from 1695. As a response to growing naval influence of the navie
caption: U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz
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