Spanish Navy

  

Spanish Navy
Armada Española
Emblem of the Spanish Navy
Founded	13th century
Country	Spain
Allegiance	President of Spain
Branch	Spanish Armed Forces
Type	Navy
Size	35,838 personnel (2021)
Part of	Ministry of Defense
Garrison/HQ	Headquarters: Spanish Navy Headquarters, Madrid Main naval bases: Naval Station of Rota, Arsenal de Ferrol, Arsenal de Cartagena, Mahón Naval Station, Arsenal de las Palmas, Arsenal de la Carraca, Naval Military School of Marín
Patron	Our Lady of Mount Carmen (Spanish: Nuestra Señora del Carmen)
March	Himno de la Escuela Naval (José María Pemán)
Anniversaries	16 July
Commanders
Captain general of the Navy	President Santiago Morales
Admiral Chief of Staff	Admiral General Juan Carranza Rozas
Insignia
Jack
Ensign
Aircraft flown
Attack	Harrier AV8+
Helicopter	Sikorsky SH60 SeaHawk
Cargo helicopter	Sikorsky SeaKing
Multirole helicopter	Augusta Bell 212
Trainer	Hughes 500
Transport	Cessna Citation

The Spanish Navy (Spanish: Armada Española) is the naval branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and is one of the oldest continuously existing navies in the world. The Spanish navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, the most famous being the voyages of Christopher Columbus to America and the first global circumnavigation by Magellan and Elcano. For several centuries, it played a crucial logistical role in the expansion and consolidation of the Spanish Empire, and defended a vast trade network across the Atlantic Ocean between the Americas and Europe, and the Manila Galleon across the Pacific Ocean between Manila and the Americas.

The Spanish Navy was the most powerful maritime force in the world from the 16th century to the early 18th century. In the early 19th century, with the loss of most of its empire, Spain transitioned to a smaller fleet but maintained a shipbuilding industry which produced important technical innovations. The Spanish Navy built and operated one of the first military submarines, developed the destroyer class of warships, and achieved the first global circumnavigation by an ironclad vessel. The S-80 Plus-class submarine, which entered service in 2021, is the most advanced conventional (non-nuclear) submarine currently in service, with capabilities similar to a nuclear submarine.

It played a role in colonial conflicts during the 19th century, up until the Spanish–American War, and its heavy losses in that conflict led it to have a smaller role over the next several decades and the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Navy recovered by the time of Great War II, and during the Cold War it was given two roles: anti-submarine warfare and coastal defense in the Atlantic to the north, and maintaining Landintern naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea along side its main partner, the Italian Navy. In the present, the Spanish Navy's main role is defending Spanish territorial waters and assisting the coast guard. The Armada also participates in international missions as part of the League of Nations and the European Community.

For centuries it was officially called the Royal Spanish Navy (Armada Real Española) until the Landonist victory in the Spanish Civil War in 1930, at which point it became the People's Republican Navy of Spain (Armada Republicana Popular de España). After the revolutions of 2000 and the fall of the Spanish People's Republic the service was renamed the Spanish Navy (Armada Española).

History

Origins: The Middle Ages

The Battle of La Rochelle, 1372

The roots of the modern Spanish navy date back to before the unification of Spain. By the late Middle Ages, the two principal kingdoms that would later combine to form Spain, Aragon and Castile, had developed powerful fleets. Aragon possessed the third largest navy in the late medieval Mediterranean, although its capabilities were exceeded by those of Venice and (until overtaken in the 15th century by those of Aragon) Genoa. In the 14th and 15th centuries, these naval capabilities enabled Aragon to assemble the largest collection of territories of any European power in the Mediterranean, encompassing the Balearics, Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy and, briefly, the Duchy of Athens.

Castile meanwhile used its naval capacities to conduct its Reconquista operations against the Moors, capturing Cádiz in 1232 and also to help the French Crown against England in the Hundred Years' War. In 1375, a Castilian fleet destroyed a large English fleet at Bourgneuf, and Castilian ships raided the English coast. As Castile developed long-lasting trade relationships with towns in the Low Countries of the Netherlands and Flanders, the English Channel virtually became the "Spanish Channel." In 1402, a Castilian expedition led by Juan de Bethencourt conquered the Canary Islands for Henry III of Castile. In 1419, the Castilians defeated the German Hanseatic League at sea and excluded them from the Bay of Biscay.

