Polish Navy

Polish Navy Marynarka Wojenna
Polish Navy's Eagle
Active	1918 - present
Country	Poland
Branch	Navy
Size	12,600 military (2016)
Part of	Polish Armed Forces
Headquarters	Gdynia
Engagements	Standing NRF Maritime Group 1 War in Iraq
Commanders
Commander	Admiral Tomasz Mathea
Chief of Staff	Vice Admiral Ryszard Demczuk
Insignia
Naval Flag
Naval Ensign
Naval Jack

The Polish Navy (Polish: Marynarka Wojenna, "War Navy") is the military branch of the Polish Armed Forces responsible for naval operations. The current navy consists of 113 ships (including 5 submarines, 2 frigates, 1 corvette, 3 missile boats - as of 2014) and about 18,000 commissioned and enlisted personnel. The traditional ship prefix in the Polish Navy is ORP (Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, "Vessel of the Republic of Poland").

The Polish Navy is one of the largest navies on the Baltic Sea and one of the best equipped. It is mostly responsible for Baltic Sea operations. Other duties include search and rescue operations covering parts of the Baltic, as well as hydrographic measurements and research.

The Polish Navy has its roots in naval vessels that were largely used on Poland's main rivers in defense of trade and commerce. During the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66), this small force of inland ships for the first time saw real open sea combat. At the battle of Vistula Lagoon, a Polish privateer fleet defeated the Teutonic Knights Navy and secured permanent access to the Baltic Sea. The Second Peace of Thorn (1466) acquired for Poland the strategic naval city of Danzig (Gdańsk), and with it the means of maintaining a large fleet on the Baltic. In 1561, following a victory over Russian Naval forces in the Baltic, the Polish Navy acquired a second key port at Riga, in modern-day Latvia.

At that time, as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became involved in conflicts in Livonia, Polish king Sigismund II Augustus organized a Sea Commission (Komisja Morska) operating in the years 1568-1572 and supported the operations of privateers, but that met with opposition of the Poland's primary port, Gdańsk (Danzig), which saw them as a threat to its trade operations (see Hanseatic League). This led to the development of a privateer port in Puck.