The US Navy could use oil platforms as mobile missile reloading bases in the Pacific
Warily eyeing a Chinese fleet that's growing and modernising faster than ever, the US Navy is casting about for any and all ideas for preserving its naval edge. Now one American marine engineering company is proposing something creative and new: floating arsenals for rearming American warships at sea.
Engineering firm Leidos Gibbs and Cox has identified around a dozen surplus oil platforms – and has drawn up plans to convert them into self-propelled sea bases with space for nearly 450 missiles plus cranes and other equipment to load those missiles into the vertical launch cells of frigates, destroyers and cruisers.
A single Arleigh Burke -class destroyer – the Navy has more than 70 of these ships – packs 96 cells, each 14 feet tall. The missile canister which slots into the cell weighs more than four tons. Fleet commanders are worried that, in a major war with China, American ships would quickly run out of missiles as they swat down Chinese rockets and aircraft and also target Chinese ships.
At present, all but one USN vessel – a recently and specially outfitted cruiser – must return to a safe port for the painstaking process of loading fresh missiles, a port that might be hundreds or thousands of miles from the maritime line of contact. A ship with no missiles, idle for days or even weeks as it labours through the reloading process, is worthless to a fast-moving naval campaign.
The arsenal platforms Leidos Gibbs and Cox is pitching could motor across the open ocean at a top speed of 11 knots and, using a new crane system, slide fresh missiles into warships tied up alongside them at a rate of eight rounds per hour – an eightfold improvement over existing fleet reloading methods at large ports. They'd use special frames to slot in missiles in batches rather than individually. If the sea was too rough for safe reloading, the platforms could move inside the coral reefs of remote atolls, if necessary flooding their pontoons down to rest firmly on the sea bed as they might during oil operations.
The converted platforms could solve a longstanding problem. 'Deterring or defeating our competitors will demand more than new platforms and new aircraft,' then-US Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in 2023. 'It will demand that we make maximum use of our impressive arsenal, even as we fire missiles or take damage.'
'We must pay attention to the logistics side for our fleet in the Pacific in particular,' Del Toro added.
The first initiative to result from Del Toro's demand for reform was the so-called 'Transferable Reloading Mechanism,' a crane the fleet installed on the cruiser USS Chosin last year. The TRAM does allow the vessel to receive fresh missile cells via taut cables from logistics ships sailing alongside, but the process of moving the cells into position is still as slow as it would be in port – and even more awkward given the inevitable rocking of a ship ploughing through potentially high sea states.
The mobile platforms could meet ships midway between the front line and safe ports and reload them while stationary using cranes with much greater capacity.
As a bonus, the platforms would have plenty of excess space, which the fleet could fill with 3D printers capable of churning out small attack drones. 'The platforms are so large and flexible that most of these missions can coexist,' Leidos says.
The concept is promising, but it may also be a non-starter as the new administration of US president Donald Trump swings a wrecking ball at existing US strategy and force structure. Seeking to reprogram tens of billions of dollars a year in order to spend more on border patrols, a border wall and deportations, the Trump White House has reportedly ordered the armed services to cut current programs by eight percent a year for five years.
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