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Navy re-establishes Atlantic fleet to check Russia

Rogue Valley

Rogue Valley

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Navy re-establishes Atlantic fleet to check Russia

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Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin (DDG-79) transits the Arctic Circle.

8/24/18
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 counter-terrorism to “great power competition." 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.
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Good news. We need to check the aggressiveness of the Russian sub fleet in the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea.

Related: CNO: New 2nd Fleet Boundary Will Extend North to the Edge of Russian Waters
 
Rogue Valley said:
Navy re-establishes Atlantic fleet to check Russia

37044689985_9ad7034e82_k.jpg

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin (DDG-79) transits the Arctic Circle.



Good news. We need to check the aggressiveness of the Russian sub fleet in the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea.

Related: CNO: New 2nd Fleet Boundary Will Extend North to the Edge of Russian Waters
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Not that this gets us more/better ships or better trained sailors or better officers of course....which is the real problem.
 
 
Moot said:
Looks more like a new arms race to me.


https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/02/trump-plan-nuclear-weapons-386087

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/07/6091...nuclear-weapons-to-deter-russia-from-similar-

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-growing-dangers-of-the-new-nuclear-arms-race
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Why would anyone think small nukes would deter others from small nukes, we went through this in the 50's and 60's, and both sides realized mad would kick in no matter how tiny the nuke was, and ditched them for bigger nukes. Even what is today tactical nukes are not really that small, just small compared to full powered ones.

Also keep in mind russia is planning to phase out small nukes and replace them with the foab, which is 4 times bigger than the americas moab but with a different purpose. The moab uses conventional explosives and one of it's main purposes was collapsing tunnels through the tremors it produced. The foab is an air fuel bomb or hyperbaric, which neither russia or america is a stranger to, it produces 4 times the bang the moab does, but rather than shear explosive power, it burns fuel to make a fireball to suck the air in so fast it rips apart everything nearby.

This is not new tech, russia had perfected them in the 70's and only just made it bigger, and america used the daisy cutter in vietnam which was thermobaric. Either way russia is trying to phase out small nukes because the foab does not fall under nuclear treaties and for the most part bypasses mad(though if you dropped a few of them over paris france might launch nukes anyways)
 
beerftw said:
This is not new tech, russia had perfected them in the 70's and only just made it bigger, and america used the daisy cutter in vietnam which was thermobaric. Either way russia is trying to phase out small nukes because the foab does not fall under nuclear treaties and for the most part bypasses mad(though if you dropped a few of them over paris france might launch nukes anyways)
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Myself, phasing nukes out is a good thing.

I always hated the damned things, and never hid that.

However, it must be remembered that their use on a battlefield as of this time has only been on remote or unoccupied targets. Hitting a cave complex with a MOAB is a far different thing than dropping one in the center of say downtown Saint Petersberg.

I have little doubt that if such was done, it would be declared by most of the world as a WMD. Remember, the classification of WMD does not rely upon a weapon being nuclear. Such weapons can be entirely conventional, or even the delivery system of the weapon itself no matter what the payload weapon its.

So if Russia was to drop some of those on Paris, expect France to react as if it was a nuclear strike. Because most nations have adopted the exact same stance. Attack them with a WMD, they respond in kind.

That is why for decades now, the US response to any kind of WMD attack (even biological or chemical) would be the launching of a nuke. It is the only WMD we have in our inventory to respond with.

Which is why our nation worked for decades to deny that any "Chemical Weapons" were used in Gulf War I. Even though there is a huge amount of evidence that chemical weapons were indeed used by Iraq, the official stance to this day is that they were not used. Because if they were to admit that they were used, then it demands the answer as to why we did not nuke Iraq in 1991 in response.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Myself, phasing nukes out is a good thing.

I always hated the damned things, and never hid that.

However, it must be remembered that their use on a battlefield as of this time has only been on remote or unoccupied targets. Hitting a cave complex with a MOAB is a far different thing than dropping one in the center of say downtown Saint Petersberg.

I have little doubt that if such was done, it would be declared by most of the world as a WMD. Remember, the classification of WMD does not rely upon a weapon being nuclear. Such weapons can be entirely conventional, or even the delivery system of the weapon itself no matter what the payload weapon its.

So if Russia was to drop some of those on Paris, expect France to react as if it was a nuclear strike. Because most nations have adopted the exact same stance. Attack them with a WMD, they respond in kind.

