The 'Arsenal Ship' Floating Missile Platform Overview | GIANT MISSILE BATTLESHIPS! 🚀⚓

[@_Matsimus_]

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!

[@_Matsimus_]

I will start lol.............HMS VICTORY BABY!!!!! HUSSSAAHHHH!

[@Generik97]

Favorite warship of all time? HMS Surprise ;)

[@archmageofmetal8883]

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.

[@laughingowl7896]

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.

[@reachdefender1]

USS Iowa and Imperial Japanese Battleship Yamato coming in 2nd with the Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyers for a overall general choice.

[@codedlogic]

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.

[@서부_전선]

that's more expensive than an arsenal ship

[@seppelnachsteiger6151]

Is the Ohio class capable of theatre air or missile defence?

[@t8z5h3]

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

[@jgw9990]

A submarine also costs about 20 times as much.

[@jgw9990]

@@Nihghtbot 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.

[@schlirf]

The Arsenal ship was an interesting concept back in 1982, but even then we believed it would make an excellent hard target for enemy subs.

[@richardsuggs8108]

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.

[@Badjujubee]

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.

[@mrvwbug4423]

It would operate in a CVBG so would have a ring of ASW destroyers and aircraft to protect it

[@advanceaustralia3513]

Which submarines? Only the USN and RN have attack submarines that aren’t easily detected.

[@schlirf]

@@advanceaustralia3513 That we know about, dude.

[@videoviewer2008]

Multiple smaller ships holding 100 missiles each would be much more flexible and have better redundancy.

[@dwwolf4636]

Yep, the Dutch navy is exploring such a concept based on a commercial utility vessel.

[@Di3Leberwurst]

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.

[@casbot71]

​@@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.....

[@TheMoukis]

I would even argue less, 64 VLS cells with no helipad. Just some guns for AA defense and a single 75mm gun.

[@Pilvenuga]

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

[@mikeb.5039]

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.

[@steveyoutub76]

Where is rhe problem to defend this ship, install this and ready

[@matthewnovak3095]

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.

[@jgw9990]

​@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.

[@KCEL-i1i]

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.

[@constantinethecataphract5949]

Why ? It's better to put those in a submarine.

[@KCEL-i1i]

@@constantinethecataphract5949 Koreans also want SSBNs, but the US government does not allow them.

[@Gentleman...Driver]

@@KCEL-i1i 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...

[@thebravegallade731]

​@@constantinethecataphract5949 Its mostly an issue of not having enough space for land silos anymore.

[@thatginger8897]

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.

[@CaptRR]

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.

[@BeKindToBirds]

What about multiple arsenal ships.

[@jvbutalid8316]

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

[@BeKindToBirds]

@@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.

[@jvbutalid8316]

@@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

[@BeKindToBirds]

@@jvbutalid8316 I think the number of vls cells on ships is advancing in line with a trend towards arsenal-type vessels.

[@keirangray902]

Looks like a boss from Ace Combat

[@MrAsh1100]

I can hear the "Salvation" already

[@michaelusswisconsin6002]

Why is the water speaking Latin?

[@BravoCheesecake]

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.

[@hnhgnjj6078]

Yeah but you could make the crew very small which offsets the price and reduces the chance of human error

[@DERP_Squad]

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.

[@samoldfield5220]

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.

[@sonnyshaw3962]

How would you replenish this monster after it shot it wad? I don't know the more I think about it the more questions come to mind.

[@BravoCheesecake]

@@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

[@dancasey9660]

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.

[@powdemonic7121]

How about cargo ship disposable cheap and easy to fit and get

[@wanderer10k]

@@powdemonic7121exactly and just use networked ships to do the fire control.

[@tonylam9548]

A big juicy target.

[@markeh1971]

Hi, a carrier or LHD might be an easier refit. They offer better structures and inbuilt military spec systems. Take care all M

[@jonathan-6513]

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.

[@gardnert1]

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.

[@mtsky-tc6uw]

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

[@MWR-lg9qp]

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.

