Arsenal Ships

Jeff Head said:

It was not to have the strongest defenses capable. It was simply recognized that it need to defend itself and was going to be equipped to do so.

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The Arsenal Ship has the potential to provide substantial fire support to a variety of missions in regional conflicts without the logistics burden of transporting both delivery systems and ammunition to the shore and forward areas. The Arsenal Ship is expected to carry a large number of VLS cells but without the sophisticated command and control and radar equipment found on Aegis-equipped ships.

The ships would be theater assets that will operate under the authority of the joint Commanders-In-Chief (CINCs) and receive their targeting along with command and decision information from other assets. This ship will rely on other military assets, including surface combatants, to provide the targeting information and connectivity necessary to launch its weapons. The Arsenal Ship would server as the magazine for a distributed sensor network. A unique aspect to the Arsenal Ship is that all the command and decision functions would be made off board.
Thus, the Arsenal Ship will not be fitted with long range surveillance or fire control sensors, but will be remotely controlled via robust data links. The data links will be secure, redundant and anti-jam in order to provide high reliability in the connectivity of the Arsenal Ships in high jamming operational scenarios. The overall program is an attempt to leverage the significant joint investment in Link 16 and CEC. Early in arsenal ship's life this control will be exercised through an Aegis platform. As the theater connectivity matures, the Arsenal Ship would accommodate a more robust set of controls from a wide variety of sources that would include JSTARS aircraft, AWACS or an E-2 with Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) and, a soldier or a Marine on the ground or a command post ashore. This concept allows for remote missile selection, on-board missile initialization and remote launch orders, and provides remote "missile away" messages to the control platform.

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Solaris said:

Right, it went from completely defenseless container ship to a mil-std military vessel with passive defensive measures and CIWS.

Here is the FAS article again, with highlights:


Source:

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Jeff Head said:

As I cautioned you earlier, internet lookup is not necessarily a fully documented or accurate source to base end presumptions on.

FAS has some very good documentation on many issues...but it does not have all of the documentation available, or what was actually considered during the studies.

As I have stated, if they had been built, the intent was to not fit them with the extent of sensors contained in AEGIS, but there were, in addition to the ship borne sensors for the CIWS, going to be necessary sensors on these ships to allow them to use their own weapons to defend themselves against air or surface attack.

They would also have been fully capable of being "handed over" to AEGIS, AWACS and other systems to be used in a CE mode.

I am now repeating this for the third time.

You can knock yourself out using your internet skills to refute those statements all you wish But what I have said is nonetheless true.

In the end, years ago, events caught up with the concept and they were never built...so in the end, it is also now a moot point.

I will throw another little gem at you that I have personal knowledge of. If the LPD II hulls are ever transformed into the BMD vessels envisioned, they too will have the innate ability and sensors to defend themselves against air and surface attack...but in their case, they will have the most powerful AEGIS type sensors available too.

Have a good evening Sol.

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Solaris said:

We will have to agree to disagree on the degree of sensor placement on the notional arsenal ships.

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Solaris said:

The LPD II ships have drawings already drawn and models already built, and they show gigantic AESA radars on the deckhouses. This is a dramatically different concept from an arsenal ship, as it is intended to be a frontline combatant specializing in the role of BMD fully capable of prosecuting attacks on ballistic missiles on its own. It has none of the dependency that an arsenal ship would have had for external cueing. This is another beast entirely.

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