The Navy is primarily engaged in maintaining a conventional military deterrent, participating in counter-piracy operations, fishery protection, search and rescue, and upholding maritime law enforcement for the benefit of South Africa and its international partners.

On 1 April 1922, the South African Naval Service (SANS) was formed and, alongside the RNVR (SA), tasked with the protection of territorial waters, minesweeping and hydrography.

[4] The British declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939 threw South Africa into a constitutional dilemma due to her status as an autonomous Dominion within the Commonwealth.

Hertzog and other anti-British factions of the coalition United Party called for strict neutrality, whilst the more anglophile Deputy Prime Minister Jan Smuts advocated that South Africa was constitutionality, and morally, obliged to support Britain and fight fascism.

[15] Overseeing a large industrial program of converting civilian whalers and fishing trawlers into military vessels, despite being highly primitive, over 80 such craft would go on to be the backbone of the South African naval forces.

[17] From 1941, South Africa assisted in escorting convoys along the North African coast, including the resupply and eventual evacuation of Tobruk, embarked on mine clearance operations, successfully engaged enemy submarines and undertook harbour salvage tasks.

[22] These were first rate, ocean going fast fleet anti-submarine escorts that propelled the South African Navy into the age of a modern warship operator on equal footing with the West.

[22] Following the Soweto uprising and subsequent mandatory arms embargo, South Africa had been forced to accept the cancellation of another significant naval procurement of two new Type-69A light frigates and two Agosta-class submarines from France.

For 23 years (1976–1989) the South African Navy maintained determined sea control around Southern Africa and provided valuable support to land operations.

[11] As the "Rainbow nation" was lauded following the ANC victory in the first free democratic elections in 1994, one of the starkest symbols of this new era was the explosion of foreign warships and dignitaries visiting South African ports, often from countries that did not have a previous connection, such as Russia, Poland and Japan.

The acute need to re-equip the navy, including the wider Armed Forces after the lifting of apartheid-era sanctions, was addressed by the Strategic Defence Package of 1999.

With a return to operating general-purpose, multi-mission warships, the Valour class have been hailed as modern, impressive and major regional anti-surface, anti-air, and anti-submarine platforms.

[45] As of 2020, two River-class coastal mine countermeasures vessels are still in service with the SA Navy, however, they are believed to have lost their mine-hunting capabilities due to the retirement of the antiquated PAP104 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

[41] Highly sophisticated vessels, the Heroine class' utility, aside from traditional anti-ship engagement and area denial, is its intelligence collection via special forces deployment.

Since the end of minority rule, Drakensberg has undertaken numerous humanitarian and anti-piracy operations, consistently shown the 'rainbow flag' on global voyages of goodwill, and reintegrated South Africa back into international naval exercises.

[56] In 2005, the decision was taken to create a Naval Rapid Deployment Force so that South Africa could commit more to peacekeeping operations across the continent, particularly in the Great Lakes region.

[64] For the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the navy provided air and sea security by deploying three frigates as guard ships off the cities of Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.

Elements of the Navy's Maritime Reaction Squadron (MRS) are routinely embarked on deployed warships so as to give the ability to board suspect vessels.

[55] Gaps in deployment have previously occurred as a result of mechanical issues, as well as the South African Air Force withdrawing C-47TP maritime patrol aircraft in 2016 from Mozambique due to maintenance problems and lack of sufficient aircrew.

Alongside regional partners such as Botswana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, the South African government has informed parliament that it intends to deploy 1,495 personnel to Mozambique.

[72] For the continued safeguarding of South Africa's borders, Operation Corona aims to combat illegal fishing, poaching, and smuggling within its territorial waters.

The exercises, which were highly controversial given Russia's invasion of Ukraine, followed on a January 2023 visit by the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to Pretoria for meetings with his South African counterpart.

[79] In April of the same year, the Chinese surveillance ship Yuan Wang 5 docked at Cape Town, overlapping with the presence of the Iranian Navy vessels, Makran and Dena.

"[82]At a speech a year later on 12 July 2019, Hlongwane, recognising the struggling economy, again reminded his audience that:"in the absence of a clear and present military threat, the government will find it difficult to justify spending large sums of money on defence.

The platforms acquired under the Strategic Defence Packages (four frigates and three submarines) are beginning to suffer from lack of funds for support and maintenance, [and] urgently require refits in order to keep them operational to the end of their 30-year design lives...while the new hydrographic survey vessel and IPVs are modern robust ships fully suited to perform their missions, they will not significantly improve the combat capability of the SAN which is required to defend our country and national interests in terms of our constitutional mandate...the naval balance of power is shifting on our continent.

Vice Admiral Hlongwane stated that "the Navy Engineering capability is now extremely limited, which will increasingly impact on the safety and seaworthiness of ships and submarines and their ability to deploy.

[96] Since 2013, the ambition for the SA Navy was the domestic construction of three offshore, and a minimum of six (later reduced to three) inshore patrol vessels as a replacement for the increasingly aged Warrior-class OPVs and River-class OPV/IPVs, as part of Project Biro.

[98] Whilst the introduction of these three modern IPVs will immediately play a crucial role in maritime law enforcement, it has been regretted by analysts that the offshore craft option was not also financially feasible.

It had been hoped that the OPVs, with their helicopter carrying abilities, would have played a much more effective role in policing South Africa's extensive exclusive economic zone (1.5 million km),[99] particularly in the rough seas of the Cape.

It was even reported in 2011 that nine OPVs could be constructed, without any IPVs, due to the rough sea state off the coast and the practical experience gained which favoured larger vessels.