Arsenal ship
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An arsenal ship is a concept for a floating missile platform intended to have as many as five hundred vertical launch bays for mid-sized missiles, most likely cruise missiles. Such a ship would initially be controlled remotely by an Aegis Cruiser, although plans include control by AWACS aircraft such as the E-2 Hawkeye and E-3 Sentry.
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[edit] History
Proposed by the US Navy in 1996, it has since had funding problems, with Congress cancelling some funding, and DARPA providing some funding to individual contractors for prototypes. Some concept artwork of the Arsenal Ship was produced, some images bearing the number "72," possibly hinting at an intent to classify the arsenal ships as a battleship (the last battleship awarded (but never built) was USS Louisiana (BB-71)).
[edit] Design
Such a ship would be likely be low-profile, stealthy, and double-hulled (i.e. with several hull layers), to provide it a high degree of survivability. The strategy would thus be to move the ship into a theatre as fast as possible, combined with either airborne (such as AWACS) or seaborne (such as a Ticonderoga-class cruiser) remote control and guidance. This provides an enormous amount of force projection and would put minimal personnel in danger. The benefits of this are many, but perhaps the most significant is the possible obviation of the need for the standard carrier battle group and associated costs. The Tomahawk suggested for the design has a range in excess of one thousand kilometers.
The estimated cost of these ships is on the order of $500 Million each, with another roughly $500 Million cost for the armaments, which would include Tomahawk and other cruise missiles.
[edit] Criticism
Critics of the Arsenal Ship claim that the concept suffers from many severe drawbacks. Most notably, the total lack of defensive systems would make the Arsenal Ship exceedingly vulnerable to attack if it was discovered despite its stealth characteristics. Whilst the design is intended to be able to withstand at least one hit by a mine, torpedo or missile, it is unlikely that the ship would remain serviceable after such an attack. Vertical launch missile systems are highly vulnerable to shock damage.
The usefulness of the ship is also questioned by some. The Arsenal Ship is touted as being able to make a decisive difference in a campaign, for instance delaying an advance by North Korean forces invading the South for long enough to allow reinforcements to arrive. The ship would have the ability to place 500 warheads of some 2,000 lb each onto enemy targets. The Arsenal Ship would be likely capable only of targeting roads or bridges to slow an oncoming enemy; it would be unable to engage tanks, armoured personnel carriers or mobile artillery unless they chose to remain in position, or unless advanced types of missiles would be substituted for classical cruise missiles.
In the long range precision strike role the Arsenal Ship concept competes with several other weapons systems, including both long range bombers and other navy ships which already carry cruise missiles. As there already seems no shortage of such platforms, the usefulness of the Arsenal Ship is questionable even in this role.
[edit] Use against the US
It has been pointed out by critics of American reliance on carrier battle groups that a potential enemy could sacrifice an arsenal ship (estimated $1 billion US and zero crew) with a high chance of overwhelming parts of a CVBG: American carrier ($4.5 billion US and 6000 crew); destroyers and cruisers ($1 billion US and 350 crew each), etc. In fact, to claim victory, the arsenal ship may only need to inflict enough damage on the CVBG to ruin flight operations, and perhaps even force it to return to port for repair.
Alternatively, if crew were needed for the arsenal ship, it could be used to support a naval group engaging a CVBG. The ability to launch a devastating salvo of missiles would still represent a significant threat, regardless of the need to be more conservative when crew are aboard.
