Ok everyone! What is your *FAVOURITE* warship! I want to know why also! Let me know in the comments section and lets get some discussion going on your responses! Have a GREAT day!
Favorite ship is the U.S.A.F. Odyssey for the Stargate series. Aha! You didn't say it had to be a REAL ship. Favorite real ship is USS Wisconsin BB-64. For my home state's namesake and for being a rock star of a ship.
Favorite warship, 'Old Ironsides,' the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship on the seas. Though I've a soft spot for the the 'Big E,' the USS Enterprise, the most decorated US ship of WWII with 30 battle stars plus the PUC and NUC.
We already have this. It's called the Ohio Class submarine. It can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise misseles (an Arleigh Burke class Destroy can carry 90). The submarine is a better platform because its more survivable in contested areas and it can launch its missiles from any coast with almost no warning.
Using a sub is cool but to protect it you need to limit communication to it, Why not have a surface version where a soldier on the ground lock on to a point communicating though a secure link that then loads target ingo on to a weapon before lunching, no delay or command involvement
@@tricky0048 I'm talking about build cost mainly. If you want more Ohio submarines it'll cost 20x more than a surface oil powered ship. But also nuclear ships require a lot more maintenance as you'd imagine.
Also better for maintenance. You need at least 2 to always have one in Service. Even better would be 3 in Case some bigger problem comes up while one is in dock. Also a much smaller target than a smaller vessel.
@@Di3LeberwurstOne big arsenal ship is going to be a very high priority target. And if it gets hit..... well hopefully the rest of the task force isn't too close.....
The size/scale of the ship can vary due to different nations having different funding available for such ships. In essence this is a revival of the "all big guns ship" concept, a Dreadnought 2.0. Just like Dreadnoughts came to be, because the systems developed for such a ship had matured enough, it would seem missile systems have matured enough to make this a viable project. In the end it doesnt matter if your Arsenal ships carry 50 or 500 VLS cells, as long as its built with a singular purpose of bringing superior firepower against the enemy, it's going to be an Arsenal-class
My thoughts exactly. It should not go it alone. However, if the ship was used as a team member of combined arms battle group then there could be a role.
This is ultimately where I think we are going to see a naval equivalent to "Friendly Wingman" come in (barring Naval Brass pushback). Many autonomous attack platforms networked to a whatever succeeds the Burke's. Hell, make them submersible to impede surface attack.
Back in the 1990's I was part of a group of sailors (USN) that concluded the arsenal ship was useless because it concentrated all it's eggs in one hull and of its inability to defend itself. also I was ADM Broda driver for the decommissioning of USS Richmond K Turner CG-20 after the LEAP testing, I miss the old girl.
As we’ve seen in the Red Sea lately, AEGIS is pretty capable at protecting ships. Wouldn’t an arsenal ship with potentially over 100 VLS cells filled with all the SM variants be perfectly capable of protecting itself and any of the ships around it? Genuine question because from what I’ve heard the main concern with the Burkes is they might not have enough VLS to balance defensive and offensive load outs.
@matthewnovak3095 The main threat to an arsenal ship is submarines. Arsenal ships will be big, noisey with no anti submarine capability. Now you might say, well let's add some ASW then - but at that point you've basically just made a Cruiser ship.
The Korean Navy is actually building a JSS (Joint Strike Ship) with a similar concept to the Arsenal Ship. What makes the Korean JSS different from the American Arsenal ship is that it does not carry thousands of cruise missiles. Instead, it launches about 100 large ballistic missiles.
@@user-ru2yl8ts9b Yesnt. ROK-US nuclear agreement restricts the use of nuclear material for war efforts. So a nuclear powered SSBN with nuclear warheads on board isnt going to happen. They could have a sub with a diesel engine/hydrogen power cell-hybrid drive with conventional missiles no problem (they already have those). A surface ship faces the same limitations really...
South Korea has a very specific geopolitical situation that makes the arsenal ship make a bunch of sense. There is a video by a channel named named Perun that goes into detail over the defense economics of South Korea, and he does a pretty good idea of explaining why they are making them.
Here’s the problem with an arsenal ship. It’s only one ship that can only be in one place at a time and is a huge high priority target in any ear peer conflict. A better use is multiple destroyers and frigates that can give you more flexibility in missions. As for shore bombardment, air power has taken over that role and drones will fill it further. I could see a cruiser sized drone carrier in future, it that’s a different mission.
better yet, build lots of unmanned missile boats and use the manned ships (not only the burkes or the ticonderogas, but including the carriers, too) as command nodes
@@jvbutalid8316 exactly. It's already happening and these people can't wrap their head around a trailer that follows a truck or what missiles have been doing since the missile age began.
@@BeKindToBirds I think the problem lay in that the military industrial complex is already so used to built gigantic warships with complex systems since they've been doing that over decades already to the point that they don't have the organizational power to go back to making big fleets of smaller ships. Besides there's also the pride element. Optics speaking, it would mean america is so desperate as of late to keep its position as world number one that the title might as well be stripped away for such disgrace
Imagine taking an old fleet carrier, stripping off the flight deck and hangers, and putting missle launch systems instead. Bet you could get quite a few missiles in ship that's up to 1000 ft long.
I’m sure I saw a concept on this. It had missile units the size of a standard shipping container. Easy to replace and can be used on any ship singularly as a battery.
Semi-submersibles and subs are the only thing that will survive future combat. Being able to go just below the waves would make your ship stealth while also giving it the best possible armor.
not true,a fantasy--every sub in the world is tracked within a 100 ft 24/7--a nuke tact missile coming in at 20,000 mph only need to get within a mile to take out a sub--only when a sub sits in a deep trench for days it may avoid detection but that is secret unknown info--one tact nuke will take out a whole carrier group
I've always been obsessed with this concept. Played around with the scaling using 3d renderings and it turns out that you can put A LOT of VLS cells on a ship if you try hard enough. The only argument against it would be cost. The role they would play is essentially a replacement for the current aging CG Ticonderoga's. You can also argue that the Ohio SSGN's play this role but have a higher survivability.
