Merlin Class Arsenal Ship

[Uzb3kistan]

Merlin Class Arsenal Ship

Introduction
First proposed in 1996, the Arsenal Ship program was to be a new system in which is designed to deliver a large amount of missiles to targets on water, in the air, and most notably on land. 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. Upon operational success, the Navy purchased a starters force of six ships. The armed forces were pleased with the new system and ordered a more appropriate number of ships to fill the ranks of the Navy and give support to the land forces, as well as help destroy the enemy on the ground, sea, and air.

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 Merlin Class is the first of the Navy's designs in this new Arsenal Ship system, and is still regarded as very useful and up to par to current world wide Naval systems.

Design
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. Linked into the military's large Network-Centric Warfare System, it needs not the use of expensive targeting equipment, as the ship will rely on other military assets, including surface combatants, to provide the targeting information and connectivity necessary to launch its weapons. A unique aspect to the Arsenal Ship is that all the command and decision functions can and are 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 Merlin Class accommodates a more robust set of controls from a wide variety of sources that include, any aircraft, ship, 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.

Consequently, the Merlin Class is also designed to be autonomous and/or highly automated in it's actions and able to carry out programmed orders, or any action or evasive action that your typical human Captain might attempt. An example might be, that, whatever the orders might be, the Merlin Class will still launch it's anti-air defense systems if it or friendlies in the area are targeted by a range of enemy munitions and aircraft. Therefore the Merlin Class can be an unmanned vehicle, or the optional crew of up to 50 men and women.

The Navy envisioned the ship to 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 main armor of the Arsenal ship is its stealth. The stealthy design and materials create a very low radar signature, avoiding the missiles all together besides armoring against it. Nevertheless, the frame and hulls are contructed from Titanium, giving the ship a high mass efficiency, a high strength-to-weight ratio, and a lighter weight. Although expensive, the costs are made up with the lower maintenance costs. The double hulls are made out of Shaitan Corporation designed special advanced polymer matrix composite materials, or advanced PMCs. The composite materials are then reinforced by extra layers of titanium, depleted uranium, carbon nanotube reinforced amorphous steel, Carbon/Polymer Nanofibers, and anechoic materials to add extra strength and stealth to the hulls. The layers of hollow nanofibers spun from a carbon/polymer composite are tougher than Kevlar, steel, or spider silk; and is literally the toughest material known to man.

The ship has 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.


Specifications
Armament: 500-cell Vertical Launch System (VLS)
-Land-Attack Missiles
-Surface-to-Air Missiles
-Anti-Shipping Missiles
Crew: ~~ 50; designed to be highly automated

Cost Per Unit: $800 Million each
Production Rights: $2 Billion