"Do we need a new "Surface Control Ship"?" Topic
10 Posts
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| SBminisguy | 14 Oct 2025 10:32 a.m. PST |
Recently there were calls to reactivate the USS Iowa — not as a museum, but as a testbed for the next era of sea power. In an age of drone swarms, hypersonics, and satellite targeting, even the mighty aircraft carrier's dominance is being questioned. The Carrier has ruled the oceans for 84 years — from Midway to the Gulf — but technology, economics, and the threat environment have changed faster than naval doctrine. So here's the question: Do we still need floating airfields, or do we now need Surface Control Ships — heavily armored, drone-equipped, multi-role warships that can survive and fight in a sensor-saturated battlespace? We designed our fleets for precision wars. But the future looks messy — EMPs, drones, attrition. Maybe what we need isn't stealth, but resilience. |
| SBminisguy | 14 Oct 2025 10:33 a.m. PST |
Recently there were calls to reactivate the USS Iowa — not as a museum, but as a testbed for the next era of sea power. In an age of drone swarms, hypersonics, and satellite targeting, even the mighty aircraft carrier's dominance is being questioned. The Carrier has ruled the oceans for 84 years — from Midway to the Gulf — but technology, economics, and the threat environment have changed faster than naval doctrine. So here's the question: Do we still need floating airfields, or do we now need Surface Control Ships — heavily armored, drone-equipped, multi-role warships that can survive and fight in a sensor-saturated battlespace? We designed our fleets for precision wars. But the future looks messy — EMPs, drones, attrition. Maybe what we need isn't stealth, but resilience. |
| SBminisguy | 14 Oct 2025 10:34 a.m. PST |
Recently there were calls to reactivate the USS Iowa — not as a museum, but as a testbed for the next era of sea power. In an age of drone swarms, hypersonics, and satellite targeting, even the mighty aircraft carrier's dominance is being questioned. The Carrier has ruled the oceans for 84 years — from Midway to the Gulf — but technology, economics, and the threat environment have changed faster than naval doctrine. So here's the question: Do we still need floating airfields, or do we now need Surface Control Ships — heavily armored, drone-equipped, multi-role warships that can survive and fight in a sensor-saturated battlespace? We designed our fleets for precision wars. But the future looks messy — EMPs, drones, attrition. Maybe what we need isn't stealth, but resilience. |
| SBminisguy | 14 Oct 2025 10:37 a.m. PST |
Cool – post once and get three topics and three threads per topic! |
Micman  | 14 Oct 2025 11:20 a.m. PST |
Are you talking about a the SCS concept from the 70's? That is basically a helicopter carrier with F35s now.
link
I was unable to find anything that was titled Surface Control Ship.
I do not think that bringing back 80 year old ships is the thing you should do. The manpower requirements are huge, almost 2800 personal. You have to modernize it to be able to defend against everything you mentioned. No doubt it can sink anything it can see, but it can't target air, SSM, hypersonic, or ballistic threats. To modernize an Iowa could be the cost of a new Aegis destroyer. Smaller ships might be a better way to go, at least for the testbed. |
 aegiscg47 | 14 Oct 2025 11:53 a.m. PST |
Do a search for "arsenal ships", which is still a concept being discussed. Basically, it would have several hundred launchers for a variety of tasks, plus SEAL teams, choppers, etc. There were plans for a while for some floating bases that would also serve as arsenal ships, but my guess is that manpower requirements made those currently impractical. |
| Micman | 14 Oct 2025 12:48 p.m. PST |
I am all for developing a arsenal ship. But how about just developing a container based launch system? We could take any container ship and put 100+ of these on board. Since arsenal ships are only missile trucks for Aegis ships, any ship would work. |
| LostPict | 14 Oct 2025 1:45 p.m. PST |
The problem with surface ships is their extreme vulnerabilit in this era of precision targeting. Mission kill if you take out the sensors or fly a missile down the stack. Not to mention breaking the back with torpedoes. Stealth and distributed shooting platforms / locations are better bets than a Death Star. As to containerizing weapons:
link
We have these, at least as prototypes. Navy/ Marine Corps have been busy figuring out how to launch all kinds & sizes of dumb and smart rockets/ missiles from vehicles platforms, trailers, containers, and static mounts with both local and remote C&C. You can put them on remote 1st Island chain locations, in forward bases, decks of ships, etc. All that is straight forward. Buying sufficient ASM, ASuW, AAW weapons to put in these launchers is the really challenge. For reference: Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), link Naval Strike Missile link Tomahawk link AEGIS Ashore Guam link Theses are just a few. OBTW, this was area was my day job f for the Navy the last few years until my retirement. |
| Tortorella | 15 Oct 2025 2:08 p.m. PST |
I like Iowa as a symbolic representation of power. it would be unique, nobody else could do it. Imagine it deployed to the ME, untouchable by local navies like Iran's. But I don't know how well it might do against the Chinese. It would have limitations, and would be costly. I am not sure it brings enough capabilities to the table to justify its redesign. |
| SBminisguy | 15 Oct 2025 5:04 p.m. PST |
True -- but what about a purpose built arsenal ship designed for such an environment where resilience and survivavbilty are built in? |
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decides on hills for his Team Yankee project.
