United States Fleet Forces Command

The United States Fleet Forces Command (USFFC or less commonly USFLTFORCOM) is a service component command of the United States Navy that provides naval forces to a wide variety of U.S. forces. The naval resources may be allocated to combatant commanders such as United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) under the authority of the secretary of defense. Originally formed as United States Atlantic Fleet (USLANTFLT) in 1906, it has been an integral part of the defense of the United States of America since the early 20th century. In 2002, the Fleet comprised over 118,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel serving on 186 ships and in 1,300 aircraft, with an area of responsibility ranging over most of the Atlantic Ocean from the North Pole to the South Pole, the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and the waters of the Pacific Ocean along the coasts of Central and South America (as far west as the Galapagos Islands). In 2006, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet was renamed to the United States Fleet Forces Command. The command is based at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Virginia, and is the Navy's service component to U.S. Northern Command and is the Joint Functional Maritime Component Command under the U.S. Strategic Command. The command's mission is to organize, man, train, and equip naval forces for assignment to unified combatant command commanders; to deter, detect, and defend against homeland maritime threats; and to articulate Fleet warfighting and readiness requirements to the chief of naval operations.