A brown-water navy or riverine navy, in the broadest sense, is a naval force capable of military operations in littoral zone waters. The term originated in the United States Navy during the American Civil War, when it referred to Union forces patrolling the muddy Mississippi River, and has since been used to describe the small gunboats and patrol boats commonly used in rivers, along with the larger "mother ships" that supported them. These mother ships include converted World War II-era mechanized landing craft and tank landing ships, among other vessels.
A United States Navy Monitor, a brown-water navy vessel, firing napalm during the Vietnam War
Barroso, a Brazilian ironclad of the central casemate type, the first vessel to dash past the Fortress of Humaitá on the River Paraguay
The large landing craft NRP Alfange supplying the garrison of Bambadinca, Portuguese Guinea, in the early 1970s.
Swift Boat in Vietnam
A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and other fields.
The Spanish Armada fighting the English navy at the Battle of Gravelines in 1588
British and Danish navies in the line of battle at the Battle of Copenhagen (1801)
A flotilla from the Indian Navy's Western Fleet escorts the aircraft carriers INS Viraat and INS Vikramaditya through the Arabian Sea in 2014
Fourth Style wall painting with naumachia (triremes), a detail from a panel from the portico of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii, Naples National Archaeological Museum