Summarizer

> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US. If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution. Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea against a determined enemy that has been preparing for this eventuality since 1979 is one thing. Being able to fly non-stop B-52 and B-2 sorties from home air bases with single-digit-hour flight times is a different thing entirely.

> Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea This is not to be underestimated. It is very rare to be able to project military power far from one's capital. That the US is able to do it at all is remarkable. We should not expect it to be easy.

>The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52 There is, at this point in time, literally 0 evidence B-52s are flying over Iran with JDAMs. Every single photo we saw of B-52s literally shows them with AGM-158, which means they are launching outside Iran aerospace. The biggest evidence for B-52s not flying over Iran is that there have still not been any losses. Go look at attrition rates in Linebacker 2 for comparison.

GBU-38 JDAM has very short range.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We know that Russian air force is actively using gliding bombs to attack objects on the front line while flying over the territory controlled by Russia. One would need strong evidence to convince us that they have started to use gliding bombs differently. The US on other hand is flying over the Iran for a month so the claim that they started to use B-52 in addition to smaller jets is not extraordinary. It would be strange to deploy B-52 with GBU only to strike something on/near the Iranian border (where there are not many targets which would justify GBU usage) so it's a logical conclusion from the posted photo that B-52 can fly over the Iran (at altitude beyond MANPADS reach).

> This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. It's a great sign for the US military as a whole: That is the primary American tactic to defeat China, using land forces hidden on the First Island Chain with anti-ship missiles, to control the seas around China. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47584795

Why do you think the number of people in Iran matters? I think most of what you said is just speculation, not founded on reality. The only thing that would stop the US from invading Iran in under 3 months is political will. Russia doesn't have the scale and power of the US airforce, or the ability to project that power using the US navy and all the bases in the middle-east. Any comparison with russia at all makes me question your entire analysis. Iran is big and geographically challenging, Afghanistan is notorious in the same sense as well, even more so by their infamous defeat and expelling of Russia in the 80's. The US invaded afghanistan in a matter of 1-2 months and held on to the country for 20 years. Establishing a FOB initially will be challenging but with Kuwait and KSA eagerly cooperating, it won't be a challenge. Drones are effective when your enemy is nearby and you can project it against them. Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself. They can't attack Europe because that would risk drawing them into the conflict, so their only option is to attack existing enemies in the region and do their best to inflate the price of oil. And therein is their strategy that might win the war, it isn't all the reasons you listed, but political will as a result of economic pressure. The US lost in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even arguably in Iraq because of loss of political will to continue the conflict. But then again, the current administration will not be deterred by pesky things such as the will of the american people, they'll use it to declare emergencies and attempt to hold on to power instead. The only thing that can defeat the US right now is the republican party in the US willing to turn on their beloved dictator. > Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. The US has bunker-busters. Even though your analysis is full of many technical flaws the most critical flaw in my opinion is how you aren't considering aerial advantage for the US, but yet you seem to think drones are an advantage. Drones are only useful at attacking pre-determined regional targets to influence political will. For the US however, unlike Russia, the US doesn't have a decrepit airforce, and doesn't flinch at launching $70~M/launch tomahawks. The ukrainain army right now isn't withstanding a constant barrage of bomber jets dropping on them. Russia is several decades behind US equivalent fleets from what I understand. The US military hasn't been sitting on their hands watching the Russia-Ukraine conflict either. They've been testing all kinds of anti-drone tech in the desert for a while now, but this is the real opportunity for them to battle-test different techniques. No one is sanctioning the US either (more like sanctioning itself), and there is no real or practical shortage of war-chest funds (unlike Russia), and having a big war every two decades means the US military-industrial complex far more capable to meet the supply-chain logistics demands. The US military certainly is the biggest in the world, dwarfing all other countries' militaries combined. But the thing most people don't realize is that is not what makes it the most capable invading force in the world, it is the sheer efficiency of the logistical effectiveness unseen the history of war before, backed by the ability to fund years-long wars without so much as flinching on the domestic economy front. I would argue that the if the political will existed, the US can invade the entire region, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas in less time than how long Russia has been at war with Ukraine. Even if the US couldn't use the bases and airspace in Europe at all, the calculus remains the same. > This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them. Huh? what do you mean? They're entirely designed to address hostilities, they're not designed establish access in a non-hostile littoral, this goes back to WW2 beachead establishments (like normandy). The carrier ships are never meant to be close to land to where they're a target, but the carrier group itself is entirely designed to establish a beachead and deploy an expeditionary force under hostile conditions. I admit, maybe my history recall is lacking, do you know of any post-WW2 conflicts where the US navy established a beach head as part of an invading force that didn't face both aerial and naval resistance? Iran and Afghanistan didn't require it, neither did Korea or Vietnam as far as I know.

>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not. is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power controls the shores is not a new thing. The Bosphophorous has been closed on and off by the Ottomans or Turks since 1453 and the allies couldn't break through in WW1. They can send raiding ships, use canons, artillery, naval mines etc. You don't need the new tech.

> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers No. This is absurd claim that can't physically comport with sortie generation math. CSIS report from first 3 weeks noted Israel did more than half of strikes on ~15,000 targets... all Israel's hits would be from land basing. 2xCSG at surge for 3 weeks = ~6k sorties, ~20% for kinetic strike (80% of sorties supportive, cap, tanking, ew etc). Optimistically carriers hit ~2000 targets when not standoff during first 3 weeks. Likely strike compositions: Israel from land, 50%, US from regional land ~35% (we know lots of none carrier aviation was involved), carriers ~15%. The real kicker is CSGs since been pushed to standoff - kinetic strike ratio to dwindle to single digit % sorties at those distances, making carrier cost:strike ratio even more unfavourable. This something most expect from peer/near peer adversaries, not Iran, i.e. carriers seem vulnerable to lower tier of adversaries than originally thought.

I think the point being made is that before Iranian drone doctrine (they were the originators of the long range drones, the FPV drones and sea drone which have dominated the Ukraine way too). A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open. Right now the US has 3 CSG in the middle east and nearly 50000 troops. After weeks of intensive bombing the strait remains closed and any associated asset in the region is at risk the loss of the E3 to drones is particularly shocking.

>"10-30 kilogram payload" - for carrier it is probably a moscito bite

Yeah not so much for it's radars, or for the f35 parked on the flight deck, which may be you know loaded with thousands of gallons of fuel and hundreds of pounds of missiles and bombs. Sure, it won't sink it, but operations may be disrupted, for hours to days.

And one of them can't scratch the paint on a modern naval vessel. Anti-ship warheads alone weigh more than an entire Shahed-136 drone. As has been demonstrated countless times in SINKEX training, it requires literal tons of deep penetrating explosives to severely damage a modern naval vessel. And even then they usually don't actually sink. Nothing you can cheaply build in your garage will do meaningful damage to a large naval vessel. It will have neither the weight nor the penetration required.

It's the radars really for destroyers. The bridge is not actually where the ship is run during combat. There is a room called the combat information center, that's where the ship is run from during combat, and that is behind armor, even in modern warships. Additionally ships are separated into semi independent zones, that can take control of the ship, and continue fighting even if the rest of the ship is on fire. The real liabilities are the radars, and the rest of the sensors in surface combat ships and the airplanes on deck in the case of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers in general are heavily armored compared to other modern warships and it takes a significant amount of firepower to even disable them much less sink them.

The point is a country like Iran can, in 2026, force the US Navy to keep an large stand off distance. How much further could a country like China keep the Navy back? What about in 10 years? Eventually you are beyond the range of being able to project force or risking losing billions invested in one asset to a $50k missile. That is where reality is heading.

Seems like USN can still do whatever it was made for from this large standoff distance, also seems like it wasn't made for chasing individual nondescript trucks in a hundreds-miles-long mountainous shoreline.

It can be safely said that current carrier groups were not built for that, they were built for power projection on land.

Ergo navies don't exists.

I think it was achieved by two nuclear armed countries openly amassing their assets in the region for months. Any conflict between peer non-nuclear nations would have probably began with the country in Iran’s position sinking those carriers. Thanks to US and Israeli nukes, they were free to start killing people without fear of getting surprised.

It is unlikely that Iran decided to not sink US carriers because of fear of nuclear retaliation. It is much more likely that before the air attack started, Iran's leadership preferred not to do anything that could make an attack more likely, such as attacking carriers. And after the invasion started, they would have loved to attack carriers but did not have the military capability to do so.

> is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. The country with 0.3% of global spending in military is putting a noticeable dent in assets of country that has 35% of global spending in military and are begging allies for help coz they can't even stop the drones With that level of difference you'd expect whole thing to end already and yet it is not. So any actor at even 10% scale of US going all in in drones would probably obliterate US navy without all that much. US is behind and frankly invested in wrong tech over the years. That is not to say carriers are going away any time soon, you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow, but one filled to 3/4 with drones would probably be far more effective

> you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow The same thing with battleship in WWII. The writing is on the wall for massive carriers. much smaller, cheaper and quicker to produce ships are probably the way its going.

The Chinese have drone carrier ships already in fleet and I think that is likely the future addition to fleets that is necessary. I am not sure how much the era of human controlled flight is coming to an end but certainly substantial drone capability and anti drone defence is urgently required.

I agree that this conflict in Iran doesn’t really indicate that the aircraft carrier is any weaker now than it ever was. Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers. More than any air defense could ever stop.

Carriers have been in question long before this conflict. There's been a big question as to how effective and/or survivable a carrier battle group will be in the South Pacific, especially given China's long range anti-ship missiles. There's been a whole ramp up of very exquisite technology to try to get the upper hand here, but I don't expect we'll see the carrier be the force it has been over the last few generations. It's just too tempting a target.

Long-range anti-ship missiles of old are also obsolete, they and their launch problems are also too expensive for their vulnerability. A salvo Shahed-style drones launched from expendable unmanned vessels would overload a carrier group air defences way cheaper than old school ASMs from frigates.