That is why for decades now, the US response to any kind of WMD attack (even biological or chemical) would be the launching of a nuke. It is the only WMD we have in our inventory to respond with.

Which is why our nation worked for decades to deny that any "Chemical Weapons" were used in Gulf War I. Even though there is a huge amount of evidence that chemical weapons were indeed used by Iraq, the official stance to this day is that they were not used. Because if they were to admit that they were used, then it demands the answer as to why we did not nuke Iraq in 1991 in response.
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Yeah I already figured no country would stand by radiation or not to such destruction. I think they figure it for the use on non nuclear nations where a tactical nuke would have been made. However This is just reckless, I think even russia knows using it would end bad, and that the mere deterrance it brings would be well enough.


Now on trump the tactical nukes does not make sense, we already had them down to the size of our current moab with the davey crockett mini nuke, russia got fairly close to being as small, and both sides ditched them, it is like repeating history and ignoring the fact it was already tried and failed, and the powers that be felt big nukes and mad doctrine were the best route.
 
beerftw said:
Now on trump the tactical nukes does not make sense, we already had them down to the size of our current moab with the davey crockett mini nuke, russia got fairly close to being as small, and both sides ditched them, it is like repeating history and ignoring the fact it was already tried and failed, and the powers that be felt big nukes and mad doctrine were the best route.
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Well, do not worry about the President trying to bring back battlefield nukes. That has not even been discussed in any way.

Yes, the President has talked about updating and upgrading our current stockpile, but not in the actual return to "tactical nukes". That is a concept which largely dies with Reagan with the nuclear treaties of the 1980's.

Because even if for some weird reason President Trump decided to bring back the Tactical Nuke, we have not had a delivery system in decades to handle one. The Pershing II was the last delivery system for such we have had, and they were phased out over 25 years ago. And in over 10 years we have not even been able to put into place a replacement for the 1970's era PATRIOT system. Let alone upgrade and reintroduce a 1950's era weapon.
 
I read the other day thet China now has the biggest navy, therefore the Pacific can now be regarded as a "contested" space.
 
The Navy doesn't need to get anywhere near Russian waters to track their submarines.

The old version of SOSUS will now be modernized into DRAPES (Deep Reliable Acoustic Path Exploitation System) which will eliminate the need for fixed sites, and minimize the need for towed sonar arrays in the waters of the North Atlantic.

The old SOSUS system had a fixed array directly connected to a IUSS site/facility like the one I was stationed at in Argentia NFLD. There were 31 of these sites scattered around in the Atlantic and Pacific. We began decommissioning these sites around 1990 (ish) as the cold war was winding down.

The new DRAPES system will not require the use of these land based sites the way SOSUS did. The old SOSUS sites would have been taken out about 15 minutes after a shooting war begins.


When you combine the abilities of DRAPES and SURTASS, a foreign sub fleet would be hard pressed trying to avoid detection.
 
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Litwin said:
do you think Nigeria in snow can handle it ? with its 1% of the world GDP?
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I am pretty sure they can handle it, being the number 2 military in the world, and has been playing an arms race since ww2 creating weapons that directly rival western weapons.

The real question should be if you can accept reality, your nigeria in snow has long been debunked and your somalia in snow is so absurb I wonder if you even live on planet earth at this point.
 
Manc Skipper said:
I read the other day thet China now has the biggest navy, therefore the Pacific can now be regarded as a "contested" space.
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Yes, and no.

Their Navy has always been large in patrol boats. Ships that would not only be small when compared to a US Navy Frigate, but would barely be a challenge to most ships in the US Coast Guard. Those boats are only for coastal defense, and do not operate outside of that zone.

When you transition from "Green Water" to "Blue Water", then the Chinese Navy is not even a real challenge to the US Navy. In that area, they would be destroyed with hardly a sweat raised. They lack the doctrine, ships, and capabilities of meeting the US in any kind of naval engagement ship on ship.

It takes more then numbers to consider such things.
 
beerftw said:
I am pretty sure they can handle it, being the number 2 military in the world, and has been playing an arms race since ww2 creating weapons that directly rival western weapons.

The real question should be if you can accept reality, your nigeria in snow has long been debunked and your somalia in snow is so absurb I wonder if you even live on planet earth at this point.
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redarmy today (whats left)just in 1 video , poor mongols juchi, number 2 army in the world ?)) LOL

 
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