The main argument isn't cost, but vulnerability. Having an arsenal ship concentrates your VLS and related systems in one hull. Spending the same amount of money, or even slightly more on a similar number of VLS on multiple smaller hulls makes them less vulnerable. To defeat a defensive system, the attack needs to launch more missiles than the defender can intercept. The bottleneck for the defender isn't the number of VLS, but the number of individual targets the sensor systems can detect, identify, calculate the trajectory of the missile, create a firing solution for the interceptor, launch the interceptor, and have the interceptor hit the incoming missile in the time between possible detection and impact on the target. Realistically the time to between detection and impact is roughly 35 seconds. Having the defensive sensors spread over more, smaller ships each with their own VLS capability creates a larger defensive screen around the task force than if those capabilities are concentrated in a single arsenal ship at the centre of the task force.
It can't replace the Ticonderogas because it doesn't have an air warfare system installed. It's basically just a missile ferry. If you wanted to build a guided missile destroyer with that many VLS cells, you still need to install all the other things a modern destroyer does, and while I think the case for much larger ships is good, it doesn't bear any resemblance to the arsenal ship.
@@DERP_Squad In modern naval warfare the bottleneck is precisely the VLS magazine depth. Spy-6 can detect and track hundreds of individual targets at the same time. The ship would be used as a missile truck to supplement a carriers defense. I do agree with you that a larger defensive net with several smaller ships makes more sense but I'm just playing devils advocate. In total a standard CSG has about 500 VLS cells. A lot of those are LACM's, RUMs and short range ESSM. I would concentrate the LACM's on this platform to allow the DDG's and CG's to carry nothing but SM's bolstering the formations air defense while also off setting the range/sensor problem you talked about. We're also all leaving out the fact that an Ohio SSGN is basically exactly what I'm talking about. lol
While a smallish crew by naval standards might make sense, sending such an incredibly expensive and important naval asset to sea with a tiny crew is madness. Many things go wrong on a ship at sea and they all require someone to deal with the problems.
I like the Arsenal Ship Concept, to bad we picked the Zumwalt over it all those years ago... BUT! I Really Feel as though besides the Arsenal Ship we need a Large Multi-Role Cruiser!!!
Perhaps they should have packed more missiles on the Zummwalt. Or made more destroyers instead of the LCS, at least the Zummwalt can be used for the new hypersonic missiles.
Zumwalt class destroyers already started modifications this year removing its guns so that it can accommodate a larger VLS able to house CPS (Conventional Prompt Strike). LCS on the other hand can still be repurposed otherwise if they scrap it it will be a failure indeed.
If anything, I believe that the current US don't have capability to build big ships anymore because of defense market monopoly or condensation (I forgot the term) down to only a handful of contractors to work with. This makes bidding very difficult since there is not a lot of competition and anyone serving the defense market can just quote high and get away with it. Don't forget that they can increase cost over the years as the project get's developed and implemented stating inflation and splurging the fundings provided to obtain "technological miracles". They could do that because there are barely any competitors able to develop the capabilities the military planners wanted. This is the reason why most defense equipment and system procurement projects ended up grossly going over budget and getting cancelled by government due to funding problems. The US Navy even had to purchase new frigates that are already developed from overseas defense industries because they knew that it is impossible to get the X number of new ships newly developed by the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics etc with the assigned fundings. The era where there is like 1000 organizations bidding to enter into military projects is long over after all the scheming, buying overs and collapses. One method to mitigate this when building new capabilities is unfortunately aggressively allowing overseas defense contractors to bid for new warship projects, the more the merrier. Another method is to limit the scope of development to individual systems instead of trying to extract 1 million (exaggeration) new capabilities out of one single project, and using a mix mash of already fully developed and available new/existing systems into the new platform ( I assume this is currently the method/done in the past).
USS Long Beach was one of the most beautiful naval vassals ever built. As a US Navy sailor, I've personally seen a number of ships. Seeing the Long Beach in person was truly inspiring.
Actually the Japanese Navy is looking to make 2 'Arsenal Ships'. they have 2 AEGIS Ashore systems unused which have a much larger and more powerful radar system than the one they use on ships. So they are going to be mounting it on to a large ship and fitting it with as much VLS silos as they can so they can use them in ballistic missile defence but as they are more mobile and harder to take out.
just another expensive toy the "defense" industry wants to conjure up to make more money on--china,russian tact nukes,missiles,rockets will take out all floating,flying,rolling targets in the first few hours of any real conflict--it is a pathetic joke
The idea is sound, there will be a need for more missiles than the existing fleet can bring to bear. The lack of missiles is a seperate issues and one that shows you have an issue with manufacturing for defence. The whole lack of defence capacity has come to light of late with the Ukraine war. Take care M.
The SSGN Ohios can only carry tomahawks and torpedos. A arsenal ship would carry 100s of anything that would fit in the cell. Tomahawks, SM2s, SM3s and SM6s as well a quad packing smaller missiles. I would station them mainly in the pacific. Japan, Guam and Hawaii
@@VunderGuy it's a anime thing, but in that media it's more know as missile massacre, due to the sheer amount of missile fired in complete abandonment of logic.
It's a really awesome idea with a lot of deck space for both current VLS systems and future VLS with larger cells for hypersonic missiles, but it has the major, major downside of putting a LOT of eggs in one basket. All it takes is one enemy torpedo or a hypersonic missile slipping through and all of a sudden you've lost an enormous percentage of your missiles and magazine depth in that theatre. As much as it pains me to not have h y p e r w a r - era missile battlecruisers, I definitely get why the Navy went with distributed lethality instead. Even though the Burkemada we've got going on now don't carry as many missiles per ship, those ships can be in more places covering more missions, and you don't lose as much capability if one of them gets sunk. The new Constellation-class FFGs coming online (eventually...) will also help with that. All that aside, it's sick af that South Korea and Japan are making arsenal ships of their own and there's a huge part of me that wants us to put out a couple as well. The Japanese idea of taking the massive radar arrays and VLS cells from an Aegis Ashore system and slapping them into an LPD-sized hull is dope. And South Korea mounting IRBMs and SRBMs on the stern of their arsenal ship is hilariously overkill. I want it. It reminds me of the Italians refitting the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi to carry four nuclear SLBMS and SAMs that could also be nuclear-tipped back in the late 1950s.
