United States Navy

File:US Navy Seal.jpg

Seal of the United States Navy

The U.S. Navy is a branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is charged with sea operations in both international and American waters.

"The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas."

Missions

Its combat functions include anti-surface warfare (ASuW) against ships, anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-air warfare (AAW), land attack, littoral warfare, naval gunfire support, mine warfare, amphibious warfare, and Naval Special Warfare.

It has an extremely sophisticated support structure for its combat units. Japanese admirals, after the Second World War, cited "fast carrier operations", which implied the "seatrain" to resupply and maintain the carrier task forces at sea, as one of the three fundamental things that beat Japan. The others were submarine operations and island-hopping. Logistics, therefore, cannot be overstressed.

Also as a result of WWII experience, the US Navy tends to be compulsive about safety and damage control, with a considerable record of saving battle-damaged ships that might well be lost in other navies. Recruit training has been changed recently, so a stressful and realistic damage control exercise is the culminating event of the course.

Current organization

There are several major parts to the Navy:

• Civilian leadership in the Department of the Navy
• Shore establishment
• Operating forces

In turn, the operating forces are split into those deployed in the field, which report to the National Command Authority via the Unified Combatant Commanders. Forces that are in training, maintenance, readiness for deployment, or doctrinal development report, through the shore establishment, to the Chief of Naval Operations.

Command, control, communications, computers

See also: U.S. Navy/Catalogs/Electronics

The modern navy is extremely network-centric. At the strategic, operational, and logistic level, its systems tie into the Global Information Grid (GIG) of the U.S. Department of Defense. Fleet level operations connect both to the GIG and to the Global Command and Control System-Maritime, as well as theater-level systems for the Unified Combatant Commands, such as the Theater Battle Management Core System.

These high-level systems are linked through the Defense Information Systems Network and a variety of satellite communications systems. The Fleet Broadcast System and MILSATCOM are older satellites; some of the new ones, heavily used by the Navy, include the UHF Follow-On and Global Broadcast Service.

At the tactical level, there is a high degree of interoperability among all the military services, sharing the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System. The AEGIS battle management system is the key information system for anti-air warfare (AAW), ballistic missile defense (BMD) and land attack, and interoperates with national BMD networks. [[Cooperative Engagement Capability] is an extension of AEGIS, which lets tactical decisions, down to the level of firing and guiding missiles, be distributed among multiple ships.

Ships

See also: U.S. Navy/Catalogs/Ship classes

Operating vessels at sea tend to be organized into carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups, which may be combined into expeditionary strike groups. Submarines are attached to some of these units, but also conduct considerable independent operations.

The major operational ship types are:

• Aircraft carriers of the Nimitz-class, with the new CVN-21 class building
• Cruisers of the Ticonderoga-class
• Destroyers of the Burke-class; construction of the Zumwalt-class has been capped in favor of more Burkes and more research
• Ocean escorts, called frigates, of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class
• Littoral Combat Ships, still experimental
• Amphibious warfare ships, including:
• Wasp-class [r]: The largest amphibious warfare ships in the United States Navy, which carry a Marine Expeditionary Unit and supporting aircraft ^[e]
• San Antonio-class [r]: Used in amphibious warfare, a class of Landing Platform Dock ships of the United States Navy, with some in commission and some under construction; they displace 24,900 tons and will replace the Austin-class (LPD-4) ^[e]
• Attack submarines of the Los Angeles-class and (capped) Seawolf-class; new Virginia-class boats are under construction
• Ballistic missile submarines of the Ohio-class. Some have been converted for cruise missile and naval special warfare
• Logistic vessels

Naval aviation

See also: U.S. Navy/Catalogs/Aircraft types

When both its carrier-capable and shore-based aircraft, as well as helicopters, are counted, the United States Navy operates one of the world's largest air forces.

On carriers, the main aircraft are:

• F-18 Super Hornet multirole fighters
• EF-18 Growler electronic warfare aircraft
• E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning

Land-based aircraft of note include:

• P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, to be replaced by the P-8 Orion

History

Created in 1775 with the immediate concern of the American Revolution, the U.S. Navy were disbanded in 1783 and the privateers went back to the merchant trade. The needs of international commerce, however, soon drove the requirement for a standing navy, more than it did an army.