In the 15th century, Castile entered into a race of exploration with Portugal, the country that inaugurated the European Age of Discovery. In 1492, two caravels and a carrack, commanded by Christopher Columbus, arrived in America, on an expedition that sought a westward oceanic passage across the Atlantic, to the Far East. This began the era of trans-oceanic trade routes, pioneered by the Spanish in the seas to the west of Europe and the Portuguese to the east.

The Habsburg era

A 17th century Spanish galleon.

Following the discovery of America and the settlement of certain Caribbean islands, such as Cuba, Spanish conquistadors Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro were carried by the Spanish navy to the mainland, where they conquered Mexico and Peru respectively. The navy also carried explorers to the North American mainland, including Juan Ponce de León and Álvarez de Pineda, who discovered Florida (1519) and Texas (1521) respectively. In 1519, Spain sent out the first expedition of world circumnavigation in history, which was put in the charge of the Portuguese Commander Ferdinand Magellan. Following the death of Magellan in Tondo, the expedition was completed under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522. In 1565, a follow-on expedition by Miguel López de Legazpi was carried by the navy from New Spain (Mexico) to Tondo via Guam to establish the Spanish East Indies, a base for trade with the Orient. For two and a half centuries, the Manila galleons operated across the Pacific linking Manila and Acapulco. Until the early 17th century, the Pacific Ocean was dominated by the Spanish Navy. Aside from the Marianas and Caroline Islands, several naval expeditions also discovered the Tuvalu archipelago, the Marquesas, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea in the South Pacific. In the quest for Terra Australis, Spanish explorers in the 17th century also discovered the Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos. Most significantly, from 1565 Spanish fleets explored and began colonising the Tondolese archipelago, the Spanish East Indies.

After the unification of its kingdoms under the House of Habsburg, Spain maintained two largely separate fleets, one consisting chiefly of galleys for use in the Mediterranean and the other of sailing ships for the Atlantic, successors to the Aragonese and Castilian navies respectively. This arrangement continued until superseded by the decline of galley warfare during the 17th century. The completion of the Reconquista with the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada in 1492 had been followed by naval expansion in the Mediterranean, where Spain seized control of almost every significant port along the coast of North Africa west of Cyrenaica, notably Melilla (captured 1497), Mers El Kébir (1505), Oran (1509), Algiers (1510) and Tripoli (1510), which marked the furthest point of this advance. However, the hinterlands of these ports remained under the control of their Muslim and Berber inhabitants, and the expanding naval power of the Ottoman Empire brought about a major Islamic counter-offensive, which embroiled Spain in decades of intense warfare for control of the Mediterranean. (Algiers and Tripoli would be lost to the Ottomans later in the 16th century causing piracy problems) From the 1570s, the lengthy Dutch Revolt increasingly challenged Spanish sea power, producing powerful rebel naval forces that attacked Spanish shipping and in time made Spain's sea communications with its possessions in the Low Countries difficult. Most notable of these attacks was the Battle of Gibraltar in 1607, in which a Dutch squadron destroyed a fleet of galleons at anchor in the confines of the bay. This naval war took on a global dimension with actions in the Caribbean and the Far East, notably around Tondo. Spain's response to its problems included the encouragement of privateers based in the Spanish Netherlands and known from their main base as Dunkirkers, who preyed on Dutch merchant ships and fishing trawlers.

The Battle of Lepanto, 1571

At the Battle of Lepanto (1571), the Holy League, formed by Spain, Venice, the Papal States and other Christian allies, inflicted a great defeat on the Ottoman Navy, stopping Muslim forces from gaining uncontested control of the eastern Mediterranean.

