Royal Danish Navy

The Royal Danish Navy (Danish: Søværnet, lit. 'The Navy') is the sea-based branch of the Danish Armed Forces force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish territorial waters (incl. Faroe Islands and Greenland). 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 a union with Norway, the Danish Navy was part of the Dano-Norwegian Navy. Until the copenhagenization of the navy in 1801, and again in 1807, the navy was a major strategic influence in the European geographical area, but since then its size and influence has drastically declined with a change in government policy. 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 ship 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 the many NATO member states whose navies do not deploy submarines. However, historically Denmark has operated them, the submarines were retired in 2004 as part of cooperative defence agreement and restructuring. The Royal Danish Navy has operated a wide variety of vessels over the years, including different types of submarines, patrol boats, minesweepers, missile boats, and frigates. It has also operated a variety of aircraft, and the use of helicopters for search and rescue missions and transport, for example, has been a part of its mission.

The geographic layout of Denmark proper (not including Greenland and the Faroe Islands) has a coastline to land area ratio of 1:5.9. For comparison, the figure for the Netherlands is 1:92.1 and for the United States, 1:493.2. Denmark therefore naturally has long-standing maritime traditions, dating back to the 9th century when the Vikings had small but well-organised fleets. They were often based in a small number of villages, usually with a common defence agreement; Viking ships, usually of the Knarr type, were light, and therefore easy to transport from village to village over land. With time, the defence pacts gave rise to larger, more offensive fleets which the Vikings used for plundering coastal areas. In the period after the Vikings, and up to the 15th century, the fleet consisted mainly of merchant vessels. Indeed, it is said that king Valdemar Sejr had more than 1,000 ships during the conquest of Estonia in 1219. Together they carried more than 30,000 soldiers with horses and supplies.

Records exist of a unified Danish navy from the late 14th century. Queen Margaret I, who had just founded the Kalmar Union (consisting of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney, parts of Finland and parts of Germany) ordered the building of a navy – mainly to defend the union against the Hanseatic League. Earlier the national fleet had consisted of vessels owned and operated by the nobility, but the country as such did not have a navy. The earlier monarchs therefore had to rely on conscription from the nobility, which was not always easy as the monarchy itself often had enemies within the nobility. Queen Margaret I gave instructions for a navy to be constituted and maintained under the control of the monarchy. The nobility still had to provide crews (which consisted mainly of "volunteered" farmers) for these ships, though the core crew-members (i.e. masters, master-at-arms and master carpenters) could be employed by the monarch. There were also education officers, mainly levied from the nobility.

In the 15th century, especially during the reign of King Hans, Danish trade expanded appreciably, increasing the need for the delivery of merchandise. As shipping was the ideal means of transport at the time, Danish maritime interests had to be further protected. King Hans is credited with establishing a joint Dano-Norwegian fleet in 1509, substantially increasing the number of professional crewmembers. They were mainly petty criminals, who had to choose between working in the king's navy or imprisonment. They received basic training in seamanship and carpentry, enabling them to sail the ships. Responsibility for weaponry and combat was still in the hands of conscripted farmers. For these, the country was divided into a number of counties – known in Danish as skipæn (the term skip being related to the Danish word for ship, skib), which would later serve as the Danish dioceses. It was also during this period that dedicated naval bases and shipyards were founded. They would build, maintain and fit out the king's navy. The first record of a dedicated naval base is Bremerholmd (later Gammelholm) in the year 1500.

The founding of the Royal Danish Navy is often viewed in Denmark as taking place on 10 August 1510, when King Hans appointed his vassal Henrik Krummedige to become "chief captain and head of all our captains, men and servants whom we now have appointed and ordered to be at sea."

When King Frederick II was crowned in 1559, he immediately began expanding the navy. The number of bases, yards and vessels rose rapidly and substantial resources were used for new ship designs, weaponry, training and battle tactics. Sweden, which had become an independent country, dominated a large part of the Baltic Sea and threatened Danish merchant interests. In retaliation, Denmark closed the Øresund in 1568, laying the first seeds for the Scanian War (1675–1679), only eight years after the end of the second Nordic War (1657–1660), during which Denmark lost the now Swedish provinces of Skåne, Halland and Blekinge. During this period, further resources were allocated to the navy. Niels Juel led the Royal Danish Navy to a victory in the Battle of Køge Bay in 1677.