DARPA Arsenal Class Stealth 'BattleShip'

Kunal Biswas

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Arsenal ship was a joint Navy / DARPA program to acquire a moderate cost, high firepower demonstrator ship with low manning as soon as possible. The Arsenal Ship was planned to restore the naval support of the land battle, the modern day equivalent of the firepower that battleships provided during World War II and in Korea. The plan was to produce the demonstrator ship for initial operational capability (IOC) by the year 2000. Based on successful demonstration, a total force of four to six Arsenal ships would be funded. The goal was to develop an Arsenal Ship (AS) functional design by the end of FY97. This timeline from concept design (FY96) through fabrication (FY00) represented half the development time of previous naval vessels of this complexity. The Arsenal Ship would contains four times the VLS cells found on a CG-52 class ship, have a fixed unit sailaway price of $450 million, and a life-cycle cost 50% less than that of a naval combatant.



But in early 1997 the House National Security Committee concluded that the Arsenal Ship and the SC-21 were two separate major warship development programs, and that the cost of carrying out two such programs would be unaffordable, while the requirement for both had been validated by the Secretary of Defense. On 24 October 1997 the House-Senate conference committee on the FY1998 Defense Authorization Bill on refused additional funding for the Arsenal Ship. With only $35 million appropriated, the Navy needed an additional $115 million to sustain the program. That day the Secretary of the Navy announced that the program would not be pursued. Some of the design work has been incorporated into the SC-21 and DD-21 program. On 01 December 1997 the National Defense Panel report criticized the cancellation of the Arsenal Ship, noting that the ship could have reduced the need for aircraft carriers.



The Arsenal Ship was developed initially as a demonstration program to provide a large increase in the amount of ordnance available to ground- and sea-based forces in a conflict, particularly during the early days. The Navy envisioned that the ship would have a large capacity of different missiles, including Tomahawk and Standard, and space for future extended range gun systems. The ship could also have a sea-based version of the Army Tactical Missile System. This ship could greatly increase capabilities in littoral operations to conduct long-range strike missions, provide fire support for ground forces, defend against theater ballistic missiles, and maintain air superiority.



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. Return to Top



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.



The ship would have the equivalent ordnance—about 500 vertically launched weapons from a wide variety of the military's inventory—of about four or five Aegis cruisers and destroyers. Employing the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) "remote magazine" launch concept, the arsenal ship would provide additional magazine capacity for Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) and Air Supremacy missiles.
 

Kunal Biswas

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The Navy envisioned the ship to have a small crew (possibly less than 50 members) and be highly survivable. Associated with minimizing ship costs and manning is the planned reliance on passive survivability, so that it would be very difficult for the Arsenal Ship to be hit by modern weapons. This may be achieved by a combination of reducing the signatures of the ship and the tactical use of countermeasures. If the ship is hit by a missile or a torpedo, the design would insure that the magazines are not violated. Finally, the hull would be sized and designed such that, even if the ship encounters a large torpedo or mine, the ship won't sink.



The Navy planned to maintain the Arsenal Ship forward deployed in major overseas regions for extended periods by rotating the ship's crew and returning the ship only for major maintenance and overhauls. This plan would allow the Navy to use fewer Arsenal Ships to maintain overseas presence than if the ships were deployed routinely from the United States and permit their early availability in a conflict. Additionally, if the Arsenal Ship concept proves successful and within its cost projections (around $500 million for construction of each ship), DOD and the Navy may be able to retire or forego purchases of some assets, such as aircraft carriers, surface combatants, ground-based launchers, or combat aircraft.



The Arsenal Ship Program's acquisition approach represented a major departure from the way Navy ships have been acquired in the past. The program turned the systems development process over to industry at its earliest stage and challenges industry to develop and design the optimum mix of performance capabilities which can be accommodated within production and life-cycle affordability constraints. In an effort to optimize streamlined technical and business approaches, the program used DARPA's Section 845 authority to conduct prototype development and acquisition experiments outside normal constraints of the Federal Acquisition Regulations.


