Union Navy
The Union Navy was the United States Navy during the American Civil War, when it fought the Confederate States Navy. The term is sometimes used carelessly to include vessels of war used on the rivers of the interior while they were under the control of the United States Army, the Confederates saw the U. S. as being opposed to slavery and thus, referred to them as abolitionists. Accordingly, the U. S. Navy was termed by them as being the Abolition fleet, the primary missions of the Union Navy were,1. Maintain the blockade of Confederate ports by restraining all blockade runners, declared by the President on April 19,1861, meet in combat the war vessels of the CSN. Carry the war to places in the states that were inaccessible to the Union Army. Support the Army by providing gunfire support and rapid transport and communications on the rivers of the interior. To accomplish these, the Union Navy had to undergo a profound transformation, during the war, sailing vessels were completely supplanted by ships propelled by steam for purposes of combat.
Vessels of widely differing character were built from the keel up in response to problems they would encounter. Wooden hulls were at first protected by armor plating, and soon were replaced by iron or steel throughout, the institutional changes that were introduced during the war were equally significant. The Bureau of Steam Engineering was added to the bureau system, testimony to the U. S. Navys conversion from sail to steam. Most important from the standpoint of Army-Navy cooperation in joint operations, the establishment of the ranks of admirals implied a change of naval doctrine, from one favoring single-ship operations to that of employing whole fleets. At the start of the war, the Union Navy had 42 ships in commission, another 48 were laid up and listed as available for service as soon as crews could be assembled and trained, but few were appropriate for the task at hand. Most were sailing vessels, some were hopelessly outdated, and one served on Lake Erie, during the course of the war, the number in commission was increased by more than a factor 15, so that at the end the U. S.
Navy had 671 vessels. Even more significant than the increase in raw numbers was the variety of types that were represented. To confront the forms of combat that came about, the government developed a new type of warship. The U. S. Navy took over a class of armored river gunboats created for the U. S. Army, but designed by naval personnel, so-called double-enders were produced to maneuver in the confined waters of the rivers and harbors. The Union Navy experimented with submarines before the Confederacy produced its famed CSS Hunley, accordingly, at the end of the war, most of them were soon stricken from the service rather than being mothballed. The number of ships at sea fell back to its prewar level, the highest rank available to an American naval officer when the war began was that of captain
HMS Hercules (1868)
HMS Hercules was a central-battery ironclad of the Royal Navy in the Victorian era, and was the first warship to mount a main armament of 10-inch calibre guns. She was designed by Sir Edward Reed, and was in all significant factors an enlarged version of his earlier creation HMS Bellerophon with thicker armour and she carried a balanced rudder, which reduced the physical effort of turning the wheel. Steam-powered steering was installed in 1874 and she was the first warship to carry the new 10-inch muzzle-loading rifle, which were ranged four on either side in a box battery. The foremost and aftermost guns could be traversed to fire to within a few degrees of the line of the keel through recessed embrasures in the battery walls. These guns, each of which weighed 18 tons, fired a shell weighing 400 pounds with a velocity of 1,380 ft/s. A well-trained crew could fire one shot every 70 seconds, in 1870 five of her 10-inch guns were damaged when shells burst before leaving the guns barrels. In 1872 it was reported three of the 10 inch guns were damaged.
She carried two torpedo carriages for 14-inch Whitehead torpedoes on the deck from 1878. She was commissioned at Chatham, and served in the Channel Fleet until 1874, in July 1871 she successfully towed HMS Agincourt off Pearl Rock. She rammed HMS Northumberland in a gale in 1872, sustaining damage to bottom, after a refit from 1874 to 1875 she was posted as Flagship, Mediterranean Fleet until 1877. Paid off at Portsmouth, she was re-commissioned as Flagship of the Particular Service Squadron formed under the command of Admiral Astley Cooper Key at the time of the Russian war scare in 1878 and she was relegated to the post of guardship in the Clyde until 1881. She was flagship of the fleet from 1881 until 1890. Modernised between 1892 and 1893, she was held in reserve at Portsmouth until 1904, from March to June 1902 she served temporarily as port guard ship at Portland with the crew of the permanent guardship HMS Revenge, which was in for a refit. In July the same year she was commissioned by Captain John de Robeck.
