When an Army has a Navy.

[GrauGeist]

I've always found it fascinating that during WWII, several armies (Axis and Allied) had their own navies.

The U.S. Army for example, operated roughly 127,000 watercraft. Of course, that number includes small boats, barges and non-propelled vessels, but they had much larger ships like Hospital ships, Aircraft Repair ships, Freighters, Blimp Tenders, Troop transports, Minelayers, Sea-going Tugs and Landing Craft.

And while that may have seemed impressive, the Imperial Japanese Army had 5 CVEs, 38 Submarines, Troopships, Tankers, Freighters, Hospital ships, Tugboats as well as landing craft and smaller vessels.

The RAF also had a Marine Branch, mostly smaller vessels except for their Seaplane tenders, that specialized in sea-rescue, but this comprised of the largest such fleet in the world.

 

[mikewint]

Speaking just from my limited perspective inter-service rivalry has to be seen to be believed. One would think that the various services would work together towards a common goal, but nothing could be farther from reality. You could not just go to the Navy and request ship transport or the Air Force and request aircraft. A long and lengthy process of convincing them that yes you actually need their craft and then you had to convince them that they needed to be used the way you wanted them to be used. Even trying to get inter-Army co-operation faced the same problems. Every commander had his own ideas and wanted a way out if things went to Hell and the lion's share of the credit if things worked out. Operations would easily take a month or two to get everyone on board

 

[GrauGeist]

On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, was the Luftwaffe who provided air service for all the branches as well as Anti-Aircraft and other command and control functions. Which meant that, with the exception of Anti-Aircraft batteries aboard Kreigsmarine ships, the Luftwaffe had a complex task of being attached to every Heer or SS unit as well as being stationed throughout the Reich at every key city, Railyard, military installation, Naval base, etc.

Plus, having an Army provide naval aviation, which has it's own unique aspects and requirements, never made any sense to me.

 

[swampyankee]

Well, a number of navies have their own armies, as do some air forces.

 

[WARSPITER]

When Slim was in command in Burma he got into trouble from the Royal Navy. His units had started using some riverboats to help in their
advance (lots of rivers in Burma). Trouble was they had named them and used the HMS prefix. The Royal Navy found out somehow and
went crook as they had not authorised / cleared / whatever the vessels for use.

 

[Sid327]

Speaking just from my limited perspective inter-service rivalry has to be seen to be believed. One would think that the various services would work together towards a common goal, but nothing could be farther from reality. You could not just go to the Navy and request ship transport or the Air Force and request aircraft. A long and lengthy process of convincing them that yes you actually need their craft and then you had to convince them that they needed to be used the way you wanted them to be used. Even trying to get inter-Army co-operation faced the same problems. Every commander had his own ideas and wanted a way out if things went to Hell and the lion's share of the credit if things worked out. Operations would easily take a month or two to get everyone on board

Isn't that the truth!
Inter-service rivalry and jealousy, even in the field of intelligence exchange caused a lot of damage and setbacks. This was one, if not the main reason the OSS was formed (?)