[@jeffreygunter417]

It came to soon, an early Missle boat the digital control system was not reliable enough…

[@TheBaCoNzzzz]

Jealous of this, though I wouldn’t call it beautiful 😂. I served on a CG recently and enjoyed the platform.

[@55Reever]

A one function ship. Very vulnerable.

[@randyross5630]

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!!!

[@mastathrash5609]

And stop building the LCS as well and meltdown anything half finished for the metal to build something like an Arsenal ship or two.

[@shaider1982]

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.

[@Sirilere]

"Battle cruisers" were a thing once.

[@johnsilver9338]

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.

[@unknown14191]

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).

[@Milo_1368]

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

[@mtsky-tc6uw]

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

[@trob1173]

If there was one battleship that should have been kept after WW 2, the USS Washington was it.

[@AlessandroRodriguez]

When you use the "Macross Missile Massacre Trope" as a strategic development plan...

[@mr-huggy]

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.

[@mtsky-tc6uw]

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

[@markeh1971]

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.

[@northerncaptain855]

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.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Not a lot to go wrong with a tube though. You'd only need a crew of about 150.

[@PeachDragon_]

Small crews are good for easily replaceable attrition assets, not for something as expensive, powerful and specialized as this

[@Grehmdel]

We have arsenals "ships" our SSGNs: Guided Missile Submarines. My favorite ship is the America-class amphibious assault ship. Semper Fi.

[@dwwolf4636]

Costly for the VLS numbers it provides...

[@volvo245]

Hava nagila to you too, ZOGbot.

[@ronjones9447]

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

[@brucegoodwin634]

It's great to have you back, Matsimus! Super insight.

[@_Matsimus_]

I have no been anywhere lol KZbin just hates me and never shares my stuff haha

[@brucegoodwin634]

@@_Matsimus_ damn! That’s uncool! I’ve enjoyed your previous content! Keep plugging/respect!

[@Shatterwings060]

Missile madness taken to its next logical step.

[@VunderGuy]

Why call it madness when the missile is literally the primary weapon on the seas even for carriers?

[@Shatterwings060]

@@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.

[@dennisleighton2812]

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!

[@mtsky-tc6uw]

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

[@TheShrike616]

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.

[@RouGeZH]

René Levasseur is a 18th century naval engineer. You think of René Loire, the designer of the "Frappeur" (striker) arsenal ship.

[@TheShrike616]

@@RouGeZH true

[@christopherwang4392]

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.

[@donchaput8278]

I like the idea of a modern shore bombardment and missile ship hybrid. A couple auto-loading 16" guns and a whole bunch of missiles.

[@samoldfield5220]

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.

[@silverbladeTE]

@@samoldfield5220 Large calibre gun barrels last for tens of thousands of rounds now, due to use of additives and wraps to powder charges :)

[@solarissv777]

@@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.

[@vulpinemac]

@@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.

[@donchaput8278]

@@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.

[@Cdr_Mansfield_Cumming]

The missiles ship is old. There was several that were used in WWII, for the Salerno and then Normandy landings. Although nothing like the version in the jpg for the video. First thought up by John Thornicroft, who envisioned a warship that was used mainly as a “rocket” carrier. However, due to issues with dangers in open sea should a U-Boat hit it with a torpedo and destroying the craft in one hit, the end result was British Mk.2 and Mk.3 Landing Craft Tank. It was designed to saturate beaches and sites in land with 1000+ rockets saturating an area as far in land as 24 miles. Due to the toxicity of the propellant, the LCT needed to be connected to a second platform at a safe distance for the personnel to fire the rockets. The images of 1000+ rockets being fired remotely show an immense volume of rockets being fired by these systems at Normandy beaches, just prior to the first troops landing.

[@archmageofmetal8883]

Ah a new Matsimus video. Just in time for my birthday tomorrow. Must be my lucky day.

[@_Matsimus_]

HAVE A GOOD BDAY TOMORROW! 🙂

[@jgarciamarquezyou]

Santísima Trinidad. Arsenal ship of the time

[@sebastianriemer1777]

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. 😁

[@obchristo]

If it's for strike missions, Rapid Dragon makes more sense. 12 C 17s (Less than 20% of current USAF airframes) with the ability to deploy 540 missiles compared to a 500+ cell Arsenal Ship have greater versatility, flexibility and survivability. Plus they can RTB, reload and strike again much faster. That also allows existing USN Hulls to focus their load out on the Anti-Air mission.

