Naval Offensive
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A naval offensive is the aggressive deployment of
naval forces A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime 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 operati ...
during a
military campaign A military campaign is large-scale long-duration significant military strategy plan incorporating a series of interrelated military operations or battles forming a distinct part of a larger conflict often called a war. The term derives from th ...
to strategically, operationally or tactically provide secure use of
shipping route A sea lane, sea road or shipping lane is a regularly used navigable route for large water vessels (ships) on wide waterways such as oceans and large lakes, and is preferably safe, direct and economic. During the Age of Sail, they were determined b ...
s, or
coastal A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...
regions for friendly
shipping Freight transport, also referred to as freight forwarding, is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been ...
, or deny them to enemy shipping. The aim of a naval offensive is usually in "exerting specific superiority at the point of impact", and has been considered the best strategy in Europe against a threat of invasion since the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
. A naval offensive may include use of
surface A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is ...
or
submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
combat vessels, or both as at the Battle of Heligoland Bight, and
aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...
or shore-based fixed-wing and
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...
aircraft and
amphibious assault Amphibious warfare is a type of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated landing beach. Through history the operations were conducte ...
troops to conduct the offensive as a means of "projection of naval power against land objectives", or support one by transporting troops. The scale of a naval offensive need not be a massive ocean
fleet Fleet may refer to: Vehicles * Fishing fleet *Naval fleet * Fleet vehicles, a pool of motor vehicles * Fleet Aircraft, the aircraft manufacturing company Places Canada * Fleet, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet England * The Fleet Lagoon, at Chesil Be ...
operation, but may be conducted with relatively few and light forces on
lakes A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...
. In the naval history the earliest naval offensives in the record of
military history Military history is the study of War, armed conflict in the Human history, history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to Politics, local and international relationship ...
were the
Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...
between Rome and
Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...
for the domination of the Mediterranean regional trade, while coastal offensives date to the earlier raids of the
Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...
. At least one naval offensive is claimed to have changed the course of history in Europe. The conduct of naval offensives may require construction of
naval base A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usu ...
s to support offensive action in the area, particularly in the case of
submarines A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or info ...
. One example is the
Bay of Kotor The Bay of Kotor ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Boka kotorska, Бока которска, separator=" / ", ), also known as the Boka ( sh-Cyrl, Бока), is a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea in southwestern Montenegro and the region of Montenegro concentrated a ...
base used by the Austro-Hungarian forces in the Adriatic Sea during the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. A naval offensive may be active involving direct combat between units, or passive, involving use of sea route and operational area
mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...
.ch.2, Busuttil


See also

* Battle of the Atlantic (1914–1918) * Battle of Gallipoli *
Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade ...
*
Arctic Convoys The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys ...
*
Battle of the Mediterranean The Battle of the Mediterranean was the name given to the naval campaign fought in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, from 10 June 1940 to 2 May 1945. For the most part, the campaign was fought between the Kingdom of Italy, Italian Reg ...
* Battle of the Indian Ocean *
Battle of Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the ti ...
*
Battle of the Coral Sea The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the battle ...
*
Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of t ...
*
Battle of Guadalcanal The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by the United States, was an Allied offensive against forces of the Empire of Japan in the Solomon Islands during the Pacific Theater of W ...
*
Operation Game Warden Operation Game Warden was a joint operation conducted by the United States Navy and South Vietnamese Navy in order to deny Viet Cong access to resources in the Mekong River Delta. Game Warden and its counterpart Operation Market Time are con ...


Notes


References

* Wegener, Edward, Rear Admiral (rtd.), FRG, ''The Soviet naval offensive:An Examination of the Strategic Role of Soviet Naval Forces in the East-West Conflict.'', Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1975 * Hill Goodspeed, M., Burgess, Richard R., ''U.S. Naval Aviation'', Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, Universe, 2001 * Morison, Samuel Eliot, ''The Battle of the Atlantic: September 1939-May 1943 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 1)'', Castle Books, 2001 * Vego, Milan N., ''Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas'', Cass Series – Naval Policy and History, Routledge, (2nd ed.), 2003 * Menon,Raja, Rear Admiral, ''Maritime Strategy and Continental Wars'', Cass Series – Naval Policy and History, Routledge, (1st ed.), 1998 * Rose, Susan, ''Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000-1500'' (Warfare and History), Routledge, (1st ed.), 2001 * Lindberg, Michael, and Todd, Daniel, ''Brown-, Green- and Blue-Water Fleets: The Influence of Geography on Naval Warfare, 1861 to the Present'', Praeger Publishers, 2001 * Busuttil, James J., ''Naval Weapons Systems and the Contemporary Law of War'' (Oxford Monographs in International Law), Oxford University Press, USA, 1998 * Massie, Robert K., ''Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea'', Ballantine Books, 2004 * Abbot, Willis J. and Jackson, Walter C., B''lue Jackets Of 1812: A History Of The Naval Battles Of The Second War With Great Britain To Which Is Prefixed An Account Of The French War Of 1798'', 1887, Kessinger Publishing, 2004 * Strauss, Barry, ''The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization'', Simon & Schuster, 2004


Further reading

For use of carrier and land-based naval aviation in a naval offensive * Hammel, Eric, ''Carrier Strike: The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands,October 1942'', Zenith Press, 2005 * Konstam, Angus and Bryan, Tony, ''Confederate Submarines and Torpedo Vessels 1861-65'' (New Vanguard), Osprey Publishing, 2004 Military doctrines Military strategy