The Royal Danish Navy (RDN) (officially Kongelige Danske Marine in Danish, but more generally known as Søværnet) is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese territorial waters. Other tasks include surveillance, search and rescue, icebreaking, oil spill recovery and prevention as well as contributions to international tasks and forces.
During the period 1509-1814, when Denmark was in union with Norway, the Danish Navy was part of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. Until the copenhagenization of the navy in 1807, the navy was a major strategic influence in European geographical area, but since then it had remained of a smaller size. Despite this, the navy is now equipped with a number of large state-of-the-art vessels commissioned since the end of the Cold War. This can be explained by its strategic location as the NATO member controlling access to the Baltic.
Danish Navy ships carry the prefix KDM (Kongelige Danske Marine) in Danish, but this is translated to HDMS (Her / His Danish Majesty's Ship) in English. Denmark is one of several NATO member states whose navies do not deploy submarines.
Read more about Royal Danish Navy: History, International Operations, Vessels, Aerial Vehicles, Ranks and Insignia
Famous quotes containing the words royal and/or navy:
“An Englishman, methinks,—not to speak of other European nations,—habitually regards himself merely as a constituent part of the English nation; he is a member of the royal regiment of Englishmen, and is proud of his company, as he has reason to be proud of it. But an American—one who has made tolerable use of his opportunities—cares, comparatively, little about such things, and is advantageously nearer to the primitive and the ultimate condition of man in these respects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)