National naval nomenclature?

Now that the Kingdom of Manticore is part of the Empire of Manticore, will the RMN become the IMN or the IRMN? And will the Andermani at some point refer to it as the k. u. k. Navy?

aairfccha wrote:Now that the Kingdom of Manticore is part of the Empire of Manticore, will the RMN become the IMN or the IRMN? And will the Andermani at some point refer to it as the k. u. k. Navy?

When Queen Victoria became the ruler of the British Empire (and so an Empress), the Navy still remained Royal; so I do not know.

You will have to explain "k. u. k. Navy" before I can comment on that (and why not capital letters?).

Didn't we get an official response from RFC that it would continue being Royal? Anyway, I think I asked the same question a few years ago and got this answer too.

tlb wrote:

aairfccha wrote:Now that the Kingdom of Manticore is part of the Empire of Manticore, will the RMN become the IMN or the IRMN? And will the Andermani at some point refer to it as the k. u. k. Navy?

When Queen Victoria became the ruler of the British Empire (and so an Empress), the Navy still remained Royal; so I do not know.

You will have to explain "k. u. k. Navy" before I can comment on that (and why not capital letters?).

I'm not sure why, historically, Austro-Hungary didn't capitalize k.u.k. -- but they were quite consistent about it; and not just in the name of their navy.

But the k.u.k. Navy was the abbreviation for the kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine (k.u.k. Kriegsmarine) [Imperial and Royal War Navy]. And they were "Imperial and Royal" because the ruler was simultaneously Kaiser (Emperor of Austria) and König (King of Hungary) of the combined Austria-Hungry.


Confusingly in WWI both Germany's Kaiserliche Marine [Imperial Navy] and Austia-Hungry's k.u.k. Kriegsmarine use the the ship prefix SMS (Seiner Majestät Schiff [His Majesty's Ship]) - so you need more than just the prefix to know which country a warship of that era belonged to.
(And if you were thinking, "hey wait, wasn't the Germany navy also the Kriegsmarine?" that was their WWII navy; so it didn't have than name in WWI)

tlb wrote:You will have to explain "k. u. k. Navy" before I can comment on that (and why not capital letters?).

Maybe some of the history buffs can explain this more, but was the Royal Navy the United Kingdom's navy, not the British Empire's? We do have the Royal Australian Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy these days, with HMAS and HMNZS ship prefixes; did those exist at the time of the empire?

Also, do those navies refer to their ships with the country name in the middle, or are they simply Her Majesty's Ship?

We call the IAN ships IANS in the Honor books (they're SMS in the Travis books), but I don't see why the Andermani would need to specify which empire they're talking about. This is similar to the RHNS prefix... why? During the People's Republic times, the name of the nation was omitted, it was simply the People's Navy and the People's Navy Ship (PNS). It seems to me that the appellation is simply a matter of where the central point of view is from: Manticore. If the stories were centred on the Kingdom of Meyers, they'd probably refer to the Royal Manticoran Navy ships as HMMS - Her/His Manticoran Majesty Ship.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:You will have to explain "k. u. k. Navy" before I can comment on that (and why not capital letters?).

Maybe some of the history buffs can explain this more, but was the Royal Navy the United Kingdom's navy, not the British Empire's? We do have the Royal Australian Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy these days, with HMAS and HMNZS ship prefixes; did those exist at the time of the empire?

.

Tricky question. We had colonies and what was termed an empire for a couple of centuries, but Queen Victoria did not become formal Empress until 1877 - and that was of Empress of India.

Then there is alos the subtelties of the first and second British empires

As far as I understand the Royal Navy was The navy for the empire. I suspect that the navies you mentioned came into being when those colonies became dominions [but not sure about that]

isaac_newton wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Maybe some of the history buffs can explain this more, but was the Royal Navy the United Kingdom's navy, not the British Empire's? We do have the Royal Australian Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy these days, with HMAS and HMNZS ship prefixes; did those exist at the time of the empire?

.

Tricky question. We had colonies and what was termed an empire for a couple of centuries, but Queen Victoria did not become formal Empress until 1877 - and that was of Empress of India.

Then there is alos the subtelties of the first and second British empires

As far as I understand the Royal Navy was The navy for the empire. I suspect that the navies you mentioned came into being when those colonies became dominions [but not sure about that]

Yep, the British Empire basically didn't exist in an official sense. It was just a colloquial term for all the colonies, charter companies and such that formed the empire. When Victoria wanted to be an Empress, Disraeli neatly sidestepped all the challenges of turning the United Kingdom into an official Empire by adding the Empire of India as a separate title.

The Royal Navy's standing establishment also predates the United Kingdom by some 150 years. The RCN and RAN were essentially created when the naval arms race leading up to WW1 pulled RN ships back to concentrate in home waters. Both got their first HMCS and HMAS around 1910.

New Zealand's naval forces operated as a division of the RN up until 1941, when they formally separated and all their ships became HMNZS.

The East India Company began what would eventually become the Indian Navy in the early 1600s, again preceding the UK itself. Throughout the 1800s what it was called changed many times and they didn't start using the HMIS prefix until 1934.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Didn't we get an official response from RFC that it would continue being Royal? Anyway, I think I asked the same question a few years ago and got this answer too.

Yes, David said it would remain "Royal"

Theemile wrote:
Yes, David said it would remain "Royal"

I concur.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm not sure why, historically, Austro-Hungary didn't capitalize k.u.k. -- but they were quite consistent about it; and not just in the name of their navy.

German capitalization rules don't require adjectives to be capitalized. English rules generally don't, either, but there are exceptions. Of which Royal and Imperial would be one.