US Navy Fleet Operational Chronology 1775–1996
Beginning 19th Century Operations (1798–1815)
Forward Ship & Squadron Combat in the Caribbean & Mediterranean, and on the Lakes & in the North Atlantic
Operational Overview
Summary
By 1798, world conditions had necessitated the re-creation of a navy. The reborn U.S. Navy engaged in combat operations in three wars: Against the Barbary States (1801–5 and 1814); France (1798–1801); and Britain (1812–1814). Single U.S. Navy ships and private privateers, as well as some U.S. Navy squadrons, fought in forward combat operations in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, and even in the Pacific. Operations in the Gulf and the Pacific were at the time “far forward” operations: The United States had a very small Gulf coastline—and that only since 1803—and no Pacific coast yet at all.
Fleet Deployment Pattern
Where was the fleet deployed around the world? There are two main dimensions of this: Forward vs. home; concentrated vs. divided.
The Operational Missions
What did the fleets do? Specifically, what was the ebb and flow of M001W vs. War or preparation for war?
The early Navy was often at war and often at war forward with the French in the Caribbean (the United States had no Gulf Coast at the time; Florida and the Gulf Coast were Spanish), with the Barbary states in the Mediterranean, and with the British on the Great Lakes and in both the Atlantic and Pacific (although the U.S. would not become a Pacific nation until 1848). The Navy fought usually single ship actions, having had mixed success with squadron operations. Again, there were no American “fleets.” In a harbinger of things to come, the Navy made its first intervention in somebody else’s civil war – in Haiti – and picked up its first M001W mission – fighting pirates.
Technology and Operations
How did technological change drive operations?
The Navy had good ships. The frigates of 1797 were unique. As long as 74s, and with 24-instead of 18-lb. guns, they could outrun anything they could not outfight. They would establish an entirely new class of cruiser, one soon standard in all navies.
The Fleets and Marine Operational Relationships
The Marine Corps continued to provide ship guards and secondarily to conduct landings and infantry for ship battles. Since the Navy had lots of ship battles in this period, so did the Marines. Marines also played small but glorious parts on the “shores of Tripoli.”
The Fleets and Joint Operational Relationships
The Army and the Navy largely went their separate ways, but those ways were actually quite similar. Besides fighting the War of 1812, the Army of this period was a frontier constabulary force, performing such essentially M001W tasks as the extension of federal authority into the West, Native American control and removal, and the suppression of domestic disorders.
Between the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, the Army was usually scattered along the seaboard and the western and southern frontiers in small posts containing no more than three to four companies. Troops performed physical labor at the expense of military training, constructing posts, fortifications and military roads, and cultivating crops for their own subsistence. They suppressed the illegal liquor trade with the Indians, expelled white intruders from Indian lands, and generally kept the peace along the extended Indian frontier.
Their most important task during this period was Native American removal. In carrying out this duty, the Army faced its first prolonged encounter with guerrilla warfare—the Second Seminole War, from 1835 to 1842, in which the Navy and Marines also participated.
1798 (continued)
April 30 – Navy Department Created
President Adams signs an Act of Congress creating a Department of the Navy and the office of Secretary of the Navy.
May 24 – First U.S. Naval Vessel to Deploy
The ship Ganges, 26, leaves Philadelphia to become the first ship in America’s new navy to actually get underway.
May 28 – Quasi-War with France
An undeclared naval war begins when Congress instructs U.S. warships “to capture any French vessel found near the coast preying upon American commerce.” During the conflict, the number of American fighting ships in service, including revenue cutters, reaches a total of 54, including 3 frigates and most of the rest converted merchantmen. They operate chiefly in the West Indies, normally divided into four squadrons: the St. Kitts or Guadeloupe squadron (largest and most important), the Santo Domingo squadron, the Havana squadron, and the Surinam squadron.
As a de facto ad hoc coalition partner to the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy acts almost as an ally to the American Navy during much of the war, standardizing signals with the Americans and providing mutual logistic support and convoying.
June 18 – First Secretary of the Navy to the Helm
Benjamin Stoddart begins work as Secretary of the Navy, having been confirmed by the Senate on May 21.
July 9 – Privateering Authorized
Privateering against French vessels is authorized by Congress.
July 11 – Birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps
President John Adams approves an act “for establishing and organizing a Marine Corps.”