I get the feeling you haven't read the article. The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason. The reason so many tankers have been lost and that E3 sentry is that the carriers are having to stay out of the preferred range and rely on refueling for the bombing campaign. If the CSG could move to the Iranian coast they wouldn't have to maintain a constant chain of refueling tankers which have become so vulnerable.

>The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason. umm, you have no idea what you are talking about. the Iranian Shahed drones typically have an operational travel distance of approximately 1,200 to 2,000 kilometers (roughly 750 to 1,250 miles). and >USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) CSG: As of March 30, 2026, this strike group is operating in the Arabian Sea supporting Operation Epic Fury. Satellite imagery from mid-February and March 2026 placed the Lincoln roughly 700 kilometers (approx. 430 miles) off the coast of Iran and Oman.

All right, they have the range. Let's say a carrier is 700 km away and the drone has a range of 1200 km. Great. Now, does it have the kill chain to supply it with an accurate targeting fix and update it during the flight? Or, does it have a radar good enough to find the Lincoln on its own? If it doesn't, then it's a really big ocean. But sure, they've got the range.

I was just correcting the dude and letting them know they 100% have the range and they are wrong. Of course the CSG and its advanced weaponry are going to obliterate them before they have a chance to do anything. The Shahed-136 could 100% find the ship if Iran had the intel on the CSG location.

Seems likely to be even worse now. USS Ford out of action, removed from region due to "laundry fire" and some socks in the toilets. Also USN has far fewer carriers to deploy. Three or more were deployed continuously off Vietnam for years at a time.

Yes, but it is not certain that cheap drones have the range or navigational technology to reach and hit a carrier in the current circumstances. More expensive drones do, but that's a different matter.

The Shahed drones have more than enough range for this, easily. Whether they're "cheap" I guess depends on your perspective; they're certainly not as cheap as some handheld drone, but they're still pretty cheap compared to all the stuff the US is using now.

Carriers aren’t going away because there’s nothing else that does what they do. Many nations can blow stuff up but to actually project power, you need a mobile air base.

How many of the strikes in Iran were 100% organic Navy assets? Sure, f18's took off and landed on carriers, but they tanked a couple times before dropping their bombs. The CSG helps, but was it really the thing enabling strikes? We have a massive air base in Qatar and other capabilities in the region. We are using bases all over the place to support these operations. The CSG helps... but isn't crucial to what is going on here. Now, bring S-3 organic tanking back and maybe the CSG would have a -little- more legitimacy.

Whether or not professional military strategists and planners anticipated this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones, it is nearly certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military has not. And if the Commander is involved in the either the day-to-day operations or the strategic level of planning, I can’t imagine that whatever reasoning about these shifts in power dynamics has taken place will influence U.S. operations.

The cheap drones Iran makes get a GPS coordinate plugged into them and they fly there. Carriers rarely stay in the same place for long so they'd be effectively useless against them.

The immediate counters and questions raised are: * cost of adding encrypted mobile comms to receive target location update, * turn about time on russian sat intell on carrier positions, * observed carrier path patterns wrt drone flight times ( or fractions of flight time if mid air updates can occur ) * numbers and timings of drones that can be launched with alt coords to play predictive battleships with.

> this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete. A carrier that launches drones and fields an anti-drone strike group would be amazing. We don’t have that. (And even what we do have is great in the carrier department, it’s given us air parity to superiority from way offshore.)

If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more, given they obviously have a lot more space. The change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles. The cost of a “good enough” drone and missile is now so low that opponents of the US can simply build the thing faster than the US can build and deliver them. In effect the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised.

> If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world. > change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles It's a return to battleship economics. Except instead of direct fire from and onto shores, you have indirect fire via drones. Unlike shells, however, we have anti-drone capabilities on the horizon. It's silly to assume the current instability will persist for more than a few years. If the U.S. were paying any attention to Ukraine, it shouldn't have persisted until even now. > the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised Really not seeing the argument. Again, being able to build and launch and being able to field drones–alongside other weapons–is night and day. (Note that all of these arguments were made when missiles first dawned, too. Drones are, in many respects, a missile for area denial.)

> You can't win with stand-off strike capability. You can't seize and control territory, you can't keep strategic choke-points open, you can't change regimes To be clear, there is zero historic evidence—going back to the Blitz—that strategic bombing has ever been able to do any of these things. Except the one about choke points. That isn’t strategic. It’s tactical. And using artillery or airpower for shaping operations absolutely works. > you can definitely lose by spending two or three multi-million dollar air defense interceptors per incoming projectile that costs 10x to 100x less Agree. Fortunately, the MIC seems to have recognized this. None of it fundamentally changes the value of carriers. It just means they need to be defended differently from before. Sort of how you can’t sent lone carriers out into the ocean, they have to be escorted.

> This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world. Not quite. It is hard to build an airplane, it is easy to build a drone. So if the battle comes to who is going to send more drones, then a big carrier will lose: it doesn't have a factory to build drones.

> It's a return to battleship economics. The real economics of battleships (and their precursor