The boundaries of the Navy’s reestablished U.S. 2nd Fleet extends well past the old submarine stomping grounds of the Cold War and into waters north of Scandinavia and the Arctic Circle, near the submarine headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet, Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson said on Friday.
“A new 2nd Fleet increases our strategic flexibility to respond — from the Eastern Seaboard to the Barents Sea,” Richardson said. “Second Fleet will approach the North Atlantic as one continuous operational space, and conduct expeditionary fleet operations where and when needed.”
This gives the fleet the responsibility to stop Russian sorties from their northern bases into the Atlantic and make them run a gauntlet all the way to the sea lines of communication from North America to Europe.
I wonder if the border now runs to Europe's ports as far east as German ports on the North Sea, too?
And it puts striking those Russian bases in their task list.
This is different and more expansive than the boundary I initially saw.
UPDATE: The 2nd Fleet and 6th Fleet commanders are working out cooperation. My uncertainty over the boundary of 2nd Fleet is because the boundaries aren't yet set:
For the 6th and 2nd Fleet, a key question will be how the lines will be redrawn on 6th Fleet’s area of operations, which now extends across half the Atlantic, and from Iceland to the Antarctic.
If it was up to me, the border between the fleets would be at the northwest tip of Spain and angle southwest until it hits 4th Fleet. I really think that a single fleet commanding the fight from the Continental United States to the shores of our Baltic allies and friends would be the way to go.
