Drones are the next biggest thing in warfare. An autonomous drone fleet armed with ordnance is the next big thing. Having a 'carrier' that has thousands of drones is water and air superiority both.
And well, the USA is falling far behind in that area, along with many others.
Interesting to think that aircraft rendered armor obsolete so ships stopped having appreciable armor. But if your threat is swarms of small drones then armor becomes a viable defense. Especially since the quantity of the drones is what makes them effective. If they have to build much heavier drones to punch through the armor that would significantly reduce the quantity that can be carried and increase the effectiveness of the other anti drone defenses.
I guess it's true that countries are always preparing for the last war they fought, not the next.
It's gotta be a nightmare on one of those drone carrier ships to be hit by an anti-ship missile or a drone and have thousands of lithium batteries strapped to high explosives light off.
Well what really is the difference between a missile and a single use drone built to punch through armor? Is the missile not basically a drone and is the drone not a missile?
The difference is size and cost. Missiles are large and expensive so ships can carry only a handful of them, and anti-missile defenses are designed based on that assumption. Drones defeat anti-missile defenses by coming in huge swarms that skim the waterline. The drones are also small because they have a relatively small warhead compared to anti-ship missiles.
It's the difference between needing to stop a dozen or so MIG-17 sized hypersonic missiles vs. hundreds of oversized quadcopters that move relatively slowly but chaotically.
The entire model of sea-borne power projection has changed. What does it mean when hypersonic missiles can be fitted with optical sensors to autonomously target ships? It means carriers now are about as useful as battleships in WW2. Nobody knows who can dominate which parts of the world ocean anymore.
Interestingly, I read or heard something that said that a fatal flaw in hypersonic in regards to naval combat was that hypersonic speeds create plasma and that the plasma made optical sensors and remote control useless. They need to slow down in order to hit naval vessels, which makes them vulnerable.
For all practical purposes, except for US-PR/US-Hawaii Jones Act trade, the US has no merchant marine. It would be interesting if Trump restricted cargo offloading to US ships, absent a treaty with another nation. Other than the Navy, the US maritime culture has been lost. Other than the very limited Jones Act trade, we have port pilots, tugboat captains and recreational boating. That's not a recipe for "dominance at sea."
Drones are the next biggest thing in warfare. An autonomous drone fleet armed with ordnance is the next big thing. Having a 'carrier' that has thousands of drones is water and air superiority both.
And well, the USA is falling far behind in that area, along with many others.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/the-united-states-is-...
And with current anti-intellectual, anti-foreigner, anti-technology trends, we won't be catching up in quite some time.
Interesting to think that aircraft rendered armor obsolete so ships stopped having appreciable armor. But if your threat is swarms of small drones then armor becomes a viable defense. Especially since the quantity of the drones is what makes them effective. If they have to build much heavier drones to punch through the armor that would significantly reduce the quantity that can be carried and increase the effectiveness of the other anti drone defenses.
I guess it's true that countries are always preparing for the last war they fought, not the next.
It's gotta be a nightmare on one of those drone carrier ships to be hit by an anti-ship missile or a drone and have thousands of lithium batteries strapped to high explosives light off.
Well what really is the difference between a missile and a single use drone built to punch through armor? Is the missile not basically a drone and is the drone not a missile?
The difference is size and cost. Missiles are large and expensive so ships can carry only a handful of them, and anti-missile defenses are designed based on that assumption. Drones defeat anti-missile defenses by coming in huge swarms that skim the waterline. The drones are also small because they have a relatively small warhead compared to anti-ship missiles.
It's the difference between needing to stop a dozen or so MIG-17 sized hypersonic missiles vs. hundreds of oversized quadcopters that move relatively slowly but chaotically.
https://archive.is/20250723155152/https://www.washingtonpost...
The entire model of sea-borne power projection has changed. What does it mean when hypersonic missiles can be fitted with optical sensors to autonomously target ships? It means carriers now are about as useful as battleships in WW2. Nobody knows who can dominate which parts of the world ocean anymore.
Interestingly, I read or heard something that said that a fatal flaw in hypersonic in regards to naval combat was that hypersonic speeds create plasma and that the plasma made optical sensors and remote control useless. They need to slow down in order to hit naval vessels, which makes them vulnerable.
For all practical purposes, except for US-PR/US-Hawaii Jones Act trade, the US has no merchant marine. It would be interesting if Trump restricted cargo offloading to US ships, absent a treaty with another nation. Other than the Navy, the US maritime culture has been lost. Other than the very limited Jones Act trade, we have port pilots, tugboat captains and recreational boating. That's not a recipe for "dominance at sea."