Experience during the Arsenal Ship Project showed that to achieve a design balanced between cost and performance, a significant amount of interchange was required among subject experts, analysts, and the technical personnel developing the system and functional designs. Additionally, subject experts from outside of the team were used to assure critical performance requirements were understood and satisfied. However, because of the limitations on access applied during the Arsenal Ship Project, achieving the design balance became quite difficult.

In July 1996, DARPA awarded each of five industry teams $1 million Phase I agreements under full and open competition. Since that time, the five teams performed various trade-off studies and developed their initial Arsenal Ship design concepts based upon the governmentÕs Ship Capabilities Document and the Concept of Operations. The Phase I Arsenal Ship Concept Designs, in conjunction with the three successful offeror's Phase II proposals, formed the basis for the Phase II selection and were deemed as providing the best value to the government.

In early 1996 the program was redesignated the Maritime Fire Support Demonstrator (MFSD). The new effort broadened the scope to insert technologies into the demonstrator in preparation for risk reduction for SC-21. The MFSD was to be an at-sea technology testbed for the SC-21, the next-generation CVX aircraft carrier, and other future ships. Return to Top

In Phase II, which lasted one year, three industry teams continued to develop their concept designs into functional designs consisting of an integrated engineering and cost baseline for the Arsenal Ship Program. On 10 January 1997 DARPA selected three industry teams for Phase II of the Arsenal Ship Program. The three selected industry teams were each awarded $15 million modifications to their existing Phase I Arsenal Ship agreements. The three Phase II industry teams were:


1 General Dynamics, Marine/Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, Team Leader, with: General Dynamics, Marine/Electric Boat, Groton, Conn.; Raytheon Electronic Systems, Lexington, Mass.; and Science Applications International Corp., McLean, Va.

2 Lockheed Martin, Government Electronic Systems, Morrestown, N.J., Team Leader, with: Litton Industries/Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss.; and Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va.

3 Northrop Grumman Corporation, Sykesville, Md., Team Leader, with: National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., San Diego, Calif.; Vitro Corp., Rockville, Md.; Solipsys, Columbia, Md.; and Band Lavis & Associates, Inc., Severna Park, Md.

 

Kunal Biswas

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After Phase II, DARPA planned to select one industry team to enter into Phase III, with the Navy to award an MFSD design and construction contract to one of the three Arsenal Ship teams in January 1998. During that phase, the industry team chosen would complete its detail design and construct an Arsenal Ship Demonstrator, as well as provide an irrevocable offer to construct five additional Arsenal Ships and convert the Arsenal Ship Demonstrator into a fully operational asset in the production phase (Phase V). Phase IV consists of performance testing and a fleet evaluation. The value of the research and development portion (Phases I-IV) of the program was approximately $520 million.



Specific objectives to be demonstrated included the ability to perform the operational mission for 90 days; architecture, communications, and datalink functions capable of satisfying the AS concept of operations; and the capability for remote launch of strike, area air warfare, and fire support weapons. The planned test program will include a salvo launch of up to three Tomahawk missiles in 3 minutes; a single SM2 launch using the AS as a remote magazine for a cooperative engagement capability ship, a single Tomahawk launch using the AS as a remote magazine for air-directed and shore-based targeting, and a single weapon launch from a VLS cell in support of a naval surface fire control mission digital call for fire.

 

Kunal Biswas

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Armament 500-cell Vertical Launch System (VLS)

Crew ~~ 50; designed to be highly automated

Design Low radar signature ("stealthy")

double hull possible length 500-800 feet

Estimated Number Six vessels

Cost $500-800 Million each
 

H.A.

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A snippet of the US Stealth ship programm...the source of the data is wikipedia.

SC-21 (Surface Combatant for the 21st century) was a program started in 1994 to design land attack ships for the United States Navy. A wide variety of designs were examined, including an arsenal ship with 500 cruise missiles, but eventually a "tumblehome" design of around 16,000 tons with two long-range guns and 128 missile tubes was selected as the DD-21, the Destroyer for the 21st century. However the program was cancelled in November 2001, with a cheaper version of the DD-21 emerging as the DD(X) or Zumwalt class destroyer. It was envisaged that the DD-21 hull would be used for a future air defense cruiser (CG-21), which evolved into the CG(X) program.