[@therocinante3443]

Duuuude i hope these come into existence

[@mrjmorovis]

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.

[@EnigmaHood]

I've heard of the term "Arsenal ship" being used to describe a large aircraft (could be a modified bomber air plane or even a hybrid airship) that is outfitted with a ton of missiles, e.g. air launched ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, air to air missiles, air to ground missiles. A surface arsenal ship is an interesting idea, but honestly if any country would gain a significant advantage in building one, it would be China, not US. The general problem with missiles is that they are expensive, so they're primarily good at destroying high value targets, but aren't cost effective at destroying low value targets, i.e. shore bombardment. America currently doesn't have a good option for shore bombardment/fire support anymore after the battleship was retired. The railgun was supposed to be the solution to this problem, but the military funding for the railgun was cut after many years of development.

[@samoldfield5220]

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.

[@VunderGuy]

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!

[@samoldfield5220]

@@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!

[@grahamstrouse1165]

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.

[@davidm3118]

Gosh this idea has been around for years - I remember reading a piece on the Arsenal concept in "Proceedings" back in the 1990s..

[@dennisleighton2812]

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.

[@shubhanshushrivastava3471]

That's a Battlecruiser.

[@VechsDavion]

Yeah nah, 1700 missiles in one ship? 1000? No way, that was a foolish idea even back in the 1980's, they had to know such a thing would just be a massive target. We see the Navy and the Marines both wanted to disperse their force structure into smaller, lighter, units that are less attractive targets for the enemy to strike. The Navy wants, and rightly so, to shove missiles on cheap cargo aircraft on palettes and on cheap off-the-shelf cargo ships, probably manned remotely.

[@2bittesla]

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.

[@timtrewyn453]

Good thinking.

[@mrsmegz]

Rapid Dragon on a boat.

[@kevinbryer2425]

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.

[@SGTvolcan]

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.

[@mrvwbug4423]

That's what the LCS was supposed to be and we saw how that turned out

[@daniels0376]

Everybody's brains are exploding about drones but you launch them against America or China and they will have gigantic EW jammers/hackers aswell as lasers that will make a thousand small, low flying loitering drones fall out of the sky like flies. But what you cannot jam is a missile. The only drones that cannot be jammed are those who are 100% intertially guided and those who have a wire coming out of them like a TOW missile.

[@gonebabygone4116]

The Ohio class SSGNs have brought this concept to life - 154 VLS tubes, and none of the hazards a surface ship faces. The Virginia class block V will have the default 12 VLS tubes plus four of the Trident sized silos in the optional Virginia Payload Module, for a total of 40 VLS. The Columbia class SSBN will have 16 Trident silos so we could in theory create 112 VLS tube SSGNs to replace the retiring Ohio class.

[@bryanshoemaker6120]

About time. I was thinking of that concept for the nearly 20 years ago.

[@mrvwbug4423]

Going forward, some type of massive missile ship seems like the way to go, maybe a battlecruiser that carries a few hundred VLS cells, but only needs the same crew as a destroyer. The USN has traditionally been overmanned and underautomated, but they can't sustain that going forward as demographic shifts will keep reducing recruitment numbers. The previous approach would've been "why build a battlecruiser when you can build 4 destroyers for the same price", now they would struggle to find crew with a fleet expansion like that, the new approach needs to be "how can we maximize our firepower with the existing number of sailors we have"

[@whitepony8443]

Also HMS Victory but I do love HMS Warspite as well.

[@Guangrui]

[@Lndmk227]

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....

[@laughingowl7896]

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.

[@stevengrant8668]

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]

A semi-submersible might be doable. Nobody’s building an unmanned warship any time this century.

[@laughingowl7896]

@@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.