Hi there. A fascinating study, and likely to sparks some comments. I have a number Firstly, the use of missiles in a modern war has one MAJOR drawback. One is limited to the number of missiles you actually have at the time. Once they have been shot away, you are toothless! Also, missiles, once manufactured, actually have a certain shelf life, after which they become increasingly more obsolete. This scenario places a HUGE burden on the Arms Industry to replenish stocks quickly enough to keep operational forces fighting in the field. Also, there is the problem of cost - missiles, especially the more sophisticated ones, are enormously expensive, and unless budgeted for years in advance, might not be so easily acquired in a hurry! Now, the ship itself. My first impression is that such a ship would be very vulnerable to attack from a potential enemy. The ship would need to be within the range of the missiles it intends to launch - let's say a cruise missile. If the missile range is say 1000 kms then the ship has to be closer than that to the target. That means any enemy missile (say land-based) with a range of 1 000+ kms would be able to engage the ship quite safely. This means the ship would need considerable supporting vessels to supply a pretty comprehensive anti-air/missile/drone capability to ensure it can get its payload in the air and scoot away quick damn smart to safety. Something in the order of a carrier strike group defensive suite! This is hugely expensive. Alternatively, it would have to be in the nature of a massive AAA/missile ship to enable it to defend itself from air/missile/drone attacks. This complicates the deign by several orders of magnitude, to the point of not being feasible. Just a few AAA wouldn't help either, as just one strike by a major enemy missile could destroy the whole ship (there's a lot of stuff there that would probably blow up in the event of a successful strike!). Note: in the light of the effect of even very crude missile/drone activity in the Red Sea area at the moment, it demonstrates that defending against incoming missile/drone/air attacks uses up missile stocks at a pretty rapid rate, after which the defending forces have to replenish, or go to Plan B which (at the moment, in the West at least) is a rapidly diminishing asset! I have read several opinions that even US Carrier Strike Groups have a limited defence capability against such air/missile/drone attack possibilities, and it seems that there are some very worried people in the Navy! The Royal Navy have demonstrated that their Sea Vixen missile system is VERY capable in this scenario, BUT, how many missile are available on each ship, and how rapidly can launchers be reloaded, if at all without dockside assistance? Interesting points to ponder. Any insider info? Also, how many such ships does the Royal Navy actually have? Another issue that worries me is the number of US supercarriers not actually operational at the moment! [4-5 I think?] The Nimitzs are approaching their "end-of-life' phase rather rapidly! Much quicker than they can Build Fords! It appears that several Nimitzs might have to go into short service-extension phase, despite the unwillingness to do so. Do they have enough support vessels good enough to form additional carrier strike groups? I doubt it! The Chinese Navy is currently outbuilding the US Navy by a considerable margin, and the US Navy has a much wider area to cover than they do! Could a Nimitz go into a long service-extension without a refuel (which takes 2-3 years! and costs $billions!) ? These are vexing questions!
just another expensive toy the "defense" industry wants to conjure up to make more money on--china,russian tact nukes,missiles,rockets will take out all floating,flying,rolling targets in the first few hours of any real conflict--it is a pathetic joke
That's a floating powder keg with a to small crew for handling the battle damage. Basically the ship version of a glass cannon. It could work if its part of a carrier group but airplanes are more versatile. But it's an interesting project, the ammunitions it carries could cost more than the ship itself. 😁
This concept is gorgeous. Modern day battleship really. My favorite warship is the North Carolina Class USS Washington BB-56. My grandfather was a 16" crewman from 1940-1945
just another expensive toy the "defense" industry wants to conjure up to make more money on--china,russian tact nukes,missiles,rockets will take out all floating,flying,rolling targets in the first few hours of any real conflict--it is a pathetic joke
At the 2013 Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition, Huntington Ingalls Industries unveiled a ballistic missile defense variant of the San Antonio class LPD equipped with thirty-six 8-cell Mark 41 strike-length VLS (288 total) and an electromagnetic railgun turret. If the electromagnetic railgun turret was removed, a further two 8-cell Mk 41 VLS (16 total) could be mounted in the bow as proposed in the original San Antonio class concept. There also seems to be space amidships for an unspecified number of BAE Systems' Adaptable Deck Launcher.
A large cargo ship could carry shipping containers with missile launchers in them. Considering that Himars is going to be ablle to fire more types of missiles putting a battalion of launchers on a separate ship could be done. That prof of concept is already deployed now. There are images of Himars launchers positioned on deck.
I like the concept, but rather than build from scratch I think this would be an AWESOME refit for aging Ohio-class SSBNs. We have already converted 4 of them to the SSGN standard, we should continue that trend with the remaining Ohios as well as any future SSBN hulls that are retired from nuclear deterrence roles. They would be like concealed weapons. You just don't know when they might pop up and rain fire on an enemy. They could also cruise with carrier strike groups or Amphibs, providing both land-attack punch and saturation strike capability against enemy ship formations. They could also be turned loose to hunt enemy subs or shipping, as needed. Far more flexible than a missile truck, and far more stealthy than any surface ship will ever be.
I think the original concept was launched by French engineer René Levasseur. His design would have been semi submersible as well. In his argumentation the sheer economy of scale of having to build all those missiles would partially fund such a program. My fave warship would be HMS Warspite, grand ol' lady of the plot armour.
A floating gun/missile platform makes sense. If ship to shore bombardment is required in a future war , then smaller multiple versions of this idea would useful. A secondary use as an unmanned munitions supply vessel could be safer for the Navy. The same unmanned ship could ultimately be used as a drone attack ship to attack an enemy fleet in a port after firing all missiles simultaneously launching many flying drones ( from tubes) to accompany its final attack. A scary weapon , but would it ever be necessary ?
Arsenal ship may come in the form of commercial cargo vessel loaded with containerized missile launchers. There are a couple defense contractors (BAE and another European company) developing container modules that can be placed on decks of destroyers. During an extended conflict, in a pinch, these containers could be placed on drafted cargo vessels to accompany other naval ships, so as to minimize naval ships being put out of action due to exhausting missile inventory and returning to port.