By this time she was lacking masts, funnels and superstructure, brown, D. K. Warrior to Dreadnought, Warship Development 1860–1905. Chesneau and Eugene M. Kolesnik, conways All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Parkes, British Battleships ISBN 0-85052-604-3
Brown-water navy
These mother ships include converted World War II-era LCMs and LSTs, among other vessels. Brown-water navies are contrasted with seaworthy blue-water navies, which can conduct operations in open ocean. After losing its blue-water fleet in the Battle of Copenhagen, the kingdom of Denmark-Norway quickly built a brown-water navy, the partial successes of the resulting Gunboat War were undone by land invasion. The term brown-water navy originated in the American Civil War, of 1861–1865, in the early days of the war, U. S. Army built and crewed these boats, with the naval officers commanding them being the only direct connection to the U. S. Navy. By the autumn of 1862, the boats and their mission were transferred to the Department of the Navy. Because of the rivers murky brown water, the ships participated in these Mississippi campaigns were quickly referred to as the brown-water navy. After the end of the American civil war the next major conflict in the world was the Paraguayan War. In this the Brazilian brown-water navy, which comprised large ironclads as well as monitors, had a crucial role.
The natural highway to the Republic of Paraguay was the River Paraguay and it comprised a 6,000 feet line of artillery batteries overlooking a sharp concave bend in the river, at a point where the channel was only 200 yards wide. A chain boom could be raised to block the navigation, the fortress was exceedingly hard to take from the landward side for it was protected by impassible swamp, marsh or lagoons and, where not, by 8 miles of trenches with a garrison of 18,000 men. The river was shallow and capable of trapping large vessels if the water level should fall, in that environment the greatest threat to shipping was torpedoes. Six vessels of the Brazilian ironclad squadron eventually succeeded in dashing past Humaitá in an incident known as the Passage of Humaitá, even after Humaitá was captured − which took more than two years – the Paraguayans improvised further strongpoints along the river, further delaying the Allies. Save for a river patrol boat, the United States river ironclad navy was all.
Yet the concept of a defense force lived on in countries and regions where rivers enabled the U. S. to project its military presence. The U. S. Navy of that era used the term for protecting U. S. foreign policy, the U. S. Navy, China gunboat, USS Asheville, was sunk, by the Japanese, in March 1942. They have succeeded the river created in 1945, by the request of General Leclerc. The Dinassaut served until the end of the conflict in 1955, ten Dinassauts were created, with five based in Cochinchina and the others in Tonkin. Each one was made of ten vessels and one Commandos Marine unit
Barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection that led to the pre-dreadnought. The former gives better angles of fire but less protection than the latter, the disappearing gun was a variation on the barbette gun, it consisted of a heavy gun on a carriage that would retract behind a parapet or into a gunpit for reloading. They were primarily used in coastal defences, but saw use in a handful of warships. The term is used for certain aircraft gun mounts. By the late 1880s, all three systems were replaced with a hybrid system that combined the benefits of both types. The heavily-armored vertical tube that supported the new gun mount was referred to as a barbette, american authors generally refer to such mounts simply as tail guns or tail gun turrets. The use of barbette mountings originated in ground fortifications, the term originally referred to a raised platform on a rampart for one or more guns, enabling them to be fired over a parapet.
This gave rise to the phrase en barbette, which referred to a gun placed to fire over a parapet, rather than through an embrasure, while an en barbette emplacement offered wider arcs of fire, it exposed the guns crew to greater danger from hostile fire. In addition, since the position would be higher than a casemate position—that is. Fortifications in the 19th century typically employed both casemate and barbette emplacements, the type was usually used for coastal defence guns. Later heavy coastal guns were protected in hybrid installation, with wide casemate with cantilevered overhead cover partially covering a barbette mount. Following the introduction of ironclad warships in the early 1860s, naval designers grappled with the problem of mounting guns in the most efficient way possible. The first generation of ironclads employed the same arrangement as the old ship of the line. This was particularly important to designers, since the tactic of ramming was revived following its successful employment at the decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Lissa in 1866, ramming required a ship to steam directly at its opponent, which greatly increased the importance of end-on fire.