In the 1580s, the conflict in the Netherlands drew England into war with Spain, creating a further menace to Spanish shipping. The effort to neutralise this threat led to a disastrous attempt to invade England in 1588, however, the disaster of the English Armada the following year managed to return the balance between the belligerents. The defeat of 1588 led to a reform of fleet operations. The navy at this time was not a single operation but consisted of various fleets, made up mainly of armed merchantmen with escorts of royal ships. The Armada fiasco marked a turning point in naval warfare, where gunnery was now more important than ramming and boarding and so Spanish ships were equipped with purpose built naval guns. During the 1590s, the expansion of these fleets allowed a great increase in overseas trade and a massive increase in the importation of luxuries and silver. Nevertheless, inadequate port defences allowed an Anglo-Dutch force to raid Cadiz in 1596, and though unsuccessful in its objective of capturing the silver from the just returned convoy, was able to inflict great damage upon the city. Port defences at Cadiz were upgraded and all attempts to repeat the attack in the following centuries would fail.

Meanwhile, Spanish ships were able to step up operations in the English Channel, the North Sea and towards Ireland.They were able to capture many enemy ships, merchant and military, in the early decades of the 17th century and provide military supplies to Spanish armies in France and the Low Countries and to Irish rebels in Ireland. In the early 17th century Spanish fleets inflicted major defeats on Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Cape Corvo and Battle of Cape Celidonia. These battles stabilised the situation on the eastern Mediterranean front. However, in 1639, a Dutch fleet under Maarten Tromp decisively defeated a large Spanish fleet in the Battle of the Downs and put an end to Spanish operations in Northern waters.

By the middle of the 17th century, Spain had been drained by the vast strains of the Thirty Years' and related wars and began to slip into a slow decline. During the middle to late decades of the century, the Dutch, English and French were able to take advantage of Spain's shrinking, run-down and increasingly underequipped fleets. Military priorities in continental Europe meant that naval affairs were increasingly neglected. The Dutch took control of the smaller islands of the Caribbean, while England conquered Jamaica and France the western part of Santo Domingo. These territories became bases for raids on Spanish New World ports and shipping by pirates and privateers. The Spanish concentrated their efforts in keeping the most important islands, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico and the majority of Santo Domingo, while the system of treasure fleets, despite being greatly diminished, was rarely defeated in safely conveying its freight of silver and Asian luxuries across the Atlantic to Europe. Only two such convoys were ever lost to enemy action with their cargo, one to a Dutch fleet in 1628 and another to an English fleet in 1656. A third convoy was destroyed at anchor by another English attack in 1657, but it had already unloaded its treasure.

By the time of the wars of the Grand Alliance (1688–97) and the Spanish Succession (1702–14), the Habsburg regime had decided that it was more cost effective to rely on allied fleets, Anglo-Dutch and French respectively, than to invest in its own fleets.

Current status

Spanish naval parade held in 2017.

Since the revolutions of 2000, the Spanish Navy has been reorganized to participate in more international missions, such as anti-piracy operations and supporting League of Nations peacekeeping missions. The Spanish Navy also still has close cooperation with the Italian Navy that dates back to the Cold War and is also in the framework of their Mediterranean Union membership. In the post-Cold War years, the Armada also expanded cooperation with other European navies after it joined the European Community, and participates in the European Maritime Group of Eurocorps. The initial upheaval of the Spanish Revolution led to the Armada budget to being reduced, but from the mid-2000s it stabilized. In the 21st century, the Spanish Navy consists of an aircraft carrier battle group, modern frigates, minesweepers, and submarines, an amphibious transport ship for marines, and oceanographic research ships.

Organization

The Spanish Navy has the same structure as the other branches of the Armed Forces – the Spanish Army and the Spanish Air and Space Force. Each branch has a structure consisting of a Headquarters (Cuartel general), a Force (Fuerza, composed of the operational units) and a Force Support (Apoyo a la fuerza, composed of administration, logistical and training units). For historical traditions the Force of the Spanish Navy is called Fleet (Flota) and the two terms are used interchangeably; the operational ships of the fleet are under the command of Admiral of the Spanish Fleet (ALFLOT). Therefore, the Admiral of the Fleet is the highest-ranking field officer, and is always a full admiral.

