User:Gbawden/Organisation of the South African Navy

This article looks at the organisation of the South African Navy.

The move to Pretoria

In 1977 the Naval Headquarters, previously based in Simon's Town, the site of the Naval base, was moved to Pretoria to bring the Headquarters closer to the rest of the Defence Force. The Headquarters had been based in Simon's Town since 1957, when the Naval Base was handed over to South Africa in terms of the Simonstown Agreement.

The purpose of the Naval Headquarters Unit was there "to support the Chief of the Navy and his five Chiefs of Naval Staff and their Staff Officers in matters pertaining to personnel, administration, operations, logistics, intelligence and finance as well as most naval matters related to the inland area".

Following the move to Pretoria, the Navy was organised into three functional Commands (Operations, Logistics and Training) along with two Area Commands in 1980, Naval Command Cape (COMNAVCAPE) and Naval Command Natal (COMNAVNAT), with South West Africa (COMNAVWB) being added later. COMNAVNAT was later renamed COMNAVEAST.

Naval Operations Command (commanded by Commodore Bill Hogg) was headquartered at the Silvermine maritime communications and surveillance centre. Control and communication went out to COMNAVCAPE, COMNAVNAT or COMNAVWB.

Naval Logistics Command controlled the dockyards at Simonstown and Durban. Training Command was responsible for the training flotilla, four training bases and the Naval Staff College. The structure, with the 5 Chiefs of Naval Staff, looked like this:

Only the post of Chief of Naval Operations was at Rear Admiral level and that Division had in fact two Directorates each headed by a Commodore – Director Naval Operations and Director Naval Planning. Although only Directors these two also served as full members of the Naval Board with the other Chiefs of Naval Staff

The structure in the early 80's

1986 Re-organisation

In 1986, after a three year study into the structure of the Navy, a new structure was unveiled. The Navy structure was simplified with all operational functions split between two functional commands, Naval Command East and Naval Command West, which were established on 28 February 1986.

in 1986 when the Chief of Naval Operations became Chief of Naval Staff with responsibility over all six staff divisions – six as the two operations Directorates now became Chief of Naval Operations and Chief of Naval Plans.

After NAVCOM

After the disestablishment of the NAVCOM structure the Navy adopted a new structure. This structure saw all Staff positions reporting to a newly created Chief of Naval Staff.

1990 restructure

In 1990 the South African Navy went through a restructuring process that saw the establishment of a 2 tier command and control structure, consisting of Naval Headquarters in Pretoria and a single Naval Base and all units, flotillas and independent ships.

The line functions were split into 2 legs - Naval Operations and Naval Support

The structure as redesigned in 1990

Chief of Naval Operations

The Chief of Naval Operations commanded the following units:

• SAS Scorpion and the Strike Craft flotilla
• Naval Station Durban
• SAS Jalsena
• SAS Hugo Biermann and the submarine flotilla
• SAS Chapman and the MCM flotilla
• SAS Tafelberg
• SAS Protea
• SAS Drakensberg
• SAS Simonsberg

1998 Defence Review

In May 1996 the Minister of Defence presented to Parliament the White Paper on National Defence for the Republic of South Africa, which included a Defence Review. One of the outcomes of the Review was the creation of a Fleet Command, incorporating all operational units under one commander.

The abbreviated structure, as published in Bennett (2012) looked as follows:

In a presentation to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, the then Chief of the Navy outlined the structure as follows

2014 Structure

In 2014, without any announcement in the press, the following organogram was published on the South African Navy's website.