Designers such as Cowper Phipps Coles and John Ericsson designed the first gun turrets in the 1860s, in the 1870s, designers began to experiment with an en barbette type of mounting. The barbette was a fixed armoured enclosure protecting the gun, the barbette could take the form of a circular or elongated ring of armour around the rotating gun mount over which the guns fired
Union (American Civil War)
The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States, or the Confederacy. All of the Unions states provided soldiers for the U. S. Army, the Border states played a major role as a supply base for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The Northeast provided the resources for a mechanized war producing large quantities of munitions and supplies. The Midwest provided soldiers, horses, financial support, Army hospitals were set up across the Union. Most states had Republican governors who energetically supported the war effort, the Democratic Party strongly supported the war in 1861 but in 1862 was split between the War Democrats and the anti-war element led by the Copperheads. The Democrats made major gains in 1862 in state elections. They lost ground in 1863, especially in Ohio, in 1864 the Republicans campaigned under the National Union Party banner, which attracted many War Democrats and soldiers and scored a landslide victory for Lincoln and his entire ticket.
The war years were quite prosperous except where serious fighting and guerrilla warfare took place along the southern border, prosperity was stimulated by heavy government spending and the creation of an entirely new national banking system. The Union states invested a great deal of money and effort in organizing psychological and social support for soldiers wives, widows and for the soldiers themselves. Most soldiers were volunteers, although after 1862 many volunteered to escape the draft, Draft resistance was notable in some larger cities, especially New York City with its massive anti-draft riots of 1863 and in some remote districts such as the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania. In the context of the American Civil War, the Union is sometimes referred to as the North and now, as opposed to the Confederacy, which was the South. The Union never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacys secession and maintained at all times that it remained entirely a part of the United States of America, in foreign affairs the Union was the only side recognized by all other nations, none of which officially recognized the Confederate government.
The term Union occurs in the first governing document of the United States, the subsequent Constitution of 1787 was issued and ratified in the name not of the states, but of We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Union, for the United States of America, is repeated in such clauses as the Admission to the Union clause in Article IV. Even before the war started, the preserve the Union was commonplace. Using the term Union to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the political entity. In comparison to the Confederacy, the Union had a large industrialized and urbanized area, the Union states had a manpower advantage of 5 to 2 at the start of the war. Year by year, the Confederacy shrank and lost control of increasing quantities of resources, the Union turned its growing potential advantage into a much stronger military force
Blockade runners of the American Civil War
Blockade runners imported from England most of the guns and other ordinance the Confederacy needed. To get through the blockade these ships, many of them built in British ship yards, specially designed for speed, had to cruise by undetected, the typical blockade runners were privately owned vessels often operating with a letter of marque issued by the Confederate States of America. If spotted the runners would attempt to outmaneuver or simply outrun any Union ships on blockade patrol, most of the guns and other ordnance of the Confederacy was imported from England via blockade runners. Some blockade runners made many successful runs while many others were captured or destroyed. There were an estimated 2, 500–2,800 attempts to run the blockade with at least an 80% success rate. However, by the end of the Civil War the Union Navy had captured more than 1,100 blockade runners and had destroyed or run aground another 355 vessels. When the American Civil War broke out on April 12,1861, the British became the primary ship builders and sources of supply for the Confederate government for the duration of the civil war.
Several courses of action soon developed, in 1861 the Confederate naval fleet only consisted of about 35 ships, of which 21 were steam-driven. The Confederacy was in dire need of basic supplies. Coming to their aid, an experienced and former U. S. naval captain, Raphael Semmes and he proposed a militia of privateers which would both strike at the Norths merchant ships and provide supplies to the south by out running or evading the ships of the Union blockade. Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved of the plan, to this end British investors were the most prolific in offering such aid. I. e. Scotts Anaconda plan extended along the Atlantic, in response Davis countered with threats of retaliation, while the British proclaimed its refusal to concur with Lincolns proclamation in nearby Nassau and its territorial waters. Lincolns proposed blockade was met with mixed criticism among some of his contemporaries, thaddeus Stevens angrily referred to it as a great blunder and a absurdity arguing that we were blockading ourselves and in the process, would be recognizing the Confederacy as a belligerent of war.
