The Serbian River Flotilla () is a tactical brigade-level brown water naval branch subordinated to the Serbian Army of the Serbian Armed Forces. Patroling on the Danube, Sava, and Tisa rivers, it is tasked with environmental policing, counter-terrorism, and border security along country's international river borders.
History
The modern Serbian River Flotilla pulls it origins from Serbian Šajkaši river troops that guarded the Danube and Sava rivers, and especially, the Port of Belgrade, against Ottoman Empire river fleets from the 16th to the 19th century. Led by Hungarian or Austrian sponsors against the Ottomans, šajkaš troops were ethnic Serbs, who enjoyed special military status. Their name Šajkaš was derived from the small wooden boat known as chaika (Šajka, tschaiken), a type of galley operated by sail or oars manned by 30 and 50 men, commanded by an officer, a helmsman, an armourer, a drummer, two bowman, and up to 36 oarsmen. The modern day traditional Serbian šajkača hat is believed to be derived from the 18th-century Banat based Frontier Šajkaši Battalion uniform.
The Šajkaši played a decisive role in helping Serbia become an independent constitutional monarchy and lay the ground for the creation of modern Serbia. After the declaration of the war against Ottoman Empire in 1876, the Principality of Serbia River Flotilla deployed naval mines on the Danube, thought to be the first use of naval mines in Europe.
The Kingdom of Serbia received its first true warship, the patrol boat "Jadar", on August 19 (O.S. August 6), 1915 and that date is commemorated as the establishment of the modern Serbian River Flotilla. During the World War I flotilla protected lines of communication between Belgrade and Obrenovac, assisted in the transport of Serbian troops in Syrmia, mined waterways and performed reconnaissance.
As an allied victor in 1918, Serbia began the reconstruction and reconstitution of its armed forces, in a new state of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Within the Naval Department, the Danube Flotilla was headquartered in Novi Sad and commanded over the naval detachments on rivers and lakes. The fleet included the monitors' group, a number of auxiliary vessels, a proper naval base and a detachment of ships on Lake Ohrid in Macedonia.
During Yugoslav states it was organized in detachments of armored river boats, river assault ships, river auxiliary ships and minesweepers within the Yugoslav Navy.
The Yugoslav River Flotilla took an active part in War in Croatia in 1991, conducting patrol and combat missions on Danube, particularly during the Battle of Vukovar.
Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army became the Armed Forces of Serbia and Montenegro in 1992 and during that transition the River Flotilla remained part of Navy. During the 1990s, one new Neštin class river minesweeper was introduced in 1999, and two 601 class landing craft were transferred from sea service at Montenegro to the River Flotilla after being overhauled at "Brodotehnika Shipyard" in Belgrade. The Flotilla in its current form was formed on October 2 2008 when pontoon units were added to the Flotilla's structure. In 2017, the flagship command ship "Kozara" sailed from Novi Sad to Hungary in the first international voyage of a Serbian military ship since 1915.
Missions
Tactical doctrine and operating procedures of the Serbian River Flotilla remain the same as those of the former Danube Flotilla of the Royal Yugoslav Navy.
The primary missions include:
building and maintaining operational capabilities for carrying out tasks of all three missions of the Serbian Armed Forces, operationalization and training of command and subordinate units for carrying out dedicated tasks, control of inland waterways and provision of maneuvers to the units of the Serbian Army on and to rivers, channels and lakes search and rescue on rivers, canals and lakes.
Largest and most complex to date search and rescue operation was during the 2014 floods in Serbia, when members of the 1st Pontoon Battalion helped fight flood in Šabac and Loznica while amphibious vehicles and divers from 93rd Diving Company evacuated 2,072 people from Obrenovac. Members of the River Flotilla were deployed throughout the country (Koceljeva, Šabac, Lazarevac, Lajkovac, Lučani and Loznica) to combat flooding: mainly in the evacuation of citizens and the reinforcement of bulwarks.