[@erasmus_locke]

Panamax ships top out at a Length of 366 m and a Beam of 51.25 m. If we assume each VLS cells needs 1m² and the usable deck area is 350x45 that gives us 15,750 missiles. We could easily create a concrete barge that could be towed anywhere wee need it that does the job of the the "missile battleship"

[@paleoph6168]

This is what inspired Arsenal Gear in MGS2.

[@VunderGuy]

Just like Kojima. Taking really awesome concepts that already exist and making them lame. XD

[@weissmorris8822]

The US Navy is now working on unmanned arsenal ships that would be attached to the carrier group since it would not be able to defend itself. The idea is they can be built fairly cheaply and loaded up with any kind of a variety of air defense missiles or land attack missiles, etc. The idea of an arsenal ship certainly is not new, but making it an unmanned surface vehicle certainly is new. (I might add the B-52 today is an arsenal ship for the Air Force. It has a radar cross-section of a barn door, so it will stay back a couple hundred miles and unload it missiles being directed by an F 35 or some other craft.)

[@shaider1982]

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).

[@orbiradio2465]

An additional section with an 64 cell VLS added to an Arleigh Burke destroyer or a Tico would not have required any additional crew.

[@robinwhitebeam4386]

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 ?

[@ViolentCabbage-ym7ko]

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.

[@randallpetroelje3913]

An absolute beautiful war machine❤

[@johnsmith91528]

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

[@서부_전선]

the merit of an arsenal ship is its large payload at a cheaper price than a destroyer. Submarines are expensive.

[@samuelgibson780]

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.

[@rtbdmd]

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?

[@Hunter-we8ve]

The aircraft carrier is the modern arsenal ship. Two squadrons (16) of F-35's can carry 128 stormbreaker 250 ib glide bombs in their internal weapons bays. then you also got F-18's in the back carrying 2 JASSM's each or equipped with HARM anti radiation missiles. Very quickly, the firepower of an American Super Carrier is able to approach that of an Arsenal ship. The difference is that with a carrier, you could reload those planes and do it all over again the next day, and the next, and the next.

[@DEADB33F]

Can't wait to hear about the Man U ship.

[@scottharper9645]

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.

[@mikehurst8223]

@scottharper9645 can you please mention the name of the book

[@theromanorder]

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...

[@donteh58]

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.

[@apokalipsx25]

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.

[@DERP_Squad]

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.

[@jamesferguson5279]

Just for the record, the ship depicted is the concept Metcalf cruiser, pictured on the cover of Popular Mechanics magazine. The idea was to maximise missile capacity, however while it did not carry a gun, it did have helicopter's and phased array radar, giving it both an ASW and air defence capability. As for the ordinance ship, much like the Zumwalt class is unnecessary since the US Navy has excess ground suoport capability. What the US Navy lacks is a strong maritime capability, which is now being addressed, howver in my opinion what the Navy needs is more submarine, not arsenal ships.

[@robertalaverdov8147]

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.

[@christophero55]

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.

[@mrspeigle1]

Patrolling is for frigates.

[@DERP_Squad]

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.

[@jmjones7897]

​@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

[@soumyajyotimukherjee4752]

Thanks for doing this video. I love the Arsenal Ship

[@minhmeo9506]

As far as I know, South Korea is the first country to start building a real Arsenal ship. Will this open up a new Dreadnought race?

[@SnowmanTF2]

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.

[@andrewmcalister3462]

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.

[@jgw9990]

​@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.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

​@@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.

[@jgw9990]

@@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.

[@sonnyshaw3962]

I think it is a concept worth investigating. They could use and old Iowa Class Battleship or a retired Aircraft Carrier and build a prototype to test and evaluate the concept and it operations and what real kind of crew it may require to keep it operating. A lot of things fail or break on ships and need immediate serving to keep it operational. There must be a lot of data on that with the surface vessels of the past and what we have now. The other consideration is survivability; surface ships have defensive capabilities and I'm sure this floating missile platform if incorporated into our Navy will it be able to do the same.

[@Generik97]

The Arsenal ship is the 21st century equivalent of a Dreadnaught/Battleship. I wish Canada would build one, even just a small one.

