River Flotilla of the Serbian Armed Forces

River Flotilla
River Flotilla Unit Emblem and Flag
Active	March 30, 1833 – current
Country	Serbia
Branch	Serbian Army
Type	Brown-water navy
Role	Control of inland waterways
Size	1,000 sailors and 400 support personnel 16 ships and boats
Part of	Serbian Armed Forces
Headquarters	Novi Sad
Anniversaries	August 6
Engagements	First Balkan War Second Balkan War World War I World War II Croatian War of Independence
Commanders
River Flotilla Commander	Commodore Andrija Andrić
Insignia
Naval Ensign

The Serbian River Flotilla (Serbian: Речна Флотила / Rečna Flotila) is the specific unit of the Serbian Land Forces with the task of keeping an optimum operational regime of sailing and of protection of Serbian interests in interior sailing corridors. The area consists of rivers and canals with a total length of 1,626 km. The unit is composed of the Command ship Kozara, river minesweepers and assault loading boats. The command of River Flotilla is based in Novi Sad, as is most of its units, except for those based in Belgrade and Šabac.

The Šajkaši flotilla of the last Serbian Despot, Pavle Bakić, fought against the Ottomans.

On March 30, 1833, the Serbia set sail. It was built at Dubravica shipyard by Greek Nikola Kefala by order of Knjaz Miloš (TT information: length 24m, breadth 7m, draughts 3,5m, carrying capacity 250t). In April 1840, the Knjaz Mihailo was constructed in Brza Palanka (TT information: length 65m, breadth 7,5m, draughts 4,5m, armament of ship was 12 cannons).

Serbia received its first true warship, the patrol boat Jadar, on August 6, 1915. It was built in Čukarica. The ship was armed and used for mine laying on the Sava river. On the Danube, during World War I, the armed tug Stig protected Russian convoys coming to the port of Prahovo against Austro-Hungarian aircraft until October 1915, when Stig had to be scuttled after the Bulgarian invasion.

The Royal Yugoslav Navy in its organization had a River flotilla composed of a command ship Cer based in Novi Sad, one monitor group in Dubovac, four mining-barrage groups in Bezdan, Stara Kanjiza and Senta, Sremski Karlovci and Smederevo and Đerdap sector command in Tekija and Donji Milanovac. The main vessels were four large, heavily armed and armoured river monitors. They were used to patrol the Danube, Drava and Sava rivers in the northern parts of Yugoslavia and its border with Hungary. These monitors, the Drava, Sava, Morava and Vardar had been inherited from the Austro-Hungarian Navy at the end of First World War. All were of around 400-500t with a main armament of two 120mm guns, two or three 66mm guns, 120mm mortars, 40mm AA guns and machine guns. The River fleet also had two river patrol boats built in 1929, Graničar and Stražar, and three river tugs.