Thread: Navys in the past

At what point in history did it become common place for a kingdom, region, country, to have it's own navy that solely served as a navy?

There is no exact change over point for every body every where. The main factor governing this is the point where ships become sufficiently specialised as warships that merchantmen requisitioned and armed are no longer a match for them and specialised ships have to be built to provide defence. The cost of doing this was one of the reasons for increased taxation that led to tension between Charles and Parliament in the sixteen hundreds, however the Mary Rose was a purpose built war ship some two hundred years before this. An established, permanent, navy however did not really happen until the advent of light weight, iron, naval cannons requiring purpose built ships with gun ports in the sixteen hundreds, and it only became properly organised through the efforts of Samuel Pepys who was First Secretary to the navy in the latter half of that century.

Further back the Persians commanded considerable fleets against Alexander and the Chinese sent out large expeditionary forces, but I am fairly sure these would have been made up of ships which did not essentially differ from the commercial vessels of the time and were assembled for a particular purpose rather than maintained continuously. I think the same would apply to fleets such as the Spanish Armada.

Of course once one country had done it others had to follow suit, such is the nature of the arms race.

Thank you Olly.

I had a big spiel, but everything I said was just nodding in the same direction of Olly's perfectly explained post. Kudos.

There has always been a difference between ships built for war and ships built for cargo. An ideal cargo ship is wider to allow for more space, which generally cuts speed and manevorability. There are some exceptions of course.

Some early navies were little more then pirates sanctioned by governments.