[@mastathrash5609]

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.

[@elliotyourarobot]

Do you remember what happened to the Dreadnought?

[@elliotyourarobot]

How about that money go towards domestic spending instead.

[@Generik97]

@@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.

[@Generik97]

@@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.

[@sec808]

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)

[@Hey_MikeZeroEcho22P]

THERE is a 1/700 scale "Arsenal Ship".... from 'Blue Ridge Models'.... I have one, it is referred to as the .... USS ARIZONA BB-72.... It looks like a battleship lower hull, up to the Main Deck, with several VLS platforms on the forward and rear portions of the hull, with NO superstructure EXCEPT for the large pyramid in the middle of the ship. There is an area for landing "helos"/drones and a couple of stealthy looking guns. But " I " plan on trying to build out a laser defense up on the top for any DF-21 attacks........ BUT...as far as MY FAVORITE warship would be a .... submarine......stealthy, silent, and a SURE Killer!!!! And I'm a USN Veteran served for 20+ years on FF/FFGs chasing these guys!!

[@oldsarj]

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.

[@charlesmaurer6214]

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.

[@mtsky-tc6uw]

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

[@warhammer8867]

I think that Arsenal Ship can existed in Spaceships, they could fight in long distance, needed less radiation shielding, no needed on life support, can use high g-force maneuver without harming the crew, highly armed weapon platform that can be send on long distance conflict without personnel casualties.

[@elliotyourarobot]

An expensive target for sure.

[@videoviewer2008]

500 missiles x 11 million per SM3. Only 5.5 billion I guess.

[@gerrya4818]

expensive to sink it,youd need a billion$ worth of missiles

[@elliotyourarobot]

@@gerrya4818 no you don't.

[@elliotyourarobot]

@videoviewer2008 So what's the real cost of these things minus the kickbacks?

[@shaun469]

​@@gerrya48183 or 4 captor mines and its done.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

The fundamental problem with the arsenal ship (aside from poor survivability) is the cost of the ammo. Our cheapest VLS launched missiles right now cost about a million dollars per fire.

[@MichaelBailey-y1d]

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.

[@mrvwbug4423]

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.

[@1977Yakko]

The Zumwalt class might be redeemed as a class once their modification to be hypersonic missile platforms is complete. It's roughly the size of a cruise but is as lightly armored as a destroyer. I don't know if heavy ship armor will ever make a comeback as some antiship missiles are so large that to armor a ship against such weapons would be weight prohibitive. Naval designs seems to be somewhat stagnant. We still use 5" guns and it's just plate steel and compartmentalization for armor. I don't think anything like the layered armor that tanks use is viable or it would've been tried I assume.

[@khoipham8303]

If I recall correctly, the projected cost (inflation added) of the Arsenal ship might not have exceeded the total cost of each full missile load. It's reasonable to divert resources to self-sufficient warships such as Arleigh Burkes or Ohios, where they can be used for various other roles like maritime patrol, reconnaissance, anti-submarine, etc. without relying on an escort with sensors & targeting equipment. However, the Arsenal ship might still be the right step for naval development, with a few design changes of course.

[@garywheble4534]

The crewing of the Arsonal ship is its biggest problem as proved in the Latoreal ships like the Freedom class . There reduced number of crew led over time to the lack of maintenance . It was OK when based in home ports where land based support teams could help the crew do basic ship maintenance, but when on station maintenance over a period of time collapsed, they did not have enough crew to keep the outside Hull painted , some returned from station looking like they would fall appart if they bumped the Dock. The Navy would have to think very hard on how the Arsonal ships were kept , personally I could see it work if they had permanent bases like Norfolk san Diego and Hawaii, ships could be sent on attachments to fleets as needed but return to home ports for ships maintenance. But to do this then the ships must have acses to specify dry Docks and sheds posibly two such facility at each home port to turn around th Arsonal ships as quickly as possible . All this adds to the cost of the system

[@burnerjack01]

Smaller, autonomous subsurface versions may prove a viable area denial and force multiplier weapon platform.