Late Cold War Fleet Operations (1973–1989)
Still two forward battle fleets, more home fleet focus northward, & increasing Indian Ocean & joint operations
Operational Overview
Summary
The principal characteristics of this era were a decline in total fleet numbers as the World-War II and immediate postwar Navy went away; an increase in naval operations in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf; the end of the Western Pacific wars and a growing friendship with China; an increasingly confrontational stance vis-à-vis the Soviet Union by all the fleets – followed by the sudden and total Soviet collapse; and a reramping of the national joint command structure leading to increasing joint operations and organizations in the field and at sea. The introduction of satellite communications continued the trend toward real-time command and control by Washington of distant operations that had been building since before World War I.
Fleet Size and Composition
This was another era of fluctuation in total naval force levels, although within tighter limits than was true during the mid-Cold War. World War II-era construction finally wore out and had to be retired, causing the fleet to drop in numbers from 752 ships at its Vietnam War peak to 523 during the Carter presidency in 1977. The subsequent Reagan presidency defense build-up and its “600-ship Navy” goal got the fleet up to 594 active ships by 1987.
The number of ballistic missile submarines in the fleet falls from 41 after 1979 as a result of arms control agreements with the Soviets. A decade later there will be 36 in service.
More new kinds of ships, aircraft, and systems enter the fleet during this period, especially amphibious assault ships (LPAs and LHDs), ocean surveillance ships, maritime prepositioning ships, and the Aegis air surveillance and anti-air warfare system on board cruisers and destroyers in the 1980s.
Fleet Deployment Pattern
Where was the fleet deployed around the world? There are two main dimensions of this: Forward vs. home; concentrated vs. divided.
The late Cold War Navy was similar to the mid-Cold War Navy in key respects: The centerpiece was still the maintenance of two full-up main battle fleets in the Mediterranean and the Western Pacific for the entire spectrum of warfare: peacetime MOOTW, crisis, and wartime operations. There was still a main battle fleet on the East Coast too, with operational responsibilities in the Caribbean, as an ASW force, as a NATO striking force, and as a training fleet for the fleet in the Mediterranean. It still normally deployed once a year in a major NATO exercise off Norway. And there was still a fleet in the eastern Pacific, which focused on its training role for deployers to the Western Pacific.
The small force in the Persian Gulf had grown larger, however, and was now supplemented by carrier battle groups deploying into the Indian Ocean region from outside, especially from the Seventh Fleet. These deployments increased in frequency, duration, and size over the period, as the nation’s attention slowly focused on the Persian Gulf as a central foreign policy arena. Persian Gulf and, for a time, Northern Europe. By the end of the Cold War, the Gulf and Indian Ocean presence was more than equal in size and capability to the numbered fleets in the Mediterranean and in the Western Pacific. The Sixth and Seventh Fleets reinforce their roles as permanent elements of the international landscape.
To maintain a forward presence in the Mediterranean and western Pacific in the face of drastically lower force levels from the mid-Cold War period, there is an increase in the overseas homeporting of conventional naval forces, largely to cut down on deployment times and crew time away from home. On the other hand, the overseas forward basing and refit of strategic missile submarines comes to an end. The deployment pattern of strategic submarines is driven by the range of their missiles. As this range increased over the period, culminating in the 4,200-nm range of the Trident D5 missile, the strategic submarines could operate far closer to the United States, obviating the necessity for forward basing at Rota, Holy Loch, and Guam.
The Operational Missions
What did the fleets do? Specifically, what was the ebb and flow of MOOTW vs. War or preparation for war?
There continued to be two fundamental missions: Prepare for and deter a major global war with the Soviets; and conduct a wide range of MOOTW and crisis interventions. The geographical scope for U.S. Navy MOOTW continued to encompass almost the entire globe. This was due to the continued globalization of American security interests, as well as the worldwide scope of Soviet activity inimical to the United States, including the activity of its fleet.
The fleets tried to maintain routine deployment schedules, but these were broken not only by the usual demands of crises, but also by the dwindling number of fleet assets available and the increasing requirements for presence in the Indian Ocean. The pressure of smaller fleet size, more routinized forward deployments, broad global commitments, constant crisis interventions, and “real world” competition at sea with the Soviets caused the fleet to exercise far less in the 1970s in preparation for a major global war. This was reversed in the 1980s.
Under the aggressive forward deployment concept known as the “Maritime Strategy” and the new flexible deployment schedules styled “FLEXOPS,” the fleets exercised in multi-carrier battle forces off the Soviet coasts. These exercises fell off with the end of the Cold War in 1989.
The Fleets and Marine Operational Relationships
The Marines continued to seek and achieve more and more autonomy from the Navy. The Fleet Marine Force commanders subordinate to the naval component commanders at unified commands became component commanders as well, in their own right. Marine generals were occasionally appointed to head unified commands. Without surrendering its claim to the amphibious assault mission, the role of the Marines in the late Cold War continued to draw upon all the Corps’s earlier missions.
