Naval base
Military port for naval ships and assets
A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usually stay on ships but are undergoing maintenance while the ship is in port.
In the United States, the United States Department of the Navy's General Order No. 135 issued in 1911 as a formal guide to naval terminology described a naval station as "any establishment for building, manufacturing, docking, repair, supply, or training under control of the Navy. It may also include several establishments". A naval base, by contrast, was "a point from which naval operations may be conducted".
In most countries, naval bases are expressly named and identified as such.
One peculiarity of the Royal Navy and certain other navies which closely follow British naval traditions is the concept of the stone frigate: a naval base on land that is named like a ship. Certain facilities were often initially housed on hulks as a cost-saving measure and were later moved to land but kept their traditional names.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Naval base”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Aerial photograph of Portsmouth Dockyard taken during a Photex, taken from 2,000 feet. MOD 45144952.jpg by LA(PHOT) Paul A'Barrow., OGL v1.0
- Flotte-Reunion.jpg by Jean-Michel Roche, CC BY-SA 3.0
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