Soon after Lincoln announced the blockade, the business of running supplies through the blockade to the Confederacy began. Wilmington, NC was not blockaded until July 14,1861, an enormous naval industry evolved which brought great profits for shipbuilders and suppliers alike. Throughout the conflict mail was carried by runners to and from ports in the West Indies, Nassau. This was part of his famous Anaconda Plan that employed a naval blockade around the coastline of the Confederacy with the idea of adversely affecting its economy and supply lines. Because of the thousands of miles of coastline, with its rivers and inlets
Artillery battery
The term is used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Historically the term referred to a cluster of cannon in action as a group. Such batteries could be a mixture of cannon, howitzer, or mortar types, a siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place. The term came to be used for a group of cannon in a fixed fortification and they were usually organised with between six and 12 ordnance pieces, often including cannon and howitzers. By the late 19th century battery had become standard mostly replacing company or troop, in the 20th century the term was generally used for the company level sub-unit of an artillery branch including field, air-defence, anti-tank and position. 20th-century firing batteries have been equipped with mortars, howitzers, during the Napoleonic Wars some armies started grouping their batteries into larger administrative and field units. Groups of batteries combined for field combat employment called Grand Batteries by Napoleon, administratively batteries were usually grouped in battalions, regiments or squadrons and these developed into tactical organisations.
These were further grouped into regiments, simply group or brigades, to further concentrate fire of individual batteries, from World War I they were grouped into artillery divisions in a few armies. Coastal artillery sometimes had completely different organizational terms based on shore defence sector areas, the rank of a battery commander has varied, but is usually a lieutenant, captain, or major. The number of guns, mortars or launchers in a battery has varied. In the 19th century four to 12 guns was usual as the number to maneuver into the gun line. By late 19th century the artillery battery was divided into a gun line. The gun line consisted of six guns and 12 ammunition mules, during the American Civil War, artillery batteries often consisted of six field pieces for the Union Army and four for the Confederate States Army, although this varied. Batteries were divided into sections of two guns apiece, each section normally under the command of a lieutenant, the full battery was typically commanded by a captain.
Often, particularly as the war progressed, individual batteries were grouped into battalions under a major or colonel of artillery, in the 20th century it varied between four and 12 for field artillery, or even two pieces for very heavy pieces. Other types of such as anti-tank or anti-aircraft have sometimes been larger. Some batteries have been dual-equipped with two different types of gun or mortar, and taking whichever was more appropriate when they deployed for operations, from the late 19th century field artillery batteries started to become more complex organisations. Fixed artillery refers to guns or howitzers on mounts that were anchored in one spot, or on carriages intended to be moved only for the purposes of aiming
Keel
On boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts, a structural element that sometimes resembles a fin and protrudes below a boat along the central line, or a hydrodynamic element. As the laying down of the keel is the step in the construction of a ship, in British. Only the ships launching is considered significant in its creation. The word can be used as a synecdoche to refer to a complete boat, a structural keel is the bottom-most structural member around which the hull of a ship is built. The keel runs along the centerline of the ship, from the bow to the stern. The keel is often the first part of a hull to be constructed. The most common type of keel is the plate keel. A form of keel found on smaller vessels is the bar keel, which may be fitted in trawlers and smaller ferries. Where grounding is possible, this type of keel is suitable with its massive scantlings, if a double bottom is fitted, the keel is almost inevitably of the flat plate type, bar keels often being associated with open floors, where the plate keel may be fitted.
