Arsenal Ships

[StobieWan]

I can't see anyone wanting to man those ships. I'm imagining the pitch:
"These Q ships will be cheap and expendable"
"What about the crew"
"..."

I'm being whimsical but you get my drift. I suspect you'd see some mission creep and spec-drift. Start off with a cheap hull, take a VLCC, ballast with sea water and you're getting into something actually quite hard to sink. Add in VLS, CEC links, plus the cost of the missiles. Then someone asks what happens if they get set on by a Boghammer.

So, some 30mm gets added plus some extra personnel.

Then someone suggests as you've got the missiles, why not have at least a basic frigate radar. Plus CMS. Seems sensible, let's do that.

And countermeasures, I mean, why not ?

That goes on for several planning rounds until you've a crew of sixty plus from the original 15 for a VLCC, plus maybe a makeshift helipad for vert rep, and you've got a few hundred million in sensors, countermeasures,maybe a RAM mount.

They'd never fly as a Q ship with no visible weapon systems - can you imagine the furore the first time one gets hijacked by a Somali pirate gang with AK's ?

I'm not a fan, put it that way.

 

[swerve]

The central problems with all ideas of putting containerized weapon systems on various merchant ships as a counter against the Chinese is that:
a) the Chinese own most of these merchant ships
b) the merchant mariners-mostly neutral country citizens-are extremely unlikely to be willing to crew vessels that are armed (which also ignores lots of flag issues and legal problems about putting weapons on merchant ships).

Heck, I doubt even US civilian mariners would be willing to be on the new Q-ships.

In terms of registered tonnage, China has the 8th largest merchant shipping fleet in the world, a bit under 4% of the world total. That doesn't include Hong Kong, which is 3rd, with twice as much. Combined they're 3rd with 11%. China also has the 3rd biggest merchant fleet by ownership, after Greece & Japan.

So, the Chinese don't "own most of these merchant ships". A lot, but nowhere near most.

 

[CB90]

I've come around a bit on Arsenal Ships lately.

The conventional wisdom around the typical arsenal ship (large floating missile battery) is valid. Putting all your eggs into a vulnerable basket isn't smart.

The new Arsenal Ship concept around USVs, on the other hand, I am a lot more comfortable with.
Distributing that investment and risk across a number of USVs with a single VLS module or two is much more palatable.

And using unmanned platforms as the shooter enables you to attempt to design in passive defense measures that simply would not be viable with a manned platform (eg. absurdly low, near semi submersible, freeboard).

We're not near ready to make it work now, but with near term advancements in AI systems and integrated fire control networks, it's probably worth keeping an eye, and open mind, on.

 

[JohnWolf]

An interesting thread, but I got a little lost in places.

My frame of reference; I spent most of 1985 on the USS Peleliu, a Tarawa-class ship that had many interesting features.
It had the well-deck large enough for 5 landing craft, the flight deck & hangar for (on that trip) 3 x Huey, 4 x Cobra gunships, 4 x CH-53 and 10 x CH-46 Helicopters.
Also aboard was the Weapons Company for the Battalion, part of another Company, a Force Recon group of 52 men, snipers, a FAAD Battery with 8 x Stingers, and the heavy stuff; 6 x M-60 tanks plus 6 x towed 155mm guns, along with many trucks and jeeps.

I have heard about what the capacity was, but this is what was actually embarked that year.

The combination of Well-deck and Flight Deck were somewhat novel at that time, but what really caught my eye was the addition of the ship's weapon systems; there were 3 x 127mm guns, 2 x octuple Sea Sparrow launchers, and 6 x 20mm guns along the rails.
So, this one ship had the means to land both heavy and light units by sea and by air at the same time, and it also had a limited means to protect itself and lend fire support to the troops on shore.

Is this close to what you are talking about here?

(and when I say "limited", I don't just mean that only 2 of the guns could be pointed at the same shore. One night there was a fire exercise that had to be canceled becuse the rounds were falling on the wrong island!)

 

[Redlands18]

An interesting thread, but I got a little lost in places.

My frame of reference; I spent most of 1985 on the USS Peleliu, a Tarawa-class ship that had many interesting features.
It had the well-deck large enough for 5 landing craft, the flight deck & hangar for (on that trip) 3 x Huey, 4 x Cobra gunships, 4 x CH-53 and 10 x CH-46 Helicopters.
Also aboard was the Weapons Company for the Battalion, part of another Company, a Force Recon group of 52 men, snipers, a FAAD Battery with 8 x Stingers, and the heavy stuff; 6 x M-60 tanks plus 6 x towed 155mm guns, along with many trucks and jeeps.

I have heard about what the capacity was, but this is what was actually embarked that year.

