5 Most Powerful Navies of All Time

[mike2000 is back]

Really? Against Iraq, sure Iran did outclass them badly, but this thread is for the top 5 and against the US - well, Iran didn't quite measure up:

Operation Praying Mantis

1 frigate sunk (45 crew killed)
1 gunboat sunk (11 crew killed)
3 speedboats sunk
1 frigate damaged
2 platforms damaged

It would have been worse had the US not decided Iran had enough and ordered its forces into a defensive posture.

Some one looking for a fight. US Navy versus Royal Navy

*yeah, I know it's french! I could find a RN frigate and US ship together!

I'd put you guys in my top 10 all time based on today's Royal Navy:

Yes, our son followed in our footsteps and is doing quite well for itself.

 

[IR-TR]

Chinese are not a sea goers .... they are land based silk route traders.

China is not a naval power in the past, their navy is improving now.

Add Indian navy to that list in 21st century

You must have forgotten that they had the single biggest navy/fleet of merchant ships in the history of mankind. Bub, get your history straight. Both are seafaring nations. The difference between them and small islands is, that they are ALSO land empires.

So basically you were full of yourself

Are you a little manchild? That's how most empires come to their end: hubris. Being at the top for so long makes you feel invincible. India had comparable experiences. It was a giant just like China too. How do you explain those toothless Britshits having conquered India? I'm not anti India or anything, just saying. I think both nations deserve their old place back.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

imagine us navy + uk navy + french navy + russian navy... locked out of mediterranean sea, black sea, red sea, arabian sea, and basra korfezi or gulf of basra (aka arabian gulf, persian gulf), and chased out of africas atlantic coast, indias indian coast, indonesian & malaysian coasts; and it is done by navy of one single country. a navy that can do this is one of the most powerful navies of all time, is it not? that is what the othmani navy did.

sunni othmani turk navy was chasing christian european navies in the atlantic ocean and the indian ocean. othmani navy protected the indian coast of the turk empires in india from european navy attacks. othmani navy mounted many expeditions to aceh sultanate in indonesia. othmani navy, like the european navies, not making pillage & plunder expeditions in the americas is not a negative. goal of the two navies are different. christian european navies were no more than terrorists and pirates, centuries later not much has changed. othmani navy, as the navy of the khalifa, is obligated to protect all sunnis, in othmani soil and non-othmani soil.

What are u talking about?Ottoman navy never even fought us navy or british navy.Russia(really muscowy until 1700s) didn't even have a navy back then.And the french were allied with the ottomans providing bases for admiral barbarossa.They also failed to prevent the tiny portugese from establishing the sea route to india cutting out the middleman which was one of the factors of their economic decline.At least know what ur talking about
Ottoman navy mostly defeated the italians in their heydey,occasionally spain.Given the enormous size and resources of the empire compared to the small italian city states i wouldn't call it the best at all,especially when it has to compete with us navy and royal navy,which had unparallled global reach and power.
.Your religious and ethnic fervour is getting the better of your senses.

 

[Nike]

The Dutch in their golden era, had a quite strong Navy too, able to subdue the England at their homeyard and able to blocking Thames river several times, able to conquer Nusantara, Ceylon and had a global reach all the way into America

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

The Dutch in their golden era, had a quite strong Navy too, able to subdue the England at their homeyard and able to blocking Thames river several times, able to conquer Nusantara, Ceylon and had a global reach all the way into America

Spot on.The most embarassing moment in royal navy history came when a bunch of half drunk dutch sailors sailed into the thames near london at medway,sank the main capital ships and captured the flagship of the royal navy.

 

[mike2000 is back]

Spot on.The most embarassing moment in royal navy history came when a bunch of half drunk dutch sailors sailed into the thames near london at medway,sank the main capital ships and captured the flagship of the royal navy.

I have to agree with you on here. The dutch indeed inflicted the worse defeat our Royal navy has ever encountered in its entire history.

However, The attack caught us off guards, since it was a surprise attack that our officials/navy never expected(kind of similar to pearl harbour when the U.S navy never expected the Japanese to venture this deep and attack on its own mainland). No serious preparations had been made for such an eventuality. Reason the dutch won the battle and met little resistance.

For example most of our frigates were assembled in squadrons in Scotland, leaving London to be protected by only a very small number of active ships, many of which was ships we seized from the dutch ater defeating them in the first anglo-dutch war.

Nevertheless a dutch victory in that battle, which later led to the anglo-dutch peace treaty, as they also had to immediately retreat, knowing they couldn't sustain the victory for long. So i still give the dutch this one.