The trouble with large caliber guns is the barrels are extraordinarily expensive and wear out after a few hundred shots. Even with a standard dumb shell once you include the cost of barrel wear you may as well just use a tomahawk or a harpoon. If you're talking about guided rounds or rocket assisted rounds, a tomahawk IS more cost effective for anything about a 5". A tomahawk only costs about 1.8 million a round and carries a 450kg warhead with 1000nmi range. The Excalibur 155mm smart round costs 120k and carries a 4.5kg warhead with a range of about 10nmi.
@@samoldfield5220 BAE is currently testing 58 caliber M109 howitzer with a range of ~40nmi. As for the higher calibers, it should be even longer. Although, I wouldn't go beyond 9", to be able to use the similar gun on land (basically Caesar on steroids with the range of the GMLRS). The benefit of the higher caliber is that you basically, have much more space for the explosives, with the same electronics as in the smaller round. Also, provided that it gonna use huided rounds anyway, the barrel can be smoothbore, and thus have much longer lifespan. Also, instead of giant battleships, IMHO, it would be much more sensible to put such guns on a smaller frigate class ships, that would much easier to navigate around the small islands.
@@solarissv777 The idea with guns is not so much explosive rounds but rather kinetic impact... especially the larger guns. The need was to smash through armor and defenses intended to pre-ignite high-explosive rounds before they can do more than surface damage on the target. We already know, for instance, that most land targets are layered in such a way as to prevent the explosive to ever reach the heart of the bunker... so you have to smash through a lot of steel and concrete collectively before the explosive itself triggers. Yes, they can be impressive offensive weapons but a bigger gun fires a heavier round, which means the overall range isn't that much better than a modern artillery cannon; it can just punch through a lot thicker armor.
@@samoldfield5220 No need for expensive smart rounds for general bombardment, that's the point of also having a bunch of missiles. Different options for different scenarios and dumb shells are cheap. 14" guns would work as well but any smaller than that you should probably just use a missile.
The sensible way for this class to materialize is modular in nature. When the need arises, pull a container cargo ship out the merchant marine fleet. Load it up with the appropriate modules covertly, send it towards the fleet, or not. The payload is managed by a navy ship that controls targeting, launch and so on. The crew aboard would not even be aware of the capability of there cargo.
These things always struck me as a sensible thing to have, given the nature of modern communications. I think a better classification for these ships is as a Monitor because it carries out that function within the fleet.
I like this concept. With the diversity and quantity of missiles it could carry would almost completely protect itself and any other ships around it. With the range of modern missiles it could stand off the coast and devaste large areas or other enemy task forces. Also it would provide awesome air protection for miles.
The main argument against the concept is that a number of smaller, cheaper ships do the same job better. A task force with one arsenal ship has one defencive system to overwhelm for the attacker. A task force with 5 or 6 guided missile destroyers has 5 or 6 networked defensive systems for an attacker to overwhelm, a much more difficult prospect.
I think a dedicated drone carrier is the future for an "Arsenal" ship. Just two thousand drones with a lobby of gamer chairs and a mountain dew powered reactor. The future is now old man.
If it can’t hide under water, then it’s gonna have a dozen hypersonic missiles coming in. And one missile can detonate a missile in a cell and create a blast wave that detonates all the missiles. Kinda like the Battleship Hood exploding from a direct hit on the magazine
the arsenal ship did partially come true in the converted Ohio class subs that carry 250-ish tomahawk missiles! i can see a new sub somewhere between an Ohio class and a typhoon in size with new sensors and added launch tubes for different missiles working out well in this role!! the purpose built surface version is a dead concept plain and simple to easy to track down and kill although a system using containerized weapon modules that could be loaded of freighters maybe an option for surface use!!
I think smaller would be the way to go like an Ticonderoga 550' deal Kirov kinda thing. Like just see how much boom boom we can realistically fit In the hull. Give it a standard 5-inch gun and a butt load of missiles and powerful radar.
@@mastathrash5609 The Ticonderoga-clsss cruisers carry 122 VLS Cells depending on how you modify the ship you could probably fit up 244 cells onboard if not more. Realistically you would probably have to move the super structure aft and remove the helo deck and I would definitely keep the CIWS defenses onboard the vessel.
@@elliotyourarobot Dreadnoughts/Battleships we're made obsolete because of their vulnerability to aircraft as well as the fact that they had to be close to shore in order to effectively act as an artillery battery of up to 25 miles but a warship loaded with basically nothing but Tomahawks can have an effective range of 1553 miles. If you put even just one or two Arsenal ships into a flotilla of aircraft carriers and destroyers the amount of fire power they could provide is unprecedented.
A variant of this idea that was considered is to create missile launch systems that fit in standard shipping containers. Because of this, in the event of a future war, any container cargo ship could be used as an arsenal ship, by loading it with these missile containers.
The arsenal ship as rendered is a pretty good idea, but I think it would essentially be an LST, a Large Slow Target. Now I'm going to spitball a bit: If it were stealthy and semi-submersible to some snorkel depth, they could be pre-positioned with crew rotations done by submarine. Or better, fully unmanned. And add hyper sonics. Though I'd really only deploy them in the Pacific to counter China's growing tonnage and fire power advantages. Too, it seems it could fit really well with the Marines A2/AD Force Design 2030. The USAF is still trying to figure out how to manage an arsenal aircraft to overcome the payload limitations of the F-22 and F-35, but like the arsenal ship, thus far to no avail.
The Zumwalts were designed around the large scale rail gun concept...oops. Guns were too faulty, slugs were too expensive, nothing stealthy about a floating power plant using enough electrical energy to power a whole county, to launch a slug with a lightning bolt. So they thought: missles instead! And removed the rail guns. BUT...we already have missle ships...destroyers and subs! So they thought of hypersonic...and that's where the 3 ship class will sit...for now. A destroyer the size of a cruiser, that costs as much as a battleship, but has the crew of a frigate and a lot of electronics to reduce the size of human crews. Sigh...
@@grahamstrouse1165 Ukraine has been sinking Russian warships with them. Their kamakasis, but they're proofs of concept. And as I understand it, Ukraine is working on UUV's as well.