Duct keels are provided in the bottom of some vessels and these run from the forward engine room bulkhead to the collision bulkhead and are utilized to carry the double bottom piping. The piping is accessible when cargo is loaded, the keel surface on the bottom of the hull gives the ship greater directional control and stability. In non-sailing hulls, the helps the hull to move forward. In traditional boat building, this is provided by the structural keel, in modern construction, the bar keel or flat-plate keel performs the same function. There are many types of fixed keels, including full keels, long keels, fin keels, winged keels, bulb keels, the rudimentary purpose of the keel is to convert the sideways motion of the wind when it is abeam into forward motion. A secondary purpose of the keel is to provide ballast, keels are different from centreboards and other types of foils in that keels are made of heavy materials to provide ballast to stabilize the boat. Keels may be fixed, or non-movable, or they may retract to allow sailing in shallower waters, retracting keels may pivot or slide upwards to retract, and are usually retracted with a winch due to the weight of the ballast.
Since the keel provides far more stability when lowered than when retracted, types of non-fixed keels include swing keels and canting keels. Canting keels can be found on racing yachts, such as competing in the Volvo Ocean Race
Battle of Hampton Roads
The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginias largest cities and Richmond, from international trade. The major significance of the battle is that it was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships, i. e. the USS Monitor, the Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram Virginia and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, on that day, Virginia was able to destroy two ships of the Federal flotilla, USS Congress and USS Cumberland, and was about to attack a third, USS Minnesota, which had run aground. Determined to complete the destruction of Minnesota, Catesby ap Roger Jones, acting as captain in Buchanans absence, returned the ship to the fray the next morning, during the night, the ironclad Monitor had arrived and had taken a position to defend Minnesota. When Virginia approached, Monitor intercepted her, the two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither being able to inflict significant damage on the other.
The duel ended indecisively, Virginia returning to her home at the Gosport Navy Yard for repairs and strengthening, the ships did not fight again, and the blockade remained in place. The battle received worldwide attention, and it had immediate effects on navies around the world, the preeminent naval powers, Great Britain and France, halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships, and others followed suit. A new type of warship, was produced based on the principle of the original. The use of a number of very heavy guns, mounted so that they could fire in all directions was first demonstrated by Monitor. Shipbuilders incorporated rams into the designs of warship hulls for the rest of the century, on April 19,1861, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities at Charleston Harbor, US President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of ports in the seceded states. On April 27, after Virginia and North Carolina had passed ordinances of secession, even before the extension, local troops seized the Norfolk area and threatened the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth.
Merrimack burned only to the waterline and her engines were more or less intact, the destruction of the navy yard was mostly ineffective, in particular, the large drydock there was relatively undamaged and soon could be restored. Without firing a shot, the advocates of secession had gained for the South its largest navy yard, as well as the hull and they had seized more than a thousand heavy guns, plus gun carriages and large quantities of gunpowder. With Norfolk and its yard in Portsmouth, the Confederacy controlled the southern side of Hampton Roads. To prevent Union warships from attacking the yard, the Confederates set up batteries at Sewells Point and Craney Island, the Union retained possession of Fort Monroe, at Old Point Comfort on the Virginia Peninsula. They held a small island known as the Rip Raps, on the far side of the channel opposite Fort Monroe. With Fort Monroe went control of the lower Peninsula as far as Newport News, forts Monroe and Wool gave the Union forces control of the entrance to Hampton Roads.
The blockade, initiated on April 30,1861, cut off Norfolk, to further the blockade, the Union Navy stationed some of its most powerful warships in the roadstead
Union blockade
The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading. Those blockade runners fast enough to evade the Union Navy could only carry a fraction of the supplies needed. They were operated largely by British citizens, making use of ports such as Havana, Nassau. The Union commissioned around 500 ships, which destroyed or captured about 1,500 blockade runners over the course of the war, for this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, done at the City of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth. The British proclamation formally gave Britain the diplomatic right to discuss openly which side, if any, to support. A joint Union military-navy commission, known as the Blockade Strategy Board, was formed to make plans for seizing major Southern ports to utilize as Union bases of operations to expand the blockade.