SC-21 (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DD - 21

The winner of the competition to design the DD-21 was due to be announced in March 2001, but the decision was put back twice as the new Bush administration reviewed defense spending. On March 1 it was announced that the decision would be made in May, and on May 31 it was announced that the Navy would wait for the results of the Quadrennial Defense Review, and a future shipbuilding review.[43] After the House Appropriations Committee proposed a reduction in the DD-21 allocation in the FY2002 budget in late October 2001,[44] on 1 November the Navy announced a less ambitious Future Surface Combatant program (FSC). Polmar claims that DD-21 was terminated primarily for political reasons as the program was closely identified with the Clinton administration, whereas Work views it as the culmination of a debate within the Navy about whether they should use in the littoral zone large capable ships like the DD-21 or more numerous smaller ships like the "Streetfighter" concept. It did not help that the original plan called for the fifth ship to cost $750 m in FY96 dollars,[23] but in the fourth quarter of 1999 alone the program cost went up from $3.2bn to $5.2bn.

Streetfighter evolved into the Littoral Combat Ship; under FSC the DD-21 became the DD(X) which would become the Zumwalt class destroyer, whilst the preliminary plans for CG-21 would be folded into the CG(X) ballistic missile defense cruiser.[16]
The hull of the Zumwalt class is similar to that of the DD-21, but the new design displaces 14,564 tons[48] and unlike the DD-21, the deckhouse is flush to the sides of the hull. The central "block" of VLS cells is replaced by a peripheral VLS of 80 cells,[48] which allows both guns to be located forward of the deckhouse. This in turn allows the stern to be given over to helicopter facilities but means that the automated magazine can only contain 750 rounds, supplemented by an auxiliary store.

SC-21 (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Next Generation Cruiser CG(X)

The CG(X) program was announced on 1 November 2001. An initial requirement for 18 CG(X) was raised to 19 under the plan for a 313-ship Navy in 2005.

A reassessment in 2007 suggested splitting the CG(X) into two classes, fourteen Zumwalt-sized "escort cruisers" and five 23,000 ton ballistic missile defense (BMD) ships. There was political pressure for some or all of these ships to be nuclear powered, which would have given them the hull classification symbol of CGN(X).

The FY2009 budget called for procurement of the first CG(X) in 2011, and the second in 2013. On 1 February 2010, President Obama unveiled his proposed budget for FY2011. This budget called for, among other things, canceling the entire CG(X) program.

The program was canceled in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.[3] The CG(X)'s mission will instead be performed by DDG-51 Flight III destroyers, after the Navy concluded that the ships could rely on off-board and space-based sensors and so did not need a radar bigger than the DDG could carry.

CG(X) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Kunal Biswas

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Very Interesting link H.A, Thanks for sharing..
 

arnabmit

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Re: INS Viraat refit at Cochin to hold Tejas LCA?

You mean convert it into an Arsenal Ship?

Ok so 2021 fine i dint know that ...I am not sure it can hold its sea worthy for so long .Even after the upgrade it can hold its breathe till 2016 as far as i knew ..But since u said its going to be in service for another 10 years(Am not sure as its Hull can not be changed in refitting) Yes it can be a good platform for N-Tejas or Mig-29K ... But why do u think Indian Navy never Thought about it ? There should be a good Reason for that may be technically ...

But if it is to serve till 2021 we should have N-Tejas or Mig-29KUB with it..Or it will be a waste of money for next 5 years(after 2016) as a sitting duck with 3 harrier jet and i dont even know these jets can do their job at the time of war...Atleast we should convert it into a HUGE Missile carrier (Bramos,Nirbhya , Agni 5 Agni 6, K4, K3 etc) with fully operational Anti missile & Anti aircraft UNIT at deep sea which will
 

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Re: INS Viraat refit at Cochin to hold Tejas LCA?