I love the Cleveland class of American light cruisers, also about the arsenal ship or any other similar concept I did get an idea a few days ago while watching another video talking about a plausible return of battleships. That a modern arsenal ship or battleship as some would prefer to call them, would be like an up armored(not too much but slightly thicker than most ships today) and slightly bigger version of the Ticonderoga class cruisers while carrying 1.5x or more missiles than even the Ohio class submarines outfitted with tomahawk missiles. Not saying it is what I think would be the best, but rather thinking that if in the future when arsenal ships might be built this might be the most sensible route considering that you're basically going to be building a heavy cruiser with armor to protect vital components to an extent but not too much armor since even bunkers don't stand a chance against missiles. But is big enough to fulfill it's purpose of basically being a floating missile battery capable of fulfilling the missions it has to do.
long before I made the jump to Army geoint I worked for Navsea systems as a Jr designer on Arsenal ship and CGX . The continued refinement of DDG, the 4 SSBN to SSGN and LCS were chosen over Arsenal ship and CGX.
This ship could be a good choice to replace aircraft cerriers. There is no need to wait until the pilot gets in the air, just push the button and its done. Probably it would be not even so expensive if we compare it with a carrier in the long use.
The carrier is a lot more versatile than the arsenal ship. A carrier can do strikes like an arsenal ship, but it can also do missions like recon and surveillance, humanitarian aid, etc. The cost of an arsenal ship would also be better spent on several guided missile destroyers. The multiple DDG are able to provide a 80-100 VLS tube capability in many places at once while the arsenal ship provides the capability of 500 VLS tubes in only one place. Dispersion of the capabilities within a task force is preferable too. If the arsenal ship is hit, the task force VLS capability is seriously degraded. An attack against 5 or 6 DDG is unlikely to be able to degrade the capability of a task force as much. A couple of the DDG might be sunk or made inoperable, but that still leaves the others in a position to respond with a significant counter attack.
I like the arsenal ship idea, I think one of these attached to a carrier group would benefit if large scale conflict was to take place. Have the arsenal ship protect the carrier group while the destroyers combine their aegis to focus on target selection. When arsenal needs resupply the destroyers take main defence role until it returns. As for my favourite warship of all time it had to be Leander class. Weird choice but my old man worked on a HMAS one and I got to experience sea time on board as a kid. Nothing like steam powered ships 💪
just another expensive toy the "defense" industry wants to conjure up to make more money on--china,russian tact nukes,missiles,rockets will take out all floating,flying,rolling targets in the first few hours of any real conflict--it is a pathetic joke
i really like the idea of this kind of ship but the more I look at it, the more I wonder why you wouldn't just want to build a large submarine with it being such a big target, you'd want to be able to hide for a bit- a submarine is really the perfect arsenal ship, given how much more stealthy they are
Well I'm no expert, but all the experts I watch (including in this video) suggest that building large numbers of cruise missiles (like, 1000s) is just too expensive. If you really wanted a "new battleship" that could do it all, then it would ideally have way more than just cruise missiles. You'd want it to have every kind of missile, from air defense to anti ship to rocket-assisted torpedos to drone missiles which drop sonobuoys or loiter like a drone CAP, and all kinds of things which probably don't even exist yet. With such a ship, if it had literally thousands of missiles, then you could maybe build a new kind of "battleship" for the modern day. And if you had a lot of them, then maybe you could change the way people do surface warfare. But that would require more missiles per such ship than any nation can comfortably produce in any reasonable frame of time. And they would be huge targets that would still need to be protected (even aircraft carriers have escort ships). It seems like an idea that would be awesome if you had infinite money and it were much cheaper to build every kind of missile en masse. But what little I know about navy stuff and missiles suggests to me that it probably would be smarter to not put all your eggs in one basket, and keep the mass of your missiles spread out amongst ships that can do other things, and which can protect each other or hide. So if it were just going to carry cruise missiles for striking land targets, why not scale down the idea and make it carry just a few hundred, for supporting specific situations? That's a pretty cool idea, maybe. I dunno. Not an expert. Naval warfare is cool af.
the main proponent in the US navy committed suicide after being exposed for lying about his credentials. This event was what stopped the program. also it was not survivable . too many eggs in one basket imo. the current paradigm of naval warship design evolved into what they are for a reason. you cant wave a hand and ignore threats that have been countered in current designs. lcs anyone?
My favorite ship is the KMS Scharnhorst, most beautiful ship in my mind. The "arsenal ship" was an idea when we were teenagers. In the old days, being able to send million dollar missiles down home was valued. Now we have to deal with multiple small threats, we need smaller missiles.
I am thinking that part of the issue with the Arsenal Ship is that it some of its capabilities is spread in other platforms which includes the Ohio SSGN's (cruise missile sub, like the Oscars). Though, if the USN cannot get enough sailors, perhaps something like this becomes more attractive (i.e. all those missiles under a small crew).
Favorite modern ship type would be an "assault ship." My favorite ship type of all time would be the "battle cruiser." An amphibious assault group would be well served by a naval force consisting of well kitted light carriers, assault ships and fast battle cruisers, escorted by a minesweeper/layer, missile frigates and multipurpose (ASW/AAA/Fire Support) destroyers. Supported by an appropriately numbered naval auxiliary group with supply ships, tankers, and a hospital ship. 3 or 4 of these groups operating together would allow for the rapid invasion and securing of island chains, whilst the main fleets take care of the Op. Force fleets. Just the wild thoughts of an old marine and avid wargamer.
I think one of the biggest challenges to an all missile ship would be anti missile systems. Instead of overwhelming a target with multiple, expensive missiles attempting to destroy one, well protected target (C.I.W.S., decoys, chaff, flares, ECM...other stuff), maybe it's time to slap some of that "stealth tech" onto missiles themselves. Combine stealth tech with hypersonic speed and the Navy can go back to launching one expensive missile per target. An enemy won't have their anti missile defense systems active if they don't know it's there and it wouldn't need any explosives because the kinetic energy from a missile traveling at mach 6 should do the trick to break a ship in half or collapse just about any building it hits.
Theres been talk on battle ships coming back, rockets are exsplensive so a battle ship with lots of artillery with lots of amo although less accurate and this modern version have the lighter armor of modern warships for speed and cuting more costs is able tl protect itself with modern stealth and destroying enemies fire abilities on shore softing them up for much chesper price then missles/aircraft for marines to then take the coast...