It first met in June 1861 in Washington, D. C. under the leadership of Captain Samuel F, in the initial phase of the blockade, Union forces concentrated on the Atlantic Coast. The November 1861 capture of Port Royal in South Carolina provided the Federals with an ocean port and repair. It became a base of operations for further expansion of the blockade along the Atlantic coastline. Apalachicola, received Confederate goods traveling down the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, another early prize was Ship Island, which gave the Navy a base from which to patrol the entrances to both the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay. The Navy gradually extended its reach throughout the Gulf of Mexico to the Texas coastline, including Galveston, with 3,500 miles of Confederate coastline and 180 possible ports of entry to patrol, the blockade would be the largest such effort ever attempted. The United States Navy had 42 ships in service, and another 48 laid up. At the time of the declaration of the blockade, the Union only had three ships suitable for blockade duty, the Navy Department, under the leadership of Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, quickly moved to expand the fleet.
In 1861, nearly 80 steamers and 60 sailing ships were added to the fleet, some 52 more warships were under construction by the end of the year. By November 1862, there were 282 steamers and 102 sailing ships, by the end of the war, the Union Navy had grown to a size of 671 ships, making it the largest navy in the world. By the end of 1861, the Navy had grown to 24,000 officers and enlisted men, four squadrons of ships were deployed, two in the Atlantic and two in the Gulf of Mexico. Blockade service was attractive to Federal seamen and landsmen alike, Blockade station service was considered the most boring job in the war but the most attractive in terms of potential financial gain
Central battery ship
One of the participants was the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia, essentially a central battery ship herself, albeit a low-freeboard one. The central battery ships had their main guns concentrated in the middle of the ship in an armoured citadel, the concentration of armament amidships meant the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type like previous warships. In this manner the design could maximize the thickness of armour in an area while still carrying a significant broadside. These ships meant the end of the frigates with their full-length gun decks. In the UK, the man behind the design was the newly appointed Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, Edward James Reed. The previous Royal Navy ironclad designs, represented by HMS Warrior, had proven to be seaworthy, fast under power and sail, the first central battery ship was HMS Bellerophon of 1865. Great Britain built a total of 18 central battery ships before turrets became common on ships in the 1880s. The second British central battery ship, HMS Hercules, served as model for the Austrian navy, starting with their first design SMS Lissa designed by Josef von Romako and launched in 1871.
The Austrian SMS Kaiser—not to be confused with German Kaiser—was built along a similar design, although the hull had been converted from a wooden ship, three older broadside ironclads of the Kaiser Max class were officially converted to casemate design, although they were mostly built from scratch. The largest design yet was Tegetthoff, renamed to Mars when the new dreadnought battleship Tegetthoff was commissioned, the Austrian records distinguish between the category of older broadside ironclads and the newer designs using the words Panzerfregatten and respectively Casemattschiffe. The German navy had two large ships of the Kaiser class built in UK shipyards. The first ironclad of the Greek navy, Vasilefs Georgios, was built in the UK, at 1700 tons. The Italians had three ships built, converted from broadside during construction, and the two Principe Amedeo-class ironclads. The disadvantage of the centre-battery was that, while more flexible than the broadside, each gun still had a restricted field of fire.
The centre-battery ships were succeeded by turreted warships. Box battery Brown, David K. RCNC, Warrior to Dreadnought, Warship Design 1860–1905, Chatham,1997 ISBN 1-84067-529-2 Sondhaus, Lawrence. The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918, Industrial Development, Robert, ed. Conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860–1905
United States Secretary of the Navy
The Secretary of the Navy is a statutory office and the head of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. The Department of the Navy consists of two Uniformed Services, the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. In effect, all authority within the Navy and Marine Corps, specifically enumerated responsibilities of the SECNAV in beforementioned section are, organizing, equipping, training and demobilizing. The Secretary oversees the construction and repair of ships, equipment. The Secretary of the Navy is a member of the Defense Acquisition Board, chaired by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, the CNO and the Commandant act as the principal executive agents of the SECNAV within their respective services to implement the orders of the Secretary. The United States Navy Regulations is the principal regulatory document of the Department of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps have their own separate staffs, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and Headquarters Marine Corps
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