 

[Echo_419]

You must have forgotten that they had the single biggest navy/fleet of merchant ships in the history of mankind. Bub, get your history straight. Both are seafaring nations. The difference between them and small islands is, that they are ALSO land empires.



Are you a little manchild? That's how most empires come to their end: hubris. Being at the top for so long makes you feel invincible. India had comparable experiences. It was a giant just like China too. How do you explain those toothless Britshits having conquered India? I'm not anti India or anything, just saying. I think both nations deserve their old place back.

Relax dude I was just kidding no need to get so worked up

 

[Neptune]

Seriously ? You are so dumb comparing Iran navy with USA ? That operation happened in 1988 which Iran had ended the war with Iraq after 8 years.

How can you expect Iran's military to stand against USA after 8 years of devastating war with Iraq ?

USA has many failures; Vietnam war , Iraq war , war on terrorist , ISIS , Syria and Ukraine in all USA has fail .

1-Vietnam war which USA used all the inhuman tactics but failed in the end

2-Iraq war fought for more than 7 years with many casualties and losses and later on ISIS came back

3-War on terrorist was joke like it's name, Taliban is on the rise again in Afghanistan

4- Bombing for more then a year with his own allies ISIS unfortunately gaining more

5-Cannot handle situation in Syria after 4 years, spent 500 million dollars trained 60 fighter later on all of them captured by al nusra ( al Qaeda in Syria ) and dissolved (no joke)

6-Ukraine is also unknown situation Russia allies gain some areas more importantly Crimea

7- Don't have a guts to go to war with Iran.

8- Cannot support his own allies such as Saudi and Israel
So please don't compare USA military to Iran , they are way stronger then us

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1- Port side beam is a blind spot for Phalanx CIWS at OHP class frigates, USS Stark respectively. Especially for sea-skimming missiles.

2- Yeah USS Cole wasn't hit by "all hail jihad" shouting freaks using a wherry at night when the ship was docked at harbor. In deed it must have been hit by a massive laser beam fired from Al-Qaeda's low orbit satellite wasn't it?

Besides all the political shitstorm you've listed, tell me a one single military escalation that the USN has lost during post-Cold War War period.

 

[Blackmoon]

1- Port side beam is a blind spot for Phalanx CIWS at OHP class frigates, USS Stark respectively. Especially for sea-skimming missiles.

2- Yeah USS Cole wasn't hit by "all hail jihad" shouting freaks using a wherry at night when the ship was docked at harbor. In deed it must have been hit by a massive laser beam fired from Al-Qaeda's low orbit satellite wasn't it?

Besides all the political shitstorm you've listed, tell me a one single military escalation that the USN has lost during post-Cold War War period.

I will not waste my time discussing with ottoman turk who lives in a fantasy world of bringing back caliphate.

 

[Neptune]

I will not waste my time discussing with ottoman turk who lives in a fantasy world of bringing back caliphate.

Lol..then you have no idea whom you're speaking with

What I've writte there are technical facts whereas you speculate things as if Al-Qaeda had a destroyer or satellites..

All hail atheism..

 

[A.P. Richelieu]

Can't believe no one has mentioned byzantine navy - The byzantine greek-fire spitting Dromon was the greatest terror weapon of the middle ages on sea.Defeated arab navies way many more times their size and foiled sieges of constantinopole.
Also do not forget the spanish during their heydey.Very powerful.Reason i'm not going for ottomans is that they never had a great ocean going fleet even when they were aware their opponents were building such ships and probably had the means to build themselves,galleys were only useful in shallow waters of mediterranean.Spanish had both galleys that fought at lepanto for example and a huge armada(treasure fleet) of galleons and ocean sailing ships.
Carthage is a forgotten mention from ancient times,very strong.The original great naval power of the mediterranean - Carthage and Athens.

All time
1.Royal Navy (1805-1919)
2.Us navy(1945-now)

Rest are much below these 2.In terms of global reach these 2 are the strongest in history.

Noone is mentioning the Swiss Navy!!

Venice had quite a strong Navy but here is my list.

1.Royal Navy - Ruled the Sea
2.US Navy - Strongest Navy all time.
3.Roman/Byzanthian Navy - Mare Nostrum
4.Spanish Navy
5.Dutch Navy
Worth mentioning is Turkish/Persian/China/Portugal.
German Submarine Navy was close to winning the war vs Great Britain.
Don't think the Japanese Navy was there long enough, going downhill after Midway.