5.2 The Royal Navy


There are currently just under 80 commissioned ships in the Royal Navy which has about 33000 regular and 3000 Reserve personnel. 
Of these there are about 8500 Royal Marines. There are about 70 Royal Navy Chaplains serving these people. 

There is regularly much debate in the Navy about its size and comments about it not being as large as it used to be. 
This is not the place for a discussion of Government policy one way or the other (the wardrooms across the land will doubtless provide much of this). 
What is important to note is that it is often the Sea Cadet Corps that provides much of the ‘public visibility’ of the Royal Navy. 
 Equally from a chaplaincy perspective we have many more chaplains than the Royal Navy.
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