Sea Control Ship, is that you?

On the road in Utah for an industry event this week, so I didn’t have the 10-20 hours needed to pull off a Warship Wednesday. In its place, let us talk about one of Uncle Elmo’s pet projects. Back in the 1970s, CNO Elmo Zumwalt’s “Sea Control Ship” concept that would provide a Cold War-era evolution to the escort carrier concept for convoy protection and ASW hunter-killer teams, the basic idea was to turn these small flattops (18,000-tons, 592-feet oal) like the Iwo Jima-class LPH into economical CVEs overnight through the fly-on of a Marine Harrier det for air defense/surface strike and a Navy Sea King SH-3 ASW/SAR element. The entry for Iwo Jima-class LPH USS Guam as an interim sea control ship in the 1973-74 Jane’s Of course, Zumwalt wanted some dedicated SCS hulls, but, barring the shipbuilding dollars, the Iwo Jimas could work in a pinch. Planned Sea Control Ship concept, art Planned Sea Control Ship concept, model Sea control ship outline, Janes ’73 Fast forward to earlier this…