With no disrepect to the brave sailors in the Royal Canadian Navy, this is a case of where numbers doesn’t equal the classical metrics of power, as they were mostly concerning about escorting convoys and hunting Uboats, and only had a couple of light cruisers, with the majority of their warships destroyers, as corvettes and frigates. I’m not sure if they ever participated in combat with enemy surface warships in the Atlantic and I don’t recall any in the Pacific.
Arguably is the wrong term. Not only were they “acting on a global scale” during WWII, they were the strongest navy (note) at the beginning of the war, although they were surpassed by the insane number of ships that the US was able to produce.
Note: because of Japan’s concentration of carriers in the Pacific, they had local superiority because Britain had to keep most of their fleet to protect their homeland.
ISTR that sailors in early antiquity, they generally didn’t sail out of sight of land, and tended to anchor at night, which is pretty much the diametric opposite of a blue water navy.
But this is where you get into the issue of definitions. What is a “blue water” navy? Some definitions use the types of ships, as you mention, because it is equated to capital ships. Others use the concept of being able to send your ships lengthy distances away from home territory, on the theory that is a measure of the overall logistical strength.
See the wikipedia opening definition:
A blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally, essentially across the deep waters of open oceans.[1] While definitions of what actually constitutes such a force vary, there is a requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at long range.
However, as the article progresses, it illustrates the basic ambiguities in the term.
I would say that by the opening definition, the RCN in WWII qualified. If the term is defined more by capital ships, not so much.
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A bit farther down you can see a table of various capabilities as defined by some modern defense analysts. Accepting for a moment their list as definitive, we see the critical difference between all the gradations of blue-water versus all the gradations of green- or brown-water. Namely, blue-water capabilities are about offense, green- & brown- are all about defense.
That definition is irrespective of technology and could meaningfully be applied to the Age of Sail or the Greeks and Persians at the Battle of Salamis. That battle occurred in-shore, but one contender was clearly engaging on offense in the other’s home waters. IOW, brown-water defense against blue-water offense. Brown won that time.
The alternative definition discussed by most folks above, is really about logistical range. Which is a useful metric at a time like today when global range of both logistics and naval weapons is well in hand technologically and therefore is available to any power willing to spend the money.
But since the OP’s question is about history, pretty quickly it becomes moot. Did the Royal Navy in the age of sail collectively represent a blue water navy? No, although maybe barely a weak “yes” if you squint hard enough. They could and did go anywhere, but not efficiently and not without frequent local support. Their ability to mass power in space and time was very very limited. It was simply more than their competitors could usually muster.
For those not familiar with Mahan, he was a great naval theorist whose ideas dominated naval doctrine up to (and with the case of the Japanese through the end of) WWII.
The debate among scholars is the question of how much to weight simply operating in open seas or how much weight to factor in the ability to project “credible power” in the distant seas, as this The Diplomat article defines it.
The point here is the “credible power.” Traditionally, naval power was measured against other surface combat ships, which is why capital ships were necessary.
Prior to the outbreak of the war, Germany was attempting to reach parity with Gb and had built battleships. However, by the time Canada’s navy had gotten larger, Germany had lost many of their warships and was only using their subs.
RCN was build up for one specific type of warfare, and they did well with it. They had a large number of destroyers and smaller ships which they were able to operate at a prolonged period with sustained operation. However, they would not have had credible power against another traditional navy. Of course, there no enemies with traditional navies at that point. Had there been, perhaps they would have had different ships.
Prior to WW2, Britain was recognized as the strongest navy in the world, and traditionally sought to be as strong as the combined strength of the second and third navies. At that time, there was a greater parity among other navies, so having the third strongest navy actually meant something
However, by the end of WWII, the United States was stronger than the rest of the world put together, including all of its allies. The RN was next with a bunch of battleships and aircraft carriers, then there was the RCN and its collection of tin cans. Yes, it technically was the largest of what was around, but that was because the USN and RN eliminated the competition.
In the 2012 election debates, Romney tried to repeat a Republican talking point that they USN had fewer ships than before 1914. Obama’s response quickly became a meme
At the time of the debate, there were 20 aircraft carriers in the world (ignoring helicopter carriers) and the US had the best 10 of those. Most of the rest were by NATO allies and a couple weren’t really operational.
With smaller German warships, sure. HMCS Haida sank two light destroyers in a single battle.
Canada had very little presence in the Pacific.
I do get the sense the OP was referring to “Historical” navies as meaning way before WWII - like, sailing ships. In we’re talking about genuinely modern warships, there are lots and lots of blue water navies. WWII alone has a pile of them.