[@thamiordragonheart8682]

I think the main problem with having 500 VLS cells on one ship is that at about $2mil per missile, filling all 50 VLS cells costs $1 billion. if you want a cheap artillery ship, just design something that can launch standard army rocket artillery since that's WAY cheaper and we have lots of it.

[@vulpinemac]

I could see the arsenal ship as a completely different animal... more centered around fleet defense rather than pure offense. If you ever look, all the other warships are almost pure offense with remarkably limited defensive capabilities, with limited numbers of SAMs, C-whiz, and other surface-to-air assets. Especially in this day of missiles, anti-ship missiles are fast, hard to detect and typically hard to shoot down. You essentially have to create a kinetic defensive wall around the fleet that almost guarantees at least one hit each on the attacking missiles... which means a WHOLE lot of ammo getting expended in a very short amount of time. A defensive arsenal ship would be far superior for the purpose with its ability to both support the fleet's anti-air and anti-submarine weaponry (still controlled by command craft) plus serve as a replenishment ship for offensive weapons. The lack of active sensors and 'stealth' design would mean it's less likely to get targeted at range while also able to launch/fire in multiple directions rather than getting tunnel vision on a single target. Each ship in the task force would act as the eyes and ears for it, allowing for more effective all-around cover fire than any one combat ship alone with its limited ammunition.

[@MichaelK.-xl2qk]

The proper way to do the arsenal ship is much smaller than the one depicted here. It needs to be a "loyal wingman drone" for a destroyer, allowing operational replenishment under way and under fire. Hence it should be smaller and quite stealthy, as well as optionally manned, as well as inexpensive and numerous. Essentially a high speed barge carrying VLS and containerized replenishment, without organic fire controls which would come under the control of a destroyer. Distributed lethality is more effective than putting all ones eggs in one basket. And there should be two for each Royal Navy destroyer to keep them in rotation..

[@DreadX10]

While bored on patrol, we toyed with this concept but we approached it as a towed trailer. Just like a truck would tow a hitched trailer when it needed to haul more cargo. This way the trailer didn't need the range to keep up with the DD on patrol and the tow-line would double as communication-line to prevent spoofing or other EW. We also prioritized a swimming-pool and several bars because that seemed important for crew R&R. Too bad I no longer have the photo-shopped images that were the fruit of our labour.

[@koyamamoto5933]

I have liked this concept since it was discussed in public decades ago. However, reality & time probably passed this by. Today, a combination of SSGNs for stealth & Rapid Dragon for speed seem to better fit the "arsenal" concept goals.

[@Gong030]

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.

[@youcantata]

I suggest submersible arsenal ship, half-surface ship/half-submarine. It can dive up to depth of just 30 m (periscope depth = 18 m) and stay underwater just for few hours or up to a day. No underwater torpedo launcher. So it is not a normal submarine. Radar targeting and anti-air anti-ship defense capability are provided by accompanying AEGIS destroyer. So submersible arsenal ship can be built cheaper than frigates or corvette ship. It submerges underwater only to avoid enemy radar or visual/satellite detection for a short time near enemy shore. But it can surface quickly and fire missiles and 155 howitzer while on surface and submerge again quickly. It is kind of a stealth hit-and-run ship or self-propelled howitzer ship on the sea. Displacement is about 5,000 ton. Equipped with 50-100 VLS cells, and 1 155mm naval gun, CIWS close defense systems, and minimal electronic counter measures.

[@thomasromanelli2561]

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.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

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.

[@MaxCroat]

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.

[@timbrwolf1121]

I've been tossing around a modification of this idea. On a different hull with a different secondary and tertiary purpose. Basically due to the threat of chinese missiles. Mathematically speaking, the most effective way to reduce the risk of carrier destruction. Is to "double" the number of carriers. If we had a *decoy* carrier ghosting every carrier. Then we would have a multitude of options opened to us, but firstly it would reduce the risk of carrier destruction by 50%. From there the benefits include a hull for the arsenal ship, a drone carrier, warehousing, as well as an emergency landing deck. Not only would it improve the ISR capabilities of the fleet by increasing drone counts. It would likely double the number of missile tubes in a CSG. While also increasing reserve supplies and allowing the CSG to remain deployed longer if needed.

