Sea Control Ship

A Sea Control Ship (SCS) is a type of small aircraft carrier designed and conceptualized by the United States Navy under Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt in the 1970s. The SCS was designed due to severe cuts in Navy spending, requiring a cheap, flexible platform that could deliver air power to the field without resorting to an enormous aircraft carrier. Sea Control Ships were designed to carry a mix of fighters and helicopters, and the first SCS vessels were the Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships.

In the summer of 1971 USS Guam(LPH-9) an Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship was chosen as a test vessel for Admiral Zumwalts Sea Control Ship concept. 18 January 1972 she began extensive testing and in 1974 deployed in the Atlantic as a sea control ship with Marine Corps AV-8A Harrier STOVL fighters and Sea King ASW helicopters. Guam completed the SCS tests and reassumed her role as an Amphibious Assault Ship on July 1, 1974.

The SCSs were smaller than most large aircraft carriers, and the concept was seized upon by nations wanting cheap aircraft carriers, most notably Spain, whose flagship Principe de Asturias class was based on the SCS design.

Modern examples of SCS-type vessels include the British Ocean class, and the U.S. Tarawa and Wasp classes, members of which all of which operated in the Persian Gulf carrying a mixture of helicopters (and in case of the Wasp and Tarawa classes, also STOVL/VTOL attack aircraft) and Marine equipment (tanks, armored vehicles, landing craft, etc.).