New Nation: 1789-1860

The War Department was created in 1789 and handled naval affairs. The Federalist Party, especially under John Adams favored the Navy and created the cabinet-level Department of the Navy in 1798. The Marines originated in 1775, when two battalions of men were raised for continental service; it was deactivated in 1783. The Marine Corps was reactivated by Congress on July 11, 1798, within the new Navy Department. Benjamin Stoddert was the first secretary and directed operations during the "Quasi-War", the undeclared naval war with France (1798-1800). The Navy started with twelve frigates and sloops to protect trade in the West Indies against French privateers; many American privateers operated against the French as well, but they were not coordinated by the Navy. The Navy expanded to 49 warships through the conversion of merchantmen. Three French warships and eighty-one French privateers were captured; Thomas Truxtun was the outstanding captain.

The Jeffersonian Republicans opposed having a navy as elitist. Thomas Jefferson halted construction on eight 74-gun ships that Stoddert had started and put in place the strategy of defending American harbors by 176 small gunboats. tish invasion of New York. Lacking naval supremacy the British turned around and marched home.

1815-60

The Algerian War (1815), suppression of West Indian pirates (1816-29), and antislavery patrols (1820-50) provided training for the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Mexico lacked a navy so the unchallenged American the navy of 63 warships vessels conducted blockade and amphibious operations, the latter destined to become an American specialty. Captains John Sloat and Robert Stockton helped secure California. Captains David Conner and Matthew Perry commanded the bulk of the fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, making possible the transportation to, and landing at, Veracruz (Mar. 13, 1847) and maintenance of the logistics lifeline for Gen. Winfield Scott's triumphal march to capture Mexico City.

In 1815 the Board of Navy Commissioners, consisting of three senior officers, was created to provide technical advice to the department regarding naval technology, naval operations being excluded from its purview. In 1842 an organization of technical bureaus was instituted, including bureaus for the Navy Yards and Docks; Construction, Equipment, and Repairs; Provisions and Clothing; Ordnance and Hydrography; and Medicine and Surgery.

The Navy professionalized the officer corps, with the Naval Academy (1854). It experimented with steam propulsion and sponsored overseas explorations, notably the Pacific expedition (1838-1842) of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.

Civil War

In the American Civil War, the Union had preponderant naval power. It blockaded Southern ports, with only a few dashing blockade runners getting through for immensely valuable international trade. Soon, the Union developed "brown water" vessels and techniques to take control of navigable rivers.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the North controlled most of the ships, officers, seamen, and shipyards. Gideon Welles, the U.S. secretary of the navy, had only 8,800 personnel and 42 warships, only 23 of which were steam ships.

By 1865 the Union navy had mushroomed to 58,000 sailors in 671 vessels. In action, 34 warships were sunk conventionally and 14 by mines, while 16 were captured. The blockade involved little fighting but did capture or destroy 1500 blockade runners; operations in bad weather cost 38 warships, including the famous "Monitor". Seven more burned accidentally.

Lingering republican abhorrence for aristocratic titles led to the invention of the ambiguous title "flag officer" for the first year of the Civil War. It was unsatisfactory for senior naval officers cooperating with army leaders holding clear-cut and traditional general ranks. On July 16, 1862, Congress established the ranks of rear admiral (two-star flag and insignia) and commodore (one star). In 1864 David Farragut was made the first vice admiral (three stars) and, a year later, the first "full" admiral (four stars). His protégé, David Dixon Porter, became vice admiral, heading ten rear admirals. Following the deaths of Farragut and Porter, the two senior grades remained unfilled for some years.

Confederacy

Stephen Russell Mallory, the Confederate secretary of the navy, began with 3,000 personnel and twelve captured U.S. ships. During the war Mallory doubled manpower and commissioned 209 vessels, but it was always too little and too late. The Confederacy lacked a naval tradition, warships or an industrial infrastructure that could build ships and cannon. Most of the riverboat captains and engineers were northerners who went North, taking their boats with them. It seized many Union ships in Southern ports, but was unable to make use of them.

The Battle of Hampton Roads, in 1862, literally gave the Confederacy one day of technological superiority, with the ironclad CSS Virginia, built from the salvaged USS Merrimack, savaging Union wooden warships. The next day, however, USS Monitor, a full generation ahead, forced the battle to a draw.

