GarryB Thu Mar 14, 2013 12:52 am
There are a lot of support ships that need replacing... and I suspect they might have a few surprises up their sleeves.
Imagine a long river boat with an upgraded T-72 turret at each end with reduced armour (to reduce weight) and modified internal design to allow a greater elevation range for the main gun... in other words able to use existing tank turrets without needing new builds so older turrets can be used instead of new builds, that is designed for operating large numbers of UAVs from its flat raised deck... make it a Cat design with three hulls with the centre hull containing the crew and command area with a small tower in the centre for managing the aircraft and piloting blocks at the front and rear to operate the vessel (without the need to turn around a lot).
The two outside hulls have two flat runway decks that are parallel so landing can take place on one and launching on the other at one time. The hulls below the flight decks contain automated UAV/UCAV storage areas and at the rear engine and propulsion positions.
The vessel could support hundreds of aircraft including fixed and rotary winged craft and it could operate on rivers and lakes providing a mobile base for C4IR UAVs and attack UCAVs to support operations. It wouldn't need to be too expensive, but the usefulness of UAVs has already been proven. Use on rivers and lakes means it wont have to deal with very rough conditions and the three hulls should offer high speed and stability for operating aircraft.
Robotic arms could manouver UAVs from a vertical stack storage system in each outer hull where UAVs can be packed in tightly and refuelled and armed automatically, and then placed on the deck ready for takeoff without needing any deck crew. Fuel and ammo is stored in the outer unmanned hulls while the inner hull will only have ammo for the front and rear tank turrets. Perhaps a few automated gun turrets on the front and rear of the outer hulls might offer protection for the vessel... perhaps the 12.7mm gatling gun turrets from obsolete Hinds as they are withdrawn. Fitted as remote weapon systems with stabilisers and night optics... I would probably add a few automatic mortars to enable the vessel to deliver fire support... perhaps a long barrel 120mm rifled gun/mortar... together with the UAVs for spotting targets it would be rather potent. Of course taking advantage of the boats design and ability to take heavy recoil perhaps a 240mm mortar might be more useful with extended range and guided bombs with the UAVs to mark targets with lasers and to evaluate the effects of an attack to determine if follow up attacks would be needed...
Then you have modified Akula SSBNs fitted out as motherships for a range of UUVs and mini subs...