https://www.politico.com/story...-fleet-russia-751660

Navy re-establishes Atlantic fleet to check Russia

The U.S Navy on Friday formally reactivated the Cold War-era naval command it relied on for decades to confront adversaries in the waters off North America — the latest in a series of efforts to check Moscow's military expansion.

The move comes as Russian submarine activity surges in the Atlantic.

The 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, which was deactivated in 2011, will once again be assigned ships, aircraft and Marine landing forces for potential operations along the East Coast and in the North Atlantic, where melting Arctic ice has also heightened the competition for natural resources.

“We as a Navy, as a nation, have not had to confront such peer competitors since the Cold War ended nearly three decades ago," one of the Navy’s top officers, Fleet Forces Command chief Adm. Chris Grady, said during a ceremony in Norfolk aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush.

“Our sea control and our power projection, two vital elements of our national security, are being challenged by resurgent foreign powers, namely Russia and China,” he added.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, who issued the order earlier this year to re-establish the 2nd Fleet, stressed that the Navy is not “looking for a fight.” But he said realities demand that it maintain “a large-scale ocean maneuver warfare” unit in the Atlantic region.

Earlier this year, Richardson told reporters that Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic is “more than we’ve seen in 25 years.”

The 2nd Fleet, according to the Navy, “will exercise operational and administrative authorities over assigned ships, aircraft and landing forces on the East Coast and the North Atlantic." It will also supply ships to other commands worldwide.

The Navy first indicated it was re-establishing the fleet last spring, asserting it was needed “to better respond to the changing security environment.”

That was an apparent reference to an aggressive Russian military buildup that led Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to issue a new National Defense Strategy in January. The strategy shifted the Pentagon from focusing primarily on counterterrorism to “great power competition."

“This move is driven by Secretary Mattis,” said retired Adm. Melvin Williams, who led the 2nd Fleet from 2008 to 2010. “He came out with a defense strategy that shifted focus to major competitors, so 2nd Fleet, as they come back, will be more involved in the basics of dealing with a major competitor, be it Russia or China.

"Whereas after 9/11 a lot of our emphasis was on dealing with terrorism and piracy and supporting operations in the Middle East," he added. "That’s the back to the future aspect of it."

Indeed, while it will be much smaller in scale than its Cold War predecessor, the new 2nd Fleet will very much reflect its historic role.

From its founding in 1950 through the end of the Cold War, 2nd Fleet was responsible for keeping tabs on Russian submarines and securing passage of allied forces across the Atlantic in the event of war.

Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, the fleet remained a substantial force. Williams recalled in an interview that he commanded “on the order of 130 ships and submarines,” including aircraft carriers and amphibious landing vessels, and 90,000 sailors, Marines and Navy civilians.

But at least initially, the new fleet will be a shell of what it was.

Vice Adm. Andrew “Woody” Lewis, who took command of the new headquarters Friday in Norfolk, said he and his staff will “aggressively and quickly rebuild this command into an operational warfighting organization.”

But Lewis doesn’t actually control any ships yet, nor many personnel. Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Ashley Hockycko called his outfit a “lean” headquarters that has yet to reach its planned manning level of 250."

The fleet “will not immediately have oversight over assets until they reach initial and full operational capability at a future date to be determined, as they are being established using a phased approach,” she said.

Over time, ships from other units will be folded into the 2nd Fleet. Hockycko added that the fleet’s first “high-end” training is scheduled for early next year.

The move is one of several the U.S. and its allies have made in recent months to beef up naval and air forces in the Atlantic.

Last month, the United Kingdom's Royal Navy announced plans to establish its own new headquarters with a similar role as 2nd Fleet, citing Russia’s military “resurgence.” NATO formalized plans in June to establish a new Atlantic Command, which would bring together the naval assets of the alliance in the same area 2nd Fleet is charged with patrolling, and the Pentagon has offered Norfolk as a likely headquarters site.

It’s unclear what the relationship will be between the new U.S. fleet and the new NATO naval headquarters. But during the Cold War, 2nd Fleet played a key role in NATO’s Atlantic Command structure, with the 2nd Fleet commander also serving as the head of the alliance’s Striking Fleet Atlantic.

NATO’s original Atlantic Command was disbanded in 2003 and 2nd Fleet gave up its NATO strike role in 2005.

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The 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, which was deactivated in 2011, will once again be assigned ships, aircraft and Marine landing forces for potential operations along the East Coast and in the North Atlantic, where melting Arctic ice has also heightened the competition for natural resources.

Ummm, mkay?

The Navy has focused too much on high-end ships and has neglected the importance of less expensive, smaller vessels that can perform important combat missions on their own for sustained periods on the open seas in contested environments. The fact that our naval geniuses somehow lost sight of the fact that the Submarine is still the most dangerous ship on the sea, they will now require a primary ASW platform (Frigate) to support this strawman fleet and fast. Stop building the LCS (little Crappy Ship) and get on with the clean sheet design for a modern Frigate.

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Originally posted by stoic-one:

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The 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, which was deactivated in 2011, will once again be assigned ships, aircraft and Marine landing forces for potential operations along the East Coast and in the North Atlantic, where melting Arctic ice has also heightened the competition for natural resources.

Ummm, mkay?