The South also had the first operational submarine, CSS Hunley, which did sink a Union ship, USS Housatonic, but was lost with all hands. Hunley has recently been salvaged and marine archeologists are reconstructing the engagement, which still has many mysteries.

The Confederate Congress allowed for flag officers but commissioned only Admiral Franklin Buchanan and Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes.

1865-1890

The U.S. Navy withered in peace. European admirals loved to see the American fleet pay a courtesy call, for it enabled them to relive their youth in the days of sailing ships. All major navies had steel fleets before the U.S., which started catching up around 1890.

1898-1940

Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was the most influential naval theorist; he taught all the modern navies that sea power was decisive and the best fleet controls the seas.

Spanish American War, 1898

By 1898 the small "new navy", with 21 modern warships, was far readier than the Spaniards for the War of 1898. The Navy scored the first voctory days after the start when Commodore George Dewey sank the Spanish fleet at Manila on May 1, 1898. Commodore William Sampson sank the other Spanish fleet at Santiago, Cuba, on July 3. In both cases victory at sea opened the way for the army to land and capture the Philippines and Cuba.

In 1899 George Dewey was given the four-star rank Admiral of the Navy. The eighteen rear admirals he headed displaced the need for commodores, and the grade was abolished in 1912.

White Fleet, 1907

President Theodore Roosevelt, a strong navy man, proudly sent his powerful new "great white fleet" of sixteen new battleships around the world in 1907-09, demonstrating the maturity of American naval engineering as well as the substance for the "big stick" foreign policy.

Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske was at the vanguard of new technology in Naval guns and gunnery, thanks to his innovations in fire control 1890-1910, and his six books and 65 professional articles. He immediately grasped the potential for air power, and called for the development of a torpedo plane.

Fiske, as aide for operations in 1913-15 to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Assistant Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt, proposed a radical reorganization of the Navy to make it a war-fighting instrument. Fiske wanted to centralize authority in a chief of naval operations and an expert staff that would develop new strategies, oversee the construction of a larger fleet, coordinate war planning including force structure, mobilization plans, and industrial base, and insure that the US Navy possessed the best possible war machines. Eventually, the Navy adopted his reforms and by 1915 started to reorganize for possible involvement in the World War then underway.

World War I

The navy entered World War I with thirty rear admirals. Three billets had the temporary rank of admiral--Chief of Naval Operations, or CNO (William S. Benson), Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet (Henry T. Mayo), and Commander of Naval Forces Operating in European Waters (William S. Sims). Congress did not make the rank permanent for Benson, Mayo, and Sims, who after the war completed service as rear admirals, the highest rank at which they could retire, although the temporary admiral rank continued with the billets of CNO or fleet command, and vice admiral for seconds-in-command.

World War II

see World War II, Pacific see Battle of the Atlantic

Cold War

The Korean War, 1950-53 had some 200 line and 60 staff admirals. In 1972, the navy had 9 four-star, 40 three-star, and 313 two-star admirals. There was some newspaper criticism that 362 flag officers commanding 602,000 men was excessive in comparison to the same number of flag officers in World War II leading five times as many men.

Current naval development and procurement

In 2007 top Navy officials told Congress it has underway an unprecedented modernization program across the full spectrum of its weapons platforms in both the Navy and Marine Corps. In seeking a $139.8 billion budget for fiscal year 2008, a $12 billion increase, SECNAV Donald C. Winter said the transformation of the sea services underway includes a new generation of ships, submarines, and aircraft -- with programs in development, production, or already in operation with the fleet. CNO Adm. Mike Mullen said, "Through the Fleet Response Plan, we continue to meet the demands of the Combatant Commanders for trained, flexible and sustainable forces, with six Carrier Strike Groups available on 30 days notice and an additional Carrier Strike Group ready to surge within 90 days." The budget allots $14.7 billion for shipbuilding, an increase of about $3.2 billion over 2007. The FY08 ship construction and aviation procurement plan includes the first CVN-21 aircraft carrier, a Virginia-class submarine, one amphibious assault ship, one logistics ship and three Littoral Combat Ships. It also calls for 18 EF-18 Growlers; 24 F/A-18E/Fs; 21 MV-22 Ospreys, unmanned aerial vehicles, mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAP vehicles) and the continued development and procurement of F-35 joint strike fighters.