Ecuador Navy
The origin of the Ecuadorian navy could be traced to the
independence era when British officers in the service of Bolívar
assembled a small squadron at Guayaquil. An 1832 congressional
decree formally established the navy.
Organization and Equipment
One of the Ecuadorian navy's German-made fast attack craft
Courtesy United States Department of Defense
As of 1988, the navy had a personnel complement of
approximately 5,000, including 1,000 marines. Its varied missions
included preparing and maintaining the fleet during peacetime for
naval operations in wartime; controlling ocean and river
communications; protecting territorial waters, the coastline, and
rivers; participating in operations in conjunction with other
branches of the armed forces; regulating the merchant marine;
promoting the development of the naval construction industry;
overseeing the installation and maintenance of aids to navigation;
and preparing hydrographic charts.
The country was divided into three naval zones. The first,
headquartered at Guayaquil, had jurisdiction over the southern
provinces and the territorial waters adjacent to the coastal
provinces of Manabí, Guayas, and El Oro. The second had authority
over the Galápagos archipelago and surrounding territorial seas and
operated from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal Island. The
third, with headquarters at Quito, had jurisdiction over the
northern provinces and the territorial seas adjacent to the coastal
province of Esmeraldas. The navy also had bases at Guayaquil, San
Lorenzo, Salinas, and Jaramijó.
Operationally, the navy was organized into a destroyer
division, a squadron of fast-missile craft, a squadron of
corvettes, a submarine squadron, and auxiliary vessels and
transports. A naval aviation unit, equipped mainly with light
reconnaissance and liaison aircraft, supported the fleet by
patrolling territorial seas and coastlines, combating smuggling,
and performing logistical tasks. A small coast guard, formed in
1980, controlled maritime traffic, interdicted drug and contraband
traffic, and enforced Ecuadorian maritime law. Equipped with twenty
coastal patrol craft, most of which were twelve to fifteen meters
in length, the coast guard had a personnel strength of 200 as of
1988.
The marines conducted amphibious operations, maintained
security of naval bases and detachments, and protected the
Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline terminal and shipping point at Esmeraldas
(see
fig. 11). Directly subordinate to the naval operations staff,
the marines had their headquarters at Guayaquil and were organized
into three battalions, consisting of a commando group, a security
force, and a support group, based at Guayaquil, in the Galápagos,
and in the Oriente. In addition to small arms, the marines were
armed with 81mm mortars and 106mm recoilless rifles.
At the time of the navy's formal establishment, naval equipment
consisted of one frigate and seven gunboats. During the turbulent
years that followed, however, the fortunes of the navy often
suffered, and equipment was reduced to a single vessel in 1880.
Four years later, the armed forces took the first step in the
creation of a modern navy with the launching of the
Cotopaxi, a 300-ton gunboat. Well into the twentieth
century, the navy's only seagoing units remained the
Cotopaxi and the 750-ton torpedo gunboat, Liberator
Bolívar.
Ecuador acquired a number of armed yachts and miscellaneous
craft from the United States in return for having granted the
latter base rights in the Galápagos Islands and at Salinas during
World War II. In 1955 Ecuador purchased two older Hunt-class
destroyers from Britain; these became the most formidable vessels
in the Ecuadorian fleet. A significant expansion took place during
the 1970s with the purchase of missile attack craft and two small
submarines from the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). In
the early 1980s, Ecuador acquired corvettes equipped with Exocet
missiles from Italy. The Hunt-class destroyers were retired and
were replaced in 1980 by a United States-manufactured Gearing-class
destroyer, renamed the Presidente Eloy Alfaro. This
destroyer remained the principal surface vessel as of 1989 (see
table 21, Appendix).
Data as of 1989
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