Editing Arsenal ship (section)

{{Short description|Conceptual floating missile platform}}
{{See also|SC-21 (United States)#Arsenal ship}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
[[File:Missile being launched from surfaced submarine.GIF|thumb|Depiction of an arsenal ship launching a missile]]
[[File:US Navy Surface Combatant for the 21st century 1995.png|thumb|1995 depiction of an arsenal ship]]

An '''arsenal ship''' is a concept for a floating missile platform intended to have as many as five hundred [[vertical launching system|vertical launch bays]] for large-sized missiles, most likely [[cruise missile]]s. In current [[United States Navy|U.S. naval]] thinking, such a ship would initially be controlled manually by an [[Aegis Combat System|Aegis Cruiser]], although plans that have long since been scrapped included control by [[Airborne early warning and control|AEW&C]] aircraft such as the [[Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye|E-2 Hawkeye]] and [[Boeing E-3 Sentry|E-3 Sentry]].