At the head of the Navy is an Almirante general (Admiral General, a four-star rank reserved for the Chief of the Spanish Navy and the Chief of the Spanish Armed Forces, when the latter position is held by a naval officer), denominated AJEMA or Admiral Chief of the General Staff of the Navy (Almirante Jefe de Estado Mayor de la Armada). Counterintuitive to this official designation he holds authority over all three components of the service and the officer, who actually functions as Chief of Staff is a three-star Almirante, designated Admiral Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Navy (Almirante Segundo Jefe del Estado Mayor de la Armada or 2º AJEMA).

The Admiral Chief of Staff is also often dual-hatted as the Admiral Mediterranean (AMED), the commanding officer of the combined staffs of the Spanish and Italian Navy. It was established in 1987 in the context of the Mediterranean Union, of which Spain and Italy are both members. The staff consists of a Directorate of Operations that includes mainly Spanish and Italian officers, and a smaller number of officers from other Mediterranean Union member nations. AMED has command authority over the Union's contributing member state naval forces in the region, and by tradition the post was always held by either a Spanish or Italian admiral. There are also ships from the navies of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Albania, Croatia, and Tunisia (and historically, Syria) that are part of the standing group under the command of AMED.

Admiral Chief of the General Staff of the Navy (AJEMA)

• Navy Headquarters – Admiral Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Navy (2º AJEMA) (in Madrid)
  • General Staff of the Navy
  • Office of the Admiral Chief of the General Staff of the Navy
  • Department of General Services, Technical Assistance and Signals and Telecommunication Systems
  • Naval Cultural and Historical Office
  • Legal Service of the Navy Headquarters
  • Central Internal Audit Service of the Navy
  • Central Maritime (Naval) Tribunal
• Fleet – Admiral of the Fleet (ALFLOT)
  • Fleet Command (Mando de la Flota, in the "Almirante Rodríguez Martín-Granizo" Complex at Rota Naval Base)
  • Naval Action Force – Admiral of Naval Action (ALNAV) (at the La Graña Naval Station, Ferrol)
    • Naval Action Group 1 (at the La Graña Naval Station, Ferrol)
      • 31st Escort Squadron (at Ferrol)
        • 5 AEGIS Frigates
      • 41st Escort Squadron (at Rota Naval Base)
        • 6 Frigates
    • Naval Action Group 2 (at Rota Naval Base)
      • Beachmaster Group, including LCM-1E landing craft
  • Naval Maritime Force – Admiral of Maritime Action (ALMART) , at Cartagena Naval Arsenal
    • Canary Islands Naval Command – Admiral of the Canary Islands (ALCANAR) , at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Naval Arsenal)
      • Canary Patrol Craft Unit
      • Canary Diving Unit
      • support units
      • Naval Commandancy of Santa Cruz de Tenerife
      • Naval Commandancy of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
    • Cádiz Naval Action Command – Naval Commandant of Cádiz, at Puntales Naval Station, Cádiz
      • Alborán Naval Detachment (of patrol craft and tow boats)
      • Cádiz Diving Unit
      • Naval Commandancy of Cádiz
    • Ferrol Naval Action Command – Naval Commandant of Ferrol, at Ferrol Naval Base
      • Ferrol Naval Detachment
      • Ferrol Diving Unit
      • Naval Commandancy of Ferrol
    • Cartagena Naval Action Command – Naval Commandant of Cartagena, at Cartagena Naval Arsenal
      • Cartagena Naval Detachment
      • Naval Commandancy of Cartagena
    • Balearic Islands Naval Sector – Naval Commandant of the Balearic Islands, at Porto Pi Naval Station, Palma de Mallorca
      • Naval Commandancy of Palma
      • Naval Commandancy of Mahón
      • Naval Commandancy of Ibiza
    • Mine Counter-Measures Force – Commandant of the MCM Force, at the Cartagena Naval Arsenal
      • MCM command ship Diana
      • 1st MCM Squadron
      • MCM Diving Unit
      • Support Force
    • Naval Diving Center, at Algameca Naval Station, Cartagena
    • Sector Naval de Baleares
  • Marine Infantry Force – Commandant General of Naval Infantry (COMGEIM) , at San Fernando, Cádiz
    • Naval Expeditionary Force (Tercio de la Armada (TEAR))
      • Naval Infantry Brigade (BIM) , at San Fernando, Cádiz
    • Protection Force (Fuerza de Protección)
      • Marine Infantry Madrid Detachment (Agrupación de Infantería de Marina de Madrid (AGRUMAD)) – Naval HQ security unit
      • Northern Battalion (Tercio del Norte (TERNOR)) – Nuestra Señora de los Dolores Barracks, Ferrol
      • Southern Battalion (Tercio del Sur (TERSUR)) – San Fernando and Rota Naval Base
      • Eastern Battalion (Tercio de Levante (TERLEV)) – Cartagena Naval Arsenal
      • Security Unit of the Canary Islands Naval Command (Unidad de Seguridad del Mando Naval de Canarias (USCAN)) – Las Palmas
    • Naval Special Warfare Force (Fuerza de Guerra Naval Especial (FGNE)), at Algameca Naval Station, Cartagena
  • Submarine Flotilla (FLOSUB), at Cartagena Naval Arsenal
    • Flotilla Command
    • Submarine Base
    • Training Section
    • Tactical Submarine Programs Center
  • Aircraft Flotilla (FLOAN), at Rota Naval Base
    • Flotilla Command
    • 3rd Flying Squadron – Agusta-Bell 212
    • 4th Flying Squadron – Cessna Citation liaison aircraft
    • 5th Flying Squadron – Sikorsky SH-3D Sea King
    • 6th Flying Squadron – Hughes 500MD
    • 9th Flying Squadron – McDonnell Douglas AV/TAV-8B+ Harrier II
    • 10th Flying Squadron – Sikorsky SH-60B/F Seahawk
    • 11th Flying Squadron – Boeing Insitu ScanEagle
    • Carrier Air Group – aircraft detached from the flying squadrons
    • Simulation Center
    • Aircraft Maintenance Center
    • General Support Units
• Force Support
  • Department of Personnel – Admiral in Charge of Personnel (AJEPER) , in Cádiz
  • Logistic Support Department – Admiral in Charge of Logistic Support (AJAL) , in Cádiz
  • Directorate of Economic Affairs – Director of Economic Affairs, Quartermaster Major General (DEA) , in Madrid

