United States Third Fleet

The Third Fleet plans and executes naval operations in the Pacific Ocean. The fleet provides maritime homeland defense, regional security, and humanitarian operations support through integrated naval and coastguard forces acting as a single Sea Service. It strengthens relations between the U.S. and its allies and partners through joint, inter-agency and multinational exercises and operations like Rim of the Pacific, Pacific Partnership, and Fleet Weeks. The Third Fleet ensures realistic, relevant training to its personnel so they have the necessary skills to promote peace and prevail in conflict.[2]

The Third Fleet is a combat-ready power in control of ships, submarines, and aircraft stationed in California, Washington, and Hawaii. The Third Fleet's sea-going force includes five aircraft carrier strike groups, each consisting of a combination of cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. They also have more than 30 submarines and a dozen supply ships to support the strike groups. Third Fleet's air forces comprises more than 400 Navy aircraft, including Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets, Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeyes, McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II, Bell AH-1Z SuperCobra and Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopters.[2]

Third Fleet's primary mission is one of conflict deterrence, but in the event of general war, it would conduct prompt and sustained combat operations at sea. Such operations would be executed well forward and early in a conflict to carry out the primary wartime mission of Third Fleet—the defense of the western sea approaches to the United States, including Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. There are four Carrier Strike Groups reportedly assigned to the Third Fleet: USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and Carrier Strike Group Eleven; USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and Carrier Strike Group One; USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) and Carrier Strike Group Nine; and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and Carrier Strike Group Three.

In peacetime, Third Fleet continually trains Navy and U.S. Marine Corps forces for their expeditionary warfare mission. Third Fleet training has been designed to ensure that deploying forces are fully prepared for joint operations. All training is conducted within a joint environment—employing joint doctrine, terminology, procedures, command and control—to ensure that forces are ready to join with the other United States armed forces branches under a joint command structure.

Commander, Third Fleet is also designated as a Joint Task Force (JTF) commander. In that capacity, the commander and their staff may be assigned responsibilities for command of joint U.S. forces deployed in response to a specific event or contingency. As such, the JTF commander reports via a joint chain of command to a unified commander. Commander, U.S. Pacific Command is the unified commander in the Pacific theater.

To allow 7th Fleet to focus more resources on a potential North Korean contingency, the 3rd Fleet is building up its ability to operate forces beyond the International Date Line, in areas of the Western Pacific hitherto commanded by 7th Fleet. The "3rd Fleet Forward" concept was announced by U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Scott Swift in 2015, but 3rd Fleet commander Vice Adm. Nora Tyson said at the "WEST 2017" conference that the North Korean threat was a main driver behind this effort:[11]

"What we have done in the past really 18 months is we, 3rd Fleet, have worked very closely with 7th Fleet and PACFLT in developing our, 3rd fleet's, capability to command and control forces forward in the Western Pacific, with the assumption that if something were to happen – and as [Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, Commander 7th Fleet] said, the number-one probability fight-tonight scenario would be on the Korean Peninsula. "If that were the case, the assumption is that [Aucoin] and his team would be pretty busy up there.. working for General Brooks [ComUSFK/CFC/UNC] and 3rd Fleet would be available to provide that command element to handle whatever else may happen in the Pacific Fleet AOR ...be it a major humanitarian disaster requiring that level of [joint task force] three-star commander, be it some scenario, maritime security issue in the South China Sea. So we have been working very closely with 7th Fleet, [Aucoin] and his team, and PACFLT to ensure that we have the connective tissue where if something were to happen that 3rd Fleet could very quickly respond, complement [Aucoin] and his team and handle whatever scenario may come to pass in the Pacific theater."

In April 2016, Vice Admiral Tyson deployed a three-ship Surface Action Group of warships (Momsen, Spruance, and USS Decatur (DDG-73))[12]) to the Western Pacific. On Oct. 21, one of them, the destroyer USS Decatur conducted a "Freedom of Navigation" passage near the Paracel Islands, separately claimed by the PRC, Vietnam and Taiwan. All three ships remained under Third Fleet command during the entire operation. As Tyson partially acknowledged during her WEST 2017 conference remarks, "the Chinese know that this administrative (and) operational innovation is directed at them," said Toshi Yoshihara, a U.S. Naval War College professor in January 2017.[13]

U.S. Third Fleet component units include the following:[14]

• Carrier Strike Group One
• Carrier Strike Group Three
• Carrier Strike Group Nine
• Carrier Strike Group Eleven
• Expeditionary Strike Group Three
• Naval Surface Group Mid-Pacific
• Littoral Combat Ship Squadron One
• Helicopter Maritime Strike Wing
• Commander, Strike Force Training Pacific
• Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group One
• Coastal Riverine Group One
• Navy Air and Missile Defense Command
• Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command
• Submarine and Theater Anti-Submarine Warfare Force Third Fleet

• Commander, United States Navy Third Fleet homepage