Huge oil reserves in the Arctic Ocean. We're way behind the Russians as they're establishing Naval bases and have orders of magnitude more ice breakers.

Not to mention other mineral reserves besides oil.

So does the 2d Fleet cover the Gulf of Mexico as well, or is that another bunch?

As I understand it, Russia is also selling quite a few of their S-400 SAM/AreaDenial platforms to other allies of theirs all around Europe and Asia, as well as placing their own, and my limited reading on the topic indicated that those S-400 systems are quite good, and just a few of them can effectively enforce no-fly zones along entire coastlines or borders, that require significant attrition (whether planes or missiles) to overcome.

The S-400 is a real game changer. The reason is the multiple intercept missiles the S-400 system can fire. The S-400 supports four different missiles – the very long range 40N6E-series (400 km), the long range 48N6 (250 km), the 9M96e2 (120 km) and the short range 9m96e (40 km). By comparison the US Patriot system supports only one interceptor missile with a range of 96 km.
The 9M96E2 is the real jewel of the of the S-400 system. It flies at Mach 15 (around 5,000 meters per second or 18,500 kph), it can engage targets as low as 5 meters off the ground, and it can maneuver pulling up to 20 Gs (a human can withstand no more than 9 Gs with special pressure suits and helmets and for only a few seconds). It is designed to knock out penetrating aircraft and missiles flying “off the deck” or just above ground and neutralize cruise missiles. The S-400 makes AWACS vulnerable to and we lose their stand-off range protection. We may be reaching the end of the AWACS capability.

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Originally posted by 46and2:
As I understand it, Russia is also selling quite a few of their S-400 SAM/AreaDenial platforms to other allies of theirs all around Europe and Asia, as well as placing their own, and my limited reading on the topic indicated that those S-400 systems are quite good, and just a few of them can effectively enforce no-fly zones along entire coastlines or borders, that require significant attrition (whether planes or missiles) to overcome.

While I certainly support any type of military expansion as we have been cutting it for too long, the Russians do not have a offensive navy. They never have with MAYBE their boomers being the exception.

The Russians are not the threat that China is.

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the Russians do not have a offensive navy.

Certainly correct in many respects. They only have one aircraft carrier (not currently in service) that requires a tug to sail in every deployment because it breaks down so often.

They can't project naval power like the U.S. but the subs you mentioned shouldn't be discounted and could do a lot of fleet damage in a shooting war.

More trouble for Russia's sole carrier

Russia's one and only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is in the middle of a long-forestalled refit in Murmansk. But its repairs may take a bit longer now that the floating dry dock that was carrying it at Murmansk's Shipyard 82 suddenly sank—causing a giant crane to crash onto the Kuznetsov and gash a 16-foot hole in its hull. One shipyard worker is missing, and four others were hospitalized—two of them in critical condition.

The floating dry dock, the PD-50—one of the largest in the world—apparently sank as the result of a power outage following a power surge at the shipyard, possibly related to damage to power lines caused by ice.

According to the press officer of the Zvezdochka Ship Repair Center, Evgeny Gladyshev, the accident occurred while the Kuznetsov was being floated out of the dock. "When the 82nd Shipyard was launching the Admiral Kuznetsov, an emergency situation occurred," Gladyshev explained to Interfax. "Due to interruptions in the supply of electric power to the PD-50, the floating dock dived out in an off-design mode."

Without power to control the pumps or control the filling of the ballast tanks, the dry dock completely submerged. In the process, a 70-metric-ton (77-US-ton) crane crashed into the ship as it floated out of the sinking dock. Another crane fell as well.

This made me smile! I was assigned to C2F 85-87, and then to MTW 95-97. Now we need VADM Henry "Hank" Mustin back. That was when we ruled the Atlantic.

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Originally posted by djinco:

...Now we need VADM Henry "Hank" Mustin back. That was when we ruled the Atlantic.

Slight thread drift:

Is that Henry C. Mustin, Navy Air Pilot No.3, and Naval Aviator No. 11, who got a now-closed field named after him?

http://www.airfields-freeman.c...elds_PA_Philly_S.htm

Great, need a couple more Admirals, a BUNCH of Captains and Commanders for Coffee, and a whole slew of LCDRS and LTs for Power Point Briefs!

2nd Fleet Reestablishment complete!

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Originally posted by Sigmund:

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Originally posted by djinco:

...Now we need VADM Henry "Hank" Mustin back. That was when we ruled the Atlantic.

Slight thread drift:

Is that Henry C. Mustin, Navy Air Pilot No.3, and Naval Aviator No. 11, who got a now-closed field named after him?

http://www.airfields-freeman.c...elds_PA_Philly_S.htm

No, that guy's grandson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...n_(1933%E2%80%932016)

That carrier never really fit the overall Soviet err, Russian naval strategy. If anything, there's a bunch of Russian officers that privately hoped that, that thing would be damaged beyond repair as it's been a floating money pit.

I too was part of Second Fleet, back in the day.

Of course, those were also the days of a 600 ship navy - so you could actually have a worthwhile fleet to command.

Splitting it out with our current # means same size staff to manage less assets. Guess it is a good place to park senior officers and punch their fleet ops tickets.

VADM Lewis is a good one. Another USNA 1985 class mate getting it done.