[@therealfearsome]

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.

[@scottfarland6795]

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!😉

[@stevehensonuk]

There's a great book called 'Invasion' by Eric L Harry - these things come up in that. If memory serves these are basically converted oil tankers. Interesting

[@jonathanryan9946]

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.

[@vinylpuma1]

Favorite ship: Arleigh Burke DDG's. Best and worst days of my life spent on one. Having done comms on a DDG I can tell you that crew target was a pipedream thought up by someone who never stood watch. Try adding at least triple everyone below an officer rank and then maybe we'll get a nap every day before going back on watch and maintaining the ship. Those FC's and now GM's to take care of the ordinance, probably quadruple them. Also, you can take the sensor platforms off the ship... but you're going to pay for that in needing very robust data link capability for anything other than a land attack mission where data would be loaded into the missiles. Realistically these could have either supplanted a carrier in a surface group in some missions (like strike); or complimented the carrier's escorts in most others (giant SM2/ESSM magazine). It unfortunately is too unwieldy in a modern fight as it is just that giant magazine. And I can promise you this idea of just abandoning ship if it entered contested waters would have never flown past the office it came out of. Too much money dumped into the hull alone, never mind the munitions.

[@nadermansour7487]

I remember reading in a C.B. Colby book (anyone remember those?) in my elementary school library about a hovercraft or smaller ship the US Navy had which just had early missiles or rockets for shore bombardment.

[@ZaphodHarkonnen]

As noted the biggest problem for it really comes down to the cost of filling it up. When you already have more cells in the fleet than things to shoot from them. Does it really make that much sense to have something that is nothing but cells? If the cost of such munitions was brought down enough and their production able to be sped up, then something like this may make sense. In the meantime it's easier to simply slap more cells on existing ships.

[@rokuth]

The RN WW2 Battleship, HMS Rodney. I have 2 reasons for this: 1) She was instrumental in the sinking of the Bismarck 2) It is my name.

[@hisdudeness8328]

Honestly, it’s looking more and more likely that a future super ship would have to be some sort of advanced drone carrier ship. Drones are quickly proving to be highly cost effective for strikes within a two hundred mile radius, and once a new, cheap design is created, a thousand could be created for the cost of one cruise missile.

[@PapaOscarNovember]

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.

[@rolffigueiredo3786]

As one of my learned colleagues has mentioned the Ohio Class submarines, which each cost 17.5 Billion Dollars, I believe that this project should also have been given a chance. The Zumwalt class was not a total failure, I’ll stretch my neck, my own thoughts was that this ship was being built to fire maybe a Rail gun , or Cyber / Drone defence. Even though certain technologies haven’t been thought thru, the amalgamation of several ideas might prove to become extremely important.

[@BlackHawk264]

Losing an arsenal ship would be a huge loss. Better to have lots of smaller ships with fewer weapons so losing one ship doesn't mean you lose a huge chunk of your long range fires.

[@namyun2743]

Arsenal ships as depicted here is a drastic case of "all your eggs in one basket" Especially if your arsenal ships are meant to be expendable as many of these concepts appear to be. A ship whose munitions can cost 10x the cost of the ship is ridiculous. The current navy project of un/optionally manned drone ships with a few VLS silos makes a lot more sense to use as expendable assets; Cheap hulls with enough sensors to get around, enough speed to keep up with the fleet, a robust satellite capable datalink, and 4-16 VLS silos to take everything from an ESSM to an LRASM. Build them by the hundreds, and link them into the fleet's AEGIS system as a mobile, remote, weapons system the DDs, subs, and carriers can call upon as additional firepower nodes. If the automation and AI isn't up to snuff, build a small crewed ship based on an existing or modifiable hull that can meet the specs above. Give it some defensive armaments and basic air-search radar. Basically, bring back the Corvette ship type.

[@jamesoldham9995]

I actually had an idea for this quite some years ago. Basically just a small aircraft carrier, but the whole flat deck is just missile cells.

[@keithmoore5306]

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!!