I almost forgot - my favourite ship. USS Rattlesnake! This was a large American built frigate that was unique at the time and posed a real threat to other Navies. It was large, and sported more guns (on a single gun deck) than all other frigate class, and was significantly faster than they were. In other words, they could confidently engage ships the could catch, and outrun ships more powerfully armed then they were.
The achilles heel of the Arsenal Ship concept is the mk41 vertical launch cell itself. Yes, they achieve great launch cadence, but even with 500+ cells, all too soon they will have to withdraw from the theater to a friendly port to reload, a process that could take weeks and leaves them stationary and vulnerable to a capable foe. The mechanical launchers they replaced, the Mk13 Single and Mk 26 Twin Arm guided missile launching system have far more potential to be reloaded while underway, with missiles delivered by container via CH-53K from a supply ship. They would also allow missiles to be swapped out to adapt to a changing mission. They wouldn't replace the VLS cells, that launch cadence is still useful in warding off air attacks, but such a rate of fire is not as necessary for offensive operations. The Mk57 PVLS cells used on the Zumwalt allow the best of both worlds.
There has been a few updates to this concept. From what i understand the navy is looking as making this a drone type ship that would just follow along for cheap launch a bunch of missile and if it goes down we didn't lose any crew and hopefully it would be relatively cheap. Edit they are also looking at making them smaller. 100 missiles or so. And as a drone in theory submerge able
The reason the VGAS was replaced with the AGS is the VGAS was actually just a more expensive but less effectvive VLS. It's a gun mounted vertically below deck so it can only fire at very high angles at which point the "smart" rocket assisted ammunition would operate just like a missile. Only with a much smaller payload, a much shorter range, and a higher price. The AGS, which is a cut down version of the VGAS, was theorized to offer everything the VGAS did with the added bonus of being able to use standard 155mm ammunition, except no because naval ammunition is one piece and longer, meaning what you actually got was a round that was about the same price, payload, and range as the current 5" ammunition, only with a fraction of the accuracy or rate of fire. The arsenal ship concept was reworked over the years into Virginia Blk V submarine which does everything the arsenal ship was specced to do, but is actually stealthy, faster, more survivable and with unlimited operational range. The arsenal ship itself was never a serious prospect for acquisition.
So what you just admitted is that a surface fleet as an idea, including aircraft carriers, are dumb and redundant and that the navy should have scrapped it all and gone full submarine decades ago if it wanted to be effective. Good to know!
@@VunderGuy Well that's stupid. How are you supposed to fly planes off an aircraft carrier that's under water? And if the aircraft carrier has to be on the surface so do it's escorts. Then you've got auxiliaries like oilers, supply, and landing ships. Finally patrol boats and such that work in water too shallow for submarines, and oh look, we've just listed everything in a modern navy that isn't a submarine. It's as if there's a plan!
The Block V Virginia is an expensive half-measure. Honestly, it makes more sense to use the larger hulls (Ohios, Columbias) as tactical missile carriers & spread nukes out around on smaller ships. As for the AGS, it’s dead. The shells didn’t have as much ranged as advertised & cost $800k a shot. Really stupid idea.
It's basically a floating ammo depot. If the ship caught fire or if it was hit by a missile or torpedo, the whole ship will explode like a storage room full of powder keg.
Remember when Canada had aircraft carriers. ,*sigh. Still rumblings of bringing back battleships. I think the idea of the autonomous ghost ships the navy is testing will basically be a smaller but numerous version of the assault ship concept. Favorite ship to read because of its captain- HMS speedy or USS Ranger. Favorite ship to look at - USS Missouri.
The Arsenal Ship concept came from a Naval War College thesis in the 80's. ADM Metcaft (I believe he was ACNO for Surface Warfare at the time) was a huge proponent for it. There were constant discussions about it at all levels. Thankfully it was decided against, however the basic tumblehome hull design that was being pushed for the arsenal ship found life in the DDG 1000 class). The concept had numerous drawbacks (including the fact at the time it would hold more tomahawk cruise missiles than the Navy had in it's inventory), but the final nail in it's coffin was the collapse of the Soviet Union. Favorite warship is of course the USS Constitution, followed by the USS Johnston (DD-557) then by the mighty USS Sterett (CG-31)
Aside some potential future tech like lasers making missiles obsolete. The biggest issue with arsenal ships is their lack of flexibility and a limited mission role. Yes they can kill ships or launch a salvo at a ground site, even take out aircraft. But what if you need to patrol a shipping lane against pirates, support an amphibious insertion and or provide a loitering platform above a battlefield in support of ground forces? This is why traditional platforms are still preferred.
I don't agree that lasers will make missiles obsolete. People have been saying that all sorts of things will make other things obsolete for a long time. HEAT shells made armor on tanks obsolete, then they made armor effective against HEAT shells. ATGMs were supposed to make tanks obsolete then came active protection systems and other defensive aides. SAMs were supposed to make anti-aircraft guns obsolete. Firearms made body armor mostly obsolete until kevlar and ballistic ceramic plates. Of course some things really do become obsolete but it can be hard to predict when that will actually occur. Every time an offensive system is introduced or becomes more potent defensive technology is developed to counter it and vice versa. Lasers are not a foolproof defense against missiles. You can overwhelm a defensive grid of lasers if you fire enough missiles. Any defensive grid can be overwhelmed. Even if the grid includes SAMs, AAGs and lasers a time on target attack of drones and different types of missiles (stealth cruise, hypersonic cruise, ballistic) which have different attack patterns/must be countered differently (one type of missile may be optimized against ballistic missiles but not do well against a low flying stealthy cruise missile etc.) can overwhelm such a system. Right now lasers are not particularly powerful. They take a while to actually shoot something down as it takes some time to burn through the target enough. They can not engage a lot of targets quickly within their range because of this. They also have limited range due to laser diffraction. The beam becomes less focused and therefore less powerful the further away it extends from the emitter. More powerful lasers will allow for greater ranges and to burn through targets faster allowing them to engage and destroy targets more quickly in the future. I do agree with your argument that arsenal ships lack flexibility. They are also particularly vulnerable because you are putting a lot of resources on a single target. If you spread that arsenal of missiles onto multiple ships, the enemy must then sink multiple ships to destroy that arsenal of missiles. If all those missiles are on one ship, that one ship being destroyed takes out the lot. Multiple ships can also attack targets in different areas of operation. One arsenal ship can only engage targets within the range of the missiles at the physical location of the ship. Spread that onto say, five ships, and those ships (and therefore their missiles) can be at five totally different places on the globe and can then attack targets over a much wider area at the same time. Need to have all the missiles in one place? Gather the five ships in one fleet then. The enemy still needs at least five torpedoes, or five ballistic missiles or whatever, rather than maybe just one, to destroy all of those weapons. Of course there are also pros to having an arsenal ship. In some ways it is more efficient. You wouldn't need as many systems (and the crew to operate and maintain them) on one ship as you would five. One fire control system rather than five etc. I myself think the cons outweigh the pros.