You mean convert it into an Arsenal Ship?
Yes Exactly. If Ins Viratt to serve till 2021 without new fighter jets its a waste of money (I belive its service life is extended to sail till 2016 ) But we can use it as our first wave of Protection.If we can have best Long range Anti missile system on it it will be of great help . We can make it a deadly sea warrior when Huge Arsenal Ship along with missile boats,destroyer,Frigate and Attack submarine.We can even have it as our helicopter carrier & Arsenal Ship ...Armed with Nuclear Missile Its a DEADLY WEAPON AT SEA...

More over India has a total of 247 islands (distant islands) of which 204 lie in the Bay of Bengal and remaining in the Arabian Sea. The Bay islands consisting of Andaman and Nicobar group of islands have a crescendo shape . We can convert these 200 + island into a Permenent Aircraft carrier with Missile defence system or Radar network ...Even if we have 1 or 2 Stealth fighter jet on these smaller island its a powerful weapon at sea against enemy ships.(We will have AMCA ,RAFALE ,Pak FA ,or evn Naval-F35 ... ) We need to think about it and I also want to have a Underwater Anti missile system on our SEA BED.. which can act like a Attack - submarine ..Its will be a surprise attack on enemy..Just think if we have nearly som 40 anti ship missile in Bay of Bengal and few in Indian Ocean If every 2 missile can hit 1 target its a great success..

Am not a defence personal so never mind if my ideas are bit AWKWARD

We would have a many multiple Platform to defend out waters... No one can penerate our defence So they will think twice or thrice
 
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Somreet Bhattacharya

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Re: INS Viraat refit at Cochin to hold Tejas LCA?

But, given the way modern Navies operate..why convert it into an arsenal ship how strategic does that sound? as it is it is an old ship, making it an arsenal ship would just turn it into a tinderbox..isn't it sir? deploying frigates or destroyers around it will just block these assets given that when these ships themselves can shoot these anti-ship missiles themselves..I am no expert on this, but doesn't this sound very obvious.... :eek:
 

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Re: INS Viraat refit at Cochin to hold Tejas LCA?

Aircrafts on many little islands + (Secret) Under water Permenent Long range anti ship missile at diffrent points + Huge Arsenal Ship INS Viratt with its battle groups + Rest of IN ships.. WIN WIN formula
 

Mariner HK

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Re: INS Viraat refit at Cochin to hold Tejas LCA?

But, given the way modern Navies operate..why convert it into an arsenal ship how strategic does that sound? as it is it is an old ship, making it an arsenal ship would just turn it into a tinderbox..isn't it sir? deploying frigates or destroyers around it will just block these assets given that when these ships themselves can shoot these anti-ship missiles themselves..I am no expert on this, but doesn't this sound very obvious.... :eek:
Yeah i got ur point .Insteed of using INS Viratt with 3 harrier Jets and 3 Helicopter + its battle group which consist of all i mention #21 beyound 2016 is not a wise move i guess.If we have new fighter jets as Kunal said then its fine... But defo not with these harrier jets. So we can have a huge Arsenal Ship with large number of Missile with 6 to 8 Attack Helicopters will be a effective puch than 3 sea harriers onboard... We can place small fighter groups at few of our Islands and Use it as a Permenent Aircraft Carrier... We can have stage by stage protection before we involve with our Majar war ships.. Its a Win WIn like Modi Ji 's Namo Namo
 

Somreet Bhattacharya

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Re: INS Viraat refit at Cochin to hold Tejas LCA?

Sir, but where would these small islands come from??...and how will the underwater ant-ship missile come into being, without being detected (that means each will require protection, consuming assets)...next with the modified Viraat going around with its 'battlegroup' which will have atleast one destroyer and a more than one frigates, which has the capability to fire the same weapons....and where will the rest of the IN ships come from then?? We can't afford that with the current budgets..can we?? If it was the cold war and India was a party to it, some person would have thought like this...but given what that is there...this is a pure waste of everything....
 

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