The combination of Well-deck and Flight Deck were somewhat novel at that time, but what really caught my eye was the addition of the ship's weapon systems; there were 3 x 127mm guns, 2 x octuple Sea Sparrow launchers, and 6 x 20mm guns along the rails.
So, this one ship had the means to land both heavy and light units by sea and by air at the same time, and it also had a limited means to protect itself and lend fire support to the troops on shore.

Is this close to what you are talking about here?

(and when I say "limited", I don't just mean that only 2 of the guns could be pointed at the same shore. One night there was a fire exercise that had to be canceled becuse the rounds were falling on the wrong island!)

An Arsenal Ship is one that is basically all VLS Cells and maybe a couple of Medium Guns, mainly for the Land Attack role, with very limited Self Defence, no Area AD capability, no ASW capability, maybe a Helicopter landing Pad but no Hangar. Probably the closest we have to one today is the 4 converted Ohio class SSGNs and the Zumwalts. Imagine a Ship the size of a Burke with 250 VLS Cells.
As you could probably imagine such a Vessel would have both Huge Pros and Cons, you could do a hell of a lot of damage with one but it would have to have a very strong Escort and it would cost $1b+ today to fill those VLS, losing one before it’s in position becomes very expensive,
The USN instead is going down the path of distributed Firepower across the Fleet.

 

[JohnWolf]

An Arsenal Ship is one that is basically all VLS Cells and maybe a couple of Medium Guns, mainly for the Land Attack role, with very limited Self Defence, no Area AD capability, no ASW capability, maybe a Helicopter landing Pad but no Hangar. Probably the closest we have to one today is the 4 converted Ohio class SSGNs and the Zumwalts.....

Ugh....
Yeah, the Zumwalts, ended up being like the pipe-dream of the damned.

There was also the 203mm Mark 71 that also turned out to be a flop. The navies of the world sure have let the whole shore bombardment concept go to pot since 1945, haven't they?
They may as well just take an old LST, load it up with a long-range variant of their army's MRLS and let fly, like the old Bobtail Cruisers of 1945.

 

[ASSAIL]

Ugh....
Yeah, the Zumwalts, ended up being like the pipe-dream of the damned.

There was also the 203mm Mark 71 that also turned out to be a flop. The navies of the world sure have let the whole shore bombardment concept go to pot since 1945, haven't they?

Not entirely, USN 7th Fleet conducted an intensive operation during the Vietnam conflict which not only provided NGS (Naval Gunfire Support) to allied ground forces but also maintained long term H&I (Harassment & Interdiction) fire in order to disrupt NVA and VC movement throughout South Vietnam.
In the North, shore bombardment was a regular operation for cruisers and the odd BB with 5” Destroyers providing counter battery support.
Since Vietnam the only NGS operation I can think of would be during the Iraq war when RN and RAN units supported the Royal Marines on the Al Faw peninsular

 

[DDG38]

Not entirely, USN 7th Fleet conducted an intensive operation during the Vietnam conflict which not only provided NGS (Naval Gunfire Support) to allied ground forces but also maintained long term H&I (Harassment & Interdiction) fire in order to disrupt NVA and VC movement throughout South Vietnam.
In the North, shore bombardment was a regular operation for cruisers and the odd BB with 5” Destroyers providing counter battery support.
Since Vietnam the only NGS operation I can think of would be during the Iraq war when RN and RAN units supported the Royal Marines on the Al Faw peninsular

Not to mention the Perth class DDGs did NGS during Vietnam. And the Iraq war NGS is called "5 inch Friday" in the RAN

 

[ASSAIL]

Not to mention the Perth class DDGs did NGS during Vietnam. And the Iraq war NGS is called "5 inch Friday" in the RAN

Correct, they served under the operational control of COMSEVENFLT.
13,000 rounds fired during our deployment in 70/71.

 

[Redlands18]

Not entirely, USN 7th Fleet conducted an intensive operation during the Vietnam conflict which not only provided NGS (Naval Gunfire Support) to allied ground forces but also maintained long term H&I (Harassment & Interdiction) fire in order to disrupt NVA and VC movement throughout South Vietnam.
In the North, shore bombardment was a regular operation for cruisers and the odd BB with 5” Destroyers providing counter battery support.
Since Vietnam the only NGS operation I can think of would be during the Iraq war when RN and RAN units supported the Royal Marines on the Al Faw peninsular

Wasn’t there some Shore bombardment in the Falklands as well?

 

[DDG38]

Wasn’t there some Shore bombardment in the Falklands as well?

Yes it was, and at night no less to mitigate Argentinian Air Force attack. Many RN ships took part in coordinated NGS during night land attacks.