I'd add that another issue, that battleships also had, is that it can only be in one place. For the same cost, a number of guided missile destroyers can provide 80-100 VLS tubes in multiple places around the world. There are very few circumstances where having more guided missile destroyers operating wouldn't be more useful than a single arsenal ship.
@christophero55 Lasers cannot fire a ballistic trajectory/ in Defilafe/ beyond line of Horizon. Pretty limited for surface to surface engagement beyond d line of sight
One could argue the four Ohio class subs that were converted to hold 154 tomahawk missiles around twenty years ago were a trial of the Arsenal ship concept, even if it was no longer a surface ship. The issue with it becoming a race over SK building some, is the NK Navy looks more like a costal defense navy and not exactly active in building large ships, so they do not seem likely to be building one. The US is not exactly going to be threatened by SK building one. China has long enough range land missiles, it is not exactly needed till are sure can get outside the first island chain around them, plus the components of the chain seem who they are most likely to get in conflict with. Russia is hardly in a position to be throwing resources at this type of ship now, and even if peace were declared today could spend a decade or two just on replacing military equipment/vehicles that were depleted during the war. Japan has kind of toyed around with the concept for decades as well, but more recent comments imply may just go with more conventual destroyers instead.
This is probably the type of ship LEAST likely to open a dreadnought race. If you are concerned about the threat of an enemy arsenal ship, you will deploy submarines, aircraft carrying anti-shipping missiles, or missile interceptors. You would not deploy your own arsenal ship to counter it, as they are incapable of surface ship warfare. This is completely unlike the dreadnought arms race of the early 20th century, where the only counter to an enemy dreadnought battleship was a dreadnought of your own.
@SnowmanTF2 Those submarines cost about 20 times more than a surface ship. Further because they're just converted existing submarines, the ability to scale up numbers is limited. Building new nuclear submarines takes a LONG time as well. So they aren't the answer at all. Most of the benefits of an arsenal ship revolve around being cheap, as opposed to aircraft carriers. If you use expensive nuclear submarines then that selling point is lost.
@@jgw9990Building nuke subs doesn't take that long. Build time for a Yasen is about 6 years, a Borei 5 years, and China can build 093s at 4 years each. The FIRST OF CLASS of any nuke sub is the one that takes forever to build, but subsequent copies and iterations take much less time to build. The current US issues with the Virginia-class being very delayed and slow to build are a reflection of the hollowing-out of the US shipbuilding industry, not a real metric of how long it actually takes to build subs. The exact same issues would crop up if the yards are told to build arsenal ships - or any other type of warship. The LCS catastrophe is a good indicator of how much fixing needs to be done in the US shipbuilding industry.
@@andrewsuryali8540 It's just a fact that building a nuclear submarine takes longer than a normal ship, I'm not sure why you'd even try and dispute that. The LCS are a very American failure. The military wanted a cheap basic ship. But everyone got hysterical about it not being powerful enough so added a load of stuff which made it too expensive. It should have been like a naval M113 APC, cheap as chips and providing basic capability.
Most beautiful ships IMHO were the Japanese WW2 era Takao class heavy cruisers. The Mogami class is also quite striking. They were both a nasty handful in combat.
Well, something has to follow onto fleet carriers and if the missile builders could ramp up production, it seems to me that the arsenal ship is a reasonable contender.
I just posted an idea that would make more sense blending the Idea with 2 dual rail guns in place of the old battleship's main guns and a mini verson of our land assault carriers in the aft. A well rounded multirole battleship sized warship built for independent and special ops away from the main fleet.
just another expensive toy the "defense" industry wants to conjure up to make more money on--china,russian tact nukes,missiles,rockets will take out all floating,flying,rolling targets in the first few hours of any real conflict--it is a pathetic joke
Surely the correct class designation for this wonderful ship is a Monitor. It looks fantastic, but in reality it would be vulnerable, and as previous posts suggest there are numerous platforms which perform this function.
A monitor is a heavy gunship designed for use in estuaries and close littoral areas, mostly a defensive ship to protect ports and estuaries from enemy incursion. They usually have a shallow draft and low freeboard to operate in shallow water and keep a low target profile, so are not stable in heavy seas.
I can see this concept used for nothing else but Air Defense with saturation attack being the dominate strategy being employed now, you could mix Sea Sparrow with SM 2 and SM6 to provide fleet-wide multi-layer defense with a very deep magazine and very rapid multi launch capability.
To further this thread, I could see the B-2 used as a missile truck (when airframes are retired). This would allow the F-35 sensor platform to coordinate a massive anti-air launch from a couple B-2 whose stealth capabilities, while not as good as the B-21 and future airframes should allow them to get well within strike range of all current near peer aircraft. What a surprise!😉
My favorite is the Georgis Averof. Closest thing there ever was to a one-ship navy that the Bismarck or Prince of Wales pretended to be. The arsenal ship isn't a bad concept, it just wasn't ripe for implementation back in the day. Cruise missiles were and still are expensive. Fast forward to today, a drone that costs less than a Honda Cub can blow up a tank or a building. I reckon the arsenal ships of the future will be much smaller, cheaper and be stocked with swarms and swarms of drones and you could vary their role from sea control to fire support just by changing the composition of the drones it carries.
I read about this concept in an edition of Naval Institute Proceedings magazine in the mid-90s. I thought it was really, really cool. Too bad it never became a reality. I think it could be a real asset.
Basically this is a modern version of the early 20th century monitor - which was a cheap, unarmoured ship equipped with battleship guns for shore bombardment.
Yes, this is the 21st century Monitor. However, with the advent of AI, the autonomous stealth "Monitor" fleet may make sense, (solar powered?) if we can build them cheap enough.
I followed the concepts of the USN in the 90s. Played “Harpoon” on PC, etc. We really screwed the pooch disarming the USN in the GWoT. Make no Mistake - that’s what we did. We need multi-role CG’s NOW instead of LCS’s. An Arsenal Ship honestly back then… was the way to go in retrospect.
The first mention of an arsenal ship was in a Syfy book 25 years ago. After the US was devastated in a world war and forced to defend the homeland from invasion, in order to do so it had to return to the sea. The concept was to build a few giant arsenal ships containing 100,000 intelligent missiles each that could overwhelm any naval fleet sent against the US. Easier to build several million missiles then hundreds of ships filled with a limited number of missiles each.
The "arsenal ship" concept has evolved, and currently refers to a number of potential configurations: a single, large hull that is equipped with 150-200 VLS cells; a strike group of destroyers/cruisers (each carrying 50-100 VLS cells) with integrated sensors that can share targeting and guidance data; or a strike group consisting a single C&C hull coordinating numerous semi-autonomous platforms with VLS. One of the more interesting proposals at MADEX 2023 was the Joint Strike Ship concept from the ROK navy- a single hull capable of launching a number of missile types, including an erector system that could fire large, ballistic missiles.
China’s Sejong the Great class destroyers already have enormous missile magazines. I think their capacity is a 128 weapons. Not sure if that includes quad-back ESSMs or not. Even the Ticos can’t carry that many weapons.
The PT boats of WWII have always been my favorite since I was a kid. I built a model of JFKs PT 50 years years ago with a small motor meant to go in the water, but not RC. They were just a cool concept, cool construction, and cool kill stats.
I think a ship like this could be useful in multiple roles. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture them launching swarms of drones or missiles. These ships could either be used for attack or to protect the rest of a fleet from attack. It isn't inconceivable that you could replace both DDG and CCG ships with a singular bombardment and escort-type battlecruiser. This thing alone could roll multiple surface elements of a naval task force into just one or two ships. Air defense, off-shore bombardment, and fleet attack, of course, were already mentioned. Or, imagine if you equipped these things with missile-launched torpedoes. They could serve in anti-submarine warfare. You could even conceivably develop something along the lines of a "point-defense" torpedo for intercepting incoming undersea attacks against the rest of the battle group. And if you made it modular you could have them equipped with any number of weapon combinations and swap them out at will. Hell, you could argue this ship would potentially be a task force all its own if outfitted with both offensive and defensive weapons. Or imagine lining the decks of these things with railguns. Talk about a modern-day battleship....
I mean, it sounds cool, especially to children, but it's basically just a giant target for submarines or one lucky missile hit. If just one of these ships goes down, that's possibly an entire year. minimum, of a missiles product run. It's far wise to spread these out across lots of smaller ships for redundancy and ability to fire from multiple locations.
I think this is basically what the Kirov class battlecruisers are. Well, kind of. They don't quite have 500 missiles, but IIRC they have close to 400 missiles in total of various kind. Anti-ship, cruise, AA missiles. And they also have some ASW capabilities and a gun system, CIWS, torpedoes etc. Basically, a large ship armed to the teeth with all kinds of weaponry. And I think that this is probably closer to how the "arsenal ship" would end up looking in reality. I doubt any navy would invest so much money to build a ship large enough to carry that many cruise missiles, but not give it other weaponry. It is a large investment, and you're putting it at risk with basically no defense against air, missile or underwater threats, but only offensive cruise missiles of its own. I think if such a ship was constructed they would at least put some CIWS and short range AA for self defense, as well as some ASW capabilities for defense. I understand that this ship wouldn't be intended to operate alone (most ships don't anyways), so it would be defended by other ships from the task force, but you would still want it to have some defenses of its own. I think the main reason why the Americans never built a ship as large as a Kirov is because it is very expensive and would be a much bigger loss if it was sunk. Having 2 or 3 smaller vessels for the same price gives you more flexibility, and even though they may have only similar amounts (or possibly less) weaponry in total compared to just just one Kirov, if one of these smaller vessels gets sunk it isn't such a huge loss. Obviously, the exception to this idea are ships such as carriers, which need to be big enough to accomodate the desired aircraft and their crew and weaponry and all that, similar to how the size of old-school battleships with guns in large part depended on the size of guns and the kind of armor you wanted to put on them.
My main favorites are usually older models like galleys, ships of sail, ironclads, pre-dreadnoughts etc. Though the USS Constitution has always been a favorite.
Gun to my head, the USS Texas is my favorite ship. There's just something about those chonky dreadnaughts I like more than the fast battleships that came later. I also love the story about her flooding one side so she could shoot further at Normandy. As for arsenal ships, the SSGNs they turned Ohio-class boomers into do the job better and are much more survivable. Stealth doesn't work for surface ships particularly well, and if the enemy is in range, so are you. There's also the problem that missiles aren't cheap, and you're putting most of them into a ship that can't defend itself. A SSGN can sneak into range without the enemy knowing it's there, unload in minutes, and then run for home. If it's attached to a task force, the destroyers and load up on SM-2 or 3s and quad SeaSparrows to upgrade their defensive capabilities and the sub can fill its tubes with Harpoons, Tomahawks, and NSMs. For supporting amphibious landings, I think the Navy would be better off building a monitor (in the early 20th century sense, not 19th). Put a twin 16 inch turret on something close to cruiser size. Yeah, two is less than the nine on Iowas, but I wouldn't trust modern American shipyards to get something that big right the first time they built something like it, and against shore targets that should be enough. RIP, Admiral Boorda. I'm not saying it was Arkancide, but there was a lot of that going around in the Clinton Administration.
Nobody’s making an opposed amphibious landing any time in the future near. Sensors and missiles have rendered these kinds of operations obsolete. I do agree with you about the modified Ohios. They’re an incredibly useful asset.
