The Influence of History

Two of the greatest navies in Europe have long been the British and the French. For most of their history, these two navies have been competitors, facing off in numerous wars from the Battle of Sluys in 1340 to the Attack on Mers-el-Kebir in 1940 (it is worth noting that, as was often the case in conflicts between these two great navies, the British triumphed in both the first and last of these actions). However, as Britain and France were eclipsed by rising powers outside of Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries, the Royal Navy and Marine Nationale slowly became partners rather than rivals. From the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata in 1845 and the Second Opium War in 1856 to the Suez Crisis of 1956, the British and French navies worked effectively together to project power abroad. Still, declining national strength during the Cold War saw both navies largely relegated to auxiliary forces under the umbrella of the United States Navy. While the Royal Navy saw a brief fli...

HMS Spey , the latest addition to the Royal Navy. While often underappreciated, offeshore patrol vessels like her are critical to projecting naval power at home and around the world. World Navies in the New Year For a much-delayed first post of the new year, we have the official Influence of History  2021 World Navy Rankings. As always, this ranking system attempts to provide an overview of the relative naval power of the world's nations by listing their naval inventories and providing a somewhat relative points value. Because of the contentious nature of warship classification, I have resorted to my own fairly simplistic, but universal, system that classifies ships based on size and type. Points are determined based on the number and type of ships. While my system does attempt to capture total national naval power by including coast guard ships and other government vessels, it does not count coastal craft outside of missile boats and minesweepers. The points system has remained fa...

All non-US carriers operating fixed-wing aircraft (click to enlarge) The aircraft carrier has been the ultimate expression of naval power since World War II. Able to engage air, surface, and subsurface targets from hundreds of miles away, the carrier is a highly versatile class of warship and even a small number of carriers can turn the tide of an entire war. However, these ships (and the aircraft that they carry) are extremely expensive and only a handful of navies have ever operated them. Since the end of World War II, only 14 nations have operated a carrier with fixed-wing aircraft and no more than 9 nations have done so simultaneously. The above chart covers all non-US aircraft carriers operating fixed-wing aircraft from 1951-2020. I have not only excluded helicopter carriers, but also attempted to avoid counting commissioned ships that did not have available aircraft (for instance, I did not count the Soviet Kiev-class ships after 1991, when their Yak-38 fighters were phased out)...

The County-class destroyer HMS Glamorgan, which holds the dubious distinction of being the first and last ship to be damaged in the Falklands War The Falklands War is the only large-scale post-WWII naval campaign. So even though the technologies and tactics used are now somewhat dated, it remains one of the best resources for understanding modern naval warfare. During the conflict, the British lost 6 ships and had another 16 damaged (I will be using the British records for this post rather than the significantly higher Argentinian claims - this is not because the British are inherently more trustworthy, but because in every war the attacker's claims are always less accurate than the defender's). This post will aim to provide an overview of where these ships were and what they were doing when they were attacked to see if there are any patterns that can inform our understanding of naval warfare. The Opening Actions The Falklands War began on 2 April 1982, with the Argen...

The County-class Unlike most navies, the Royal Navy's first guided missile ships were not conversions of existing ships. Instead, they were the eight purpose-built  County -class destroyers, which entered service beginning in 1962. Measuring 158 meters in length, these ships were much larger than the proceeding 120-meter Daring -class gun destroyers and were commonly referred to as "DLG" after the American hull code for large missile ships like the contemporary Farragut -class frigates . Further, rather than relying on American missiles as was done by most NATO navies, the British chose to build the County -class around the domestic Sea Slug surface-to-air missile - a weapon that unfortunately lived up to its underwhelming name. A beam riding missile with a range of 25 kilometers and a top speed of Mach 1.5 (many sources state Sea Slug was subsonic, this is incorrect and likely a misreading of the fact that it could only engage subsonic targets), Sea Slug was comparable...