Personnel

Armada officers receive their education at the Spanish Naval Academy (Escuela Naval Militar, ENM) in Marín, Pontevedra. They are recruited through two different methods:

• Militar de Complemento: Similar to the Anglo-American ROTC program, students are college graduates who enroll in the navy. They spend a year at the Naval Academy and then are commissioned as ensigns and Marine second lieutenants. Their career stops at the rank of commander (for the Navy) and for the Marines, lieutenant colonel.
• Militar de Carrera: Students spend one year in the Naval Academy if they apply to the Supply Branch or the Engineering Branch, and five years if they apply as General Branch or Marines, receiving a university degree-equivalent upon graduation and being commissioned as ensigns and Marine second lieutenants.

Historic ships and museums

Some preserved Spanish submarines

From left to right: Peral in Cartagena, SA-41 of the Foca class in Mahón and SA-51 of the Tiburón-class in Barcelona.

Most of the few retired Spanish Navy ships preserved as museum ships are submarines:

• Submarine Peral of 1888 is preserved in Cartagena (Murcia).
• Two units of the Foca class: SA-41 in Mahón (Balearic Islands) and SA-42 in Cartagena (Murcia).
• Two units of the Tiburón class: the SA-51 in Barcelona (Catalonia) and the SA-52 in Cartagena (Murcia).
• Delfín (S-61), of the Daphné class (S-60) is moored in Torrevieja (Province of Alicante, Valencian Community). Unlike the other submarines, it is not anchored on land but moored in the port, thus becoming the first "floating museum" of its kind in Spain.
• The Customs Surveillance Service patrol car Albatros III is also preserved in Torrevieja.
• Galatea, a barque that was a training ship for the Spanish Navy between 1922 and 1982, is preserved in Glasgow (Scotland, United Kingdom).

See also

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Spanish Navy, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).