 

[JohnWolf]

You guys are right....
I have heard that the most feared ship in the USN was the Light Cruiser, from the POV of enemy troops ashore. Those 15 x 6" guns with a really good rate of fire were just devastating. That's a Battalion of heavy artillery in Army terms, but more like a Regiment when you take the increased rate of fire into account.
And you can pack far more rounds for those aboard than missiles. A LOT more.
So, maybe a new version of the Brooklyns is what we should be looking at here? IMHO, good air defense is all it really needs, Subs don't like going into shallow water and if you don't have local superiority on the surface you can't be doing a landing in any case.

 

[Systems Adict]

Yes it was, and at night no less to mitigate Argentinian Air Force attack. Many RN ships took part in coordinated NGS during night land attacks.

NGS has been a consistent part of the RN theology for over a century & it is still considered a skill that is necessary to maintain. It was used by the RN during the support provided due to the 'Arab Spring' uprising & subsequent aftermath in Libya. It is an ideal tool, as being stood-off while being able to soften up a land based target sometimes means there's no need to put boots on the ground.
In some ways it is 'similar' to putting tanks on the streets. They may not be the best thing to use in a conflict in an urban environment, but it provides a show of strength / an intent that if you don't back down, we'll use force.

 

[John Newman]

So, maybe a new version of the Brooklyns is what we should be looking at here? IMHO, good air defense is all it really needs, Subs don't like going into shallow water and if you don't have local superiority on the surface you can't be doing a landing in any case.

Let’s not forget that a Brooklyn class, ARA General Belgrano, was sunk by the RN submarine Conqueror during the Falklands War.

You say subs don’t like shallow water, but they can certainly get you in the deep on your way to the shallows.

 

[OPSSG]

...Subs don't like going into shallow water and if you don't have local superiority on the surface you can't be doing a landing in any case.

You say subs don’t like shallow water, but they can certainly get you in the deep on your way to the shallows.

I think it really depends on a particular navy’s concept of operations — Singapore has a small littoral navy that fights from the shallows to the deep, due to basic hydrography. The focus on the littorals enable the navy to exercise sea control up to 1,000 km from Changi — with limited capability for sea denial beyond that distance. A large southern area of the South China Sea is warm and shallow — under 100m (328 feet) in depth; which is the depth profile Singapore’s 171 Squadron submarines operate in, for at least 1/3 of journey in their push out from Changi Naval Base for their monthly patrols.

Till 2026, Singapore will still be operating 2 Swedish built AIP submarines (before IOC of our 4 new 70 m long Type 218SGs). Originally launched as the Swedish Navy Västergötland class submarines HMS Hälsingland and HMS Västergötland in 1986 and 1987, the 2 submarines were sold to Singapore in Nov 2005 and relaunched in Jun 2009 and Oct 2010, after extensive modernisation by Kockums. This included a refit to Södermanland class standards, the insertion of a new hull section with a Stirling AIP system, and additional climatisation for use in tropical waters.

The 60.5 m long Archer class submarines were designed and built by Kockums AB as single-hull, double compartment submarines optimised to reduce noise and magnetic signature. The two pressure-tight compartments also enhance safety and survivability of the crew. The submarines were designed to operate in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea and are therefore also optimised for operation in Singapore waters, which have similar depth profiles.

 

[John Newman]

I think it really depends on a particular navy’s concept of operations — Singapore has a small littoral navy that fights from the shallows to the deep, due to basic hydrography.

Hi mate, yes I do realise subs can operate in both the shallows and the deep.

My post above was in response to the suggestion that ships in the shallows are safe, I was pointing out subs can get you in the deep on the way to the shallows.

cheers,

 

[OPSSG]

For NGS in support of amphibious operations, it will come from the OTO Melara 76 mm gun on our 80m long littoral mission vessels.

Hi mate, yes I do realise subs can operate in both the shallows and the deep.

My post above was in response to the suggestion that ships in the shallows are safe, I was pointing out subs can get you in the deep on the way to the shallows.

cheers,

Agreed, apologies for my hijack (of your reply), to add on my 2 cents on submarines lurking in the littorals.

...Subs don't like going into shallow water and if you don't have local superiority on the surface you can't be doing a landing in any case.

I just wanted to say to @JohnWolf that our boats will sink enemy ships in the shallows or the deep.

And the Type 218SG with its large 4 person airlock in the sail, are even better at diver delivery in the shallows (for beach recce), as our target landing sites for amphibious operations (by our four 141m long mini-LPDs), are bounded by shallow waters. The greatest threat to our amphibious operations, by our rapid deployment forces (7SIB) are actually influence sweep naval mines.

And we thank the US Marines for helping my country develop and advance our concept of amphibious operations in the littoral space — for both our Guardsmen (during Exercise Valiant Mark) and NDU (during Exercise Sandfisher).

Grateful that Singapore’s NDU had an opportunity to train with Recon Marines specializing in combatant diving; small-boat operations; underwater navigation; help casting; high-altitude, high-opening parachuting and ground reconnaissance tactics. More important than training, the US Marines and their recon should work with the NDU stage their logistics out of Singapore too.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1343904600705925123

 

[JohnWolf]

....
My post above was in response to the suggestion that ships in the shallows are safe, I was pointing out subs can get you in the deep on the way to the shallows.

cheers,

Actually, I was wondering what could be left out and what the thing would really need.

A faithful rebuild of a Brooklyn (saving a certain amount of design work, I suppose) would mean a 10,000 ton hull and 13,500 at full load. That isn't all that much by 21st century standards. Space also becomes an issue real quick.

The good news is that high, boxy stern could easily accomodate a couple of ASW helos, so there is that.... but that costs you a lot of space that could have been used for UAVs. You could alternate loads based on how good you think the ASW screen for the fleet as a whole really is.

Modern guns are smaller and lighter than what they had in the 30s, switching up to 155mm from 152 is no problem. What has me concerned is how much bulk you have to accomodate with the auto-loading gear. I really don't know anything about that, and you may have to pare it down to 2 guns in each of the 5 turrets.
These ships also had 8 x 5" guns, and the St. Louis variant had them in twin turrets. I would recommend keeping these, or at the very least a single turret at each corner of the superstructure.

As for the space that is left, post-war ships of this type retained 28 x 40mm (several quad mounts) and about 20 x 20mm (all singles). That gives you room for a few missile and gun BPMDS, a few MGs for local defense, and that's about all.

I was not able to find out how much ammunition these ships carried with a quick search, and I am afraid it might not be enough. Modern propulsion systems are more compact and lighter than what the old ones had, so this should free up some space for more, as well as some C.A.S.E. for the ammo bunkers.

Is this the kind of Arsenal Ship you were looking for?

 

[ASSAIL]

Actually, I was wondering what could be left out and what the thing would really need.

A faithful rebuild of a Brooklyn (saving a certain amount of design work, I suppose) would mean a 10,000 ton hull and 13,500 at full load. That isn't all that much by 21st century standards. Space also becomes an issue real quick.

The good news is that high, boxy stern could easily accomodate a couple of ASW helos, so there is that.... but that costs you a lot of space that could have been used for UAVs. You could alternate loads based on how good you think the ASW screen for the fleet as a whole really is.

Modern guns are smaller and lighter than what they had in the 30s, switching up to 155mm from 152 is no problem. What has me concerned is how much bulk you have to accomodate with the auto-loading gear. I really don't know anything about that, and you may have to pare it down to 2 guns in each of the 5 turrets.
These ships also had 8 x 5" guns, and the St. Louis variant had them in twin turrets. I would recommend keeping these, or at the very least a single turret at each corner of the superstructure.

As for the space that is left, post-war ships of this type retained 28 x 40mm (several quad mounts) and about 20 x 20mm (all singles). That gives you room for a few missile and gun BPMDS, a few MGs for local defense, and that's about all.

I was not able to find out how much ammunition these ships carried with a quick search, and I am afraid it might not be enough. Modern propulsion systems are more compact and lighter than what the old ones had, so this should free up some space for more, as well as some C.A.S.E. for the ammo bunkers.

Is this the kind of Arsenal Ship you were looking for?

10,500 tonnes displacement is not uncommon for DDGs (see eg JMSDF Maya and Atago classes and ABs) or nearly 16,000 long tons for Zumwalt.
They are also not weighed down by armour which means more internal volume than any Brooklyn equivalent from the dim past and 96 VLS cells (AB’s) give them enormous lethality.
Any concept of “Arsenal” could be relatively easily achieved by choice of missile and extended range 5” ammunition without reverting to recreations of ghosts past.

 

[JohnWolf]

10,500 tonnes displacement is not uncommon for DDGs (see eg JMSDF Maya and Atago classes and ABs) or nearly 16,000 long tons for Zumwalt.
They are also not weighed down by armour which means more internal volume than any Brooklyn equivalent from the dim past and 96 VLS cells (AB’s) give them enormous lethality.
Any concept of “Arsenal” could be relatively easily achieved by choice of missile and extended range 5” ammunition without reverting to recreations of ghosts past.

Understood, and it is a radical idea, but it does have it's merits.

5" shells are less than 70% the size and power of a 155mm, on the average. A hundred missiles have the range, but they can't smoother a target the way 15 guns with hundreds of rounds per gun can.
And given the possibility of counter-battery fire, maybe the armor isn't such a bad idea?