- Navy
- Marine Corps
Operational Units
The Navy’s motto is ‘safety at sea and from the sea’. Military operations at a relatively large distance from the home port and carried out by the Royal Netherlands Navy are referred to as ‘maritime expeditionary operations’.
Such operations can be divided into two main groups: sea-oriented tasks (‘at sea’) and land-oriented tasks (‘from the sea’).
The land-oriented component is provided by the operational units of the Marine Corps. These units consist of:
- two marine battalions (each with approx. 530 marines);
- one combat support battalion (including combat field support and special units);
- one logistics battalion;
- one amphibious support battalion.
The operational units of the Marine Corps are currently being reorganised in the context of the overall Navy Review. As a result, each one of the marine battalions is being strengthened to approximately 650 marines. The logistics battalion is being reorganised in order to further improve its logistics support to the marine battalions, while the combat support battalion and the amphibious support battalion are being combined into one amphibious combat support battalion, thus increasing the overall available capacity.
This extensive reorganisation is expected to be completed by mid-2010. By that time, the operational units of the Marine Corps will be stationed on Texel, in Doorn and in Den Helder. With the addition of the last location, Den Helder, the integration between fleet and marines is strengthened even further, thus reinforcing the implementation of the ‘Navy-Marine Corps Team’ concept like never before. In addition, operational units are stationed in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
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