Sea Control Ship

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A Sea Control Ship (SCS) is a type of small aircraft carrier designed and conceptualised by the US Navy in the 1960s. The SCS was designed due to severe cuts in Navy spending, requiring a cheap, flexible platform that could deliver air power to the field without resorting to an enormous aircraft carrier. Sea Control Ships were designed to carry a mix of fighters and helicopters, and the first SCS vessels were the Iwo Jima class amphibious assault ship.

The SCSs were smaller than most large aircraft carriers, and the concept was seized upon by nations wanting cheap aircraft carriers, most notably Spain, whose flagship SPS Principe de Asturias was based on the SCS design. The SCS also influenced the development of the Royal Navy's Invincible-class aircraft carriers.

Modern examples of SCS-type vessels include HMS Ocean and the US ships Nassau and Bataan, all of which operated in the Persian Gulf carrying a mixture of helicopters and marines. Mostly these days, navies do not operate dedicated SCSs but prefer to operate more flexible platforms that can assume the role of an SCS.