The Baltic Sea campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the connected lakes Ladoga and Onega on the Eastern Front of World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy, with Finland supporting the Germans until 1944 and the Soviets thereafter. The Swedish Navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea.
The Estonian Navy are the unified naval forces among the Estonian Defence Forces.
Operation Jungle was a programme by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) early in the Cold War from 1949 to 1955 for the clandestine insertion of intelligence and resistance agents into Poland and the Baltic states. The agents were mostly Polish, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian exiles who had been trained in the United Kingdom and Sweden and were to link up with the anti-Soviet resistance against the communist governments. The naval operations of the programme were carried out by German crew-members of the German Mine Sweeping Administration under the control of the Royal Navy. The American-sponsored Gehlen Organization also got involved in the draft of agents from Eastern Europe. However, the MGB penetrated the network and captured or turned most of the agents.
The Worek Plan was an operation of the Polish Navy in the first days of World War II, in which its five submarines formed a screen in order to prevent German naval forces from carrying out landings on the Polish coast, and to attack enemy ships bombarding Polish coastal fortifications, in particular the base on the Hel Peninsula.
A British submarine flotilla operated in the Baltic Sea for three years during the First World War. The squadron of nine submarines was attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet. The main task of the flotilla was to prevent the import of iron ore from Sweden to Imperial Germany. The success of the flotilla also forced the German Navy in the Baltic to keep to their bases and denied the German High Seas Fleet a training ground. The flotilla was based in Reval (Tallinn), and for most of its career commanded by Captain Francis Cromie.
The Kalev class consisted of two mine laying submarines built for the Estonian Navy.
The Baltic Naval Squadron (BALTRON) was inaugurated in 1998. The main responsibility of BALTRON is to improve the co-operation between the Baltic states in the areas of naval defence and security. Constant readiness to contribute units to NATO-led operations is assured through BALTRON.
The British campaign in the Baltic 1918–1919 was a part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The codename of the Royal Navy campaign was Operation Red Trek. The intervention played a key role in enabling the establishment of the independent states of Estonia and Latvia. It failed to secure the control of Petrograd by White Russian forces, which was one of the main goals of the campaign.
EMLAdmiral Pitka (A230) was a Beskytteren-class ocean patrol vessel and former flagship of the Estonian Navy, belonging to the Mineships Division. She was named after Estonian Admiral Johan Pitka.
EML Admiral Cowan (M313) is a Sandown-class minehunter. Formerly HMS Sandown, lead ship of her class of the Royal Navy, she is now an Estonian Navy ship. Renamed EML Admiral Cowan, she is the flagship of the Estonian Navy and part of the Estonian Navy's mine sweeping flotilla. Admiral Cowan is the lead vessel of the Estonian Navy Mineships Division and also the first of the three modernised Sandown class minehunters received.
The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn, also called Juminda mine battle, Tallinn disaster or Russian Dunkirk, was a Soviet operation to evacuate the 190 ships of the Baltic Fleet, units of the Red Army, and pro-Soviet civilians from the fleet's encircled main base of Tallinn in Soviet-occupied Estonia during August 1941. Near Juminda peninsula Soviet fleet ran into minefield that had been laid by the Finnish and German navies, and were repeatedly attacked by aircraft and torpedo boats, suffering massive losses.
EML Lembit is one of two Kalev-class mine-laying submarines built for the Republic of Estonia before World War II, and is now a museum ship in Tallinn. She was launched in 1936 at Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness, and served in the Estonian Navy and the Soviet Navy. Until she was hauled out on 21 May 2011, Lembit was the oldest submarine still afloat in the world. Her sister ship, Kalev, was sunk in October 1941. Lembit is named for Lembitu, an Estonian ruler who resisted the Livonian Crusades.
EML Kalev was one of two submarines of the Republic of Estonia launched in 1936 at Vickers and Armstrongs Ltd. in England. Her sister, Lembit, survived the Second World War.
EMLKalev (M414) was a Frauenlob-class minesweeper of the Estonian Navy, which belonged to the Mineships Division.
EML Olev (M415) is a Frauenlob-class minelayer of the Estonian Navy Mineships Division.
BALTOPS is an annual military exercise, held and sponsored by the Commander, United States Naval Forces Europe, since 1971, in the Baltic Sea and the regions surrounding it.
Latvian Naval Forces is the naval warfare branch of the National Armed Forces. It is tasked with conducting military, search and rescue operations, mine and explosive sweeping on the Baltic Sea, as well as ecological monitoring activities. The Naval Forces have participated in international NATO/Partnership for Peace operations and various exercises with great success. The main development priorities of the Naval Forces are to expand their activities within the Baltic States’ Ship Squadron BALTRON and to develop a Sea Surveillance System. They pay a great deal of attention to professionally specialized training and English-language teaching.
The Naval warfare in the Winter War was the naval part of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union from 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940. Overall, the level of naval activity was low. However, Finland had coastal artillery batteries which took part in battles along its coast.
The Lindormen class is a class of two minelayers built for the Royal Danish Navy to replace the Lougen-class minelayers that dated from World War II. The Lindormen class was designed to lay controlled controlled minefields in the Baltic Sea during the Cold War as part of NATO's defence plan for the region. They were taken out of service by the Danish in 2004, put up for sale in 2005 and transferred to Estonia in 2006.
The NAVY 18 WP class is a class of patrol boat in service with the Estonian Navy.