The Fleets and Joint Operational Relationships
Joint organizational structures accelerated their inexorable increase through the late Cold War era, and the ability of naval officers to operationally command and control their forces continued to decline. Creating the biennial revisions to the Unified Command Plan (which divided up the world among the unified—and for a time, specified—CINCs) continued to be an often ferocious locus of interservice rivalry.
The numbered fleets continued to operate as distinct entities, and thought of themselves principally as operating in support of (or being supported by) comparable ground and air force entities, not integrated with them. Nevertheless, they became used to an increasing joint flavor to their operations: In Grenada in 1983, the Second Fleet Commander was styled Commander, Joint Task Force, and worked for CINCLANT/CINCLANTFLT in his CINCLANT hat. In the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s, the essentially naval force in that region was styled Joint Task Force Middle East, and reported to the unified Commander-in-Chief, USCINCCENT.
Fleet Headquarters, Flagships and Staffs
The four numbered fleets lost their late-World War II-era cruisers as flagships. Post-war-built cruisers lack flag spaces and accommodations, except for Belknap, partially converted in 1986 to accommodate a portion of the Sixth Fleet staff, which she served as flagship through.
Other flagships since the demise of the cruisers have been amphibious command ships (LCCs) (for the Second and Seventh Fleets) and converted amphibious transport docks (LPDs) taken from the amphibious force (for the Third Fleet, and for COMIDEASTFOR and COMUSNAVCENT).
*5) No attempt has been made to chronicle every operation short of war conducted by U.S. naval forces during this period, especially after 1950. For details of such operations, see Adam Siegel, The Use of Naval Forces in the Post-War Era: U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps Crisis Response Activities, 1946–1990, CRM 90-246, (Alexandria VA: Center for Naval Analyses, February 1991).
1981
February 5 – John Lehman is SECNAV
John F. Lehman is sworn in as the 65th Secretary of the Navy, following the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan, who adopts a more confrontational stance with the Soviet Union, including at sea. Lehman will serve until April.
His term in office will be marked by the articulation and implementation of “The Maritime Strategy,” including an increase in the extent and forward nature of major fleet exercises and a large number of international interventions using naval forces, fueled by increased Navy budgets and ship and aircraft force levels (the “600-ship Navy” goal).
August 1–October 15 – Second Fleet in Major Multi-National North Atlantic Exercise
Exercise “Ocean Venture ’81” In the largest U.S. naval exercise in recent years, combining what had previously been a series of separate exercises, 250 ships and 1,000 aircraft from 14 countries conduct a six-phase multi-national exercise in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Baltic. The new Second Fleet commander is VADM J.A. “Ace” Lyons, Jr. This inaugurates an extensive and massive fleet exercise program in the 1980s to test the concepts of the forward, global “Maritime Strategy.”
December 1 – USFORCARIB Established
CINCLANT combines Commander, Caribbean Contingency Joint Task Force (CCJTF) and ANTEDEFCOM into the United States Forces, Caribbean, reporting to CINCLANT, with headquarters in Puerto Rico. This organization will endure until 1989.
December – Late 1980s – Central American Surveillance Operations
Surveillance operations are conducted throughout the period of insurgency in El Salvador and Marxist rule in Nicaragua. On December 23, 1981, USS Deyo begins a series of electronic surveillance operations off El Salvador. USS Sphinx will eventually be re-commissioned and based in Panama to conduct these operations from a dedicated warship.
1983
July 26 – Central America Show of Force
A carrier battle group conducts a two-week demonstration off the west coast of Honduras, where the United States is trying to discourage a possible Nicaraguan invasion. Later in the summer, another carrier battle group exercises off the east coast, and a battleship operates off the west. The following year, another battleship will deploy off the west coast.
October 23–26 – Second Fleet Commands Joint Grenada Intervention
(Operation “Urgent Fury”) The Second Fleet commander leads a Joint Task Force (JTF 120) under USCINCLANT to occupy the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, where Cuban-backed Marxists have just seized power. The operation includes landings and helicopter assaults from a carrier battle group and an amphibious task group at sea by Marines and Navy SEALs, as well as non-combatant evacuation. The Second Fleet/JTF 120 commander directs the operation from his flagship, USS Guam (LPH-9). Carrier aviation flew close air support and reconnaissance support missions.
1986
1986 – Western Hemisphere Drug Surveillance and Interdiction Operations
Although some counter-drug operations had been conducted earlier, 1986 marks the beginning of concentrated operations, including the stationing of Coast Guard law enforcement detachments on U.S. Navy warships. U.S. Navy ships and aircraft conduct counter-drug operations in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Pacific Coast as far south as Ecuador.