A depiction of an Arsenal Ship in action.
Arsenal ships were designed to be little more than a floating VLS (vertical launch system) battery, intended to carry as many as 500 missiles. Equipped with only the bare minimum of crewmembers to make sure the ship remained operational, the arsenal ship would be remotely controlled and directed by other warships or even airborne control aircraft (AWACS) when in combat.
Arsenal ships were primarily designed to provide extensive fire support for troops ashore, able to bring heavy missile bombardments when needed.This fire support mission led to some in the Navy to consider them as the spiritual successors to battleships. Some of the earliest concept work from DARPA even depicted the arsenal ships with the hull number "72", the next hull number available after the last battleship (the never built USS Louisana with hull number "71") ordered by the Navy.
The arsenal ship was intended to provide cheap firepower to other, more expensive multi-role warships. Ultimately though, they would be cancelled as the Navy already had extensive missile capacity through newer VLS equipped ships coming into service. In addition, the post cold war budget could not accommodate these ships.
However, the concept did live on. The United States Navy converted four of its Ohio class submarines into submersible missile platforms, able to carry over 140 tomahawk cruise missiles. In addition, newer attack submarines have more extensive capacity for carrying and deploying cruise missiles. While individually weaker than an arsenal ship, the large numbers of submarines gives the US Navy greater flexibility in addition to greater stealth.
Elsewhere, other Navies have also studied arsenal ships. China tested arsenal ship concepts before deciding on the submersible approach. South Korea is also looking at developing small, cheap arsenal ships to provide mobile missile batteries.
