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An arsenal ship is a ship which was proposed by the US Navy in 1996. It has since had funding problems, with Congress cancelling some funding, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) providing some funding to individual contractors for prototypes. The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ...
1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...
A congress is a gathering of people, especially a gathering for a political purpose. ...
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. ...
In concept, an arsenal ship is a floating missile platform, intended to have as many as five hundred vertical launch bays. 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. The VLS cells on board USS San Jacinto. ...
The Aegis combat system, named for the mythological aegis shield, is a United States Navy weapons system. ...
US Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft is prepared for flight in November 1997 Cockpit of RAF E-3 Sentry undergoing upgrades Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) is a radar-based electronic system designed to carry out airborne surveillance, and C3 (command, control and communications) functions for both...
The Grumman E-2 Hawkeye is the United States Navys all-weather, aircraft carrier-based tactical warning and control system aircraft. ...
The E-3 Sentry is an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft that provides all-weather surveillance, command, control and communications needed by commanders of U.S., NATO and other allied air defense forces. ...
Such a ship would be low-profile, stealthy, and double-hulled, 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. F-117 Stealth Fighter Stealth technology covers a range of techniques used with aircraft, ships and missiles, in order to make them less visible (ideally invisible) to radar and other detection methods. ...
Categories: Ticonderoga class cruisers | Ship classes | Stub ...
The Abraham Lincoln battle group during the 2000 RIMPAC exercises The carrier battle group (CVBG or CARBATGRU) or carrier strike group (CVSG) is a fleet of ships in support of an aircraft carrier. ...
The Tomahawk has a range in excess of one thousand kilometers. A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer) (symbol: km) is a unit of length equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words khilia = thousand and metro = count/measure). ...
The estimated cost of these ships is on the order of $500 Million each, with a roughly $500 Million cost for the armaments, which would include Tomahawk and other cruise missiles. The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ...
The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile with stubby wings. ...
A Tomahawk cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile which uses a lifting wing and most often a jet propulsion system to allow sustained flight. ...
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 servicable after such an attack. Vertical launch missile systems are highly vulnerable to shock damage, and it is likely that even a single weapon would damage almost the entire armament of the Arsenal Ship.
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. Yet the ability to place 500 warheads of some 1,000 lbs each onto enemy targets seems insufficient to accomplish this. This is most especially true as the cruise missiles carried by the Arsenal Ship are of limited value against tactical targets as it would be incapable of redirecting the missiles throughout their flight time. Given this limitation the Arsenal Ship would be capable only of targeting roads or bridges to slow an oncoming enemy; it would be completely unable to engage tanks, armoured personnel carriers or mobile artillery unless they chose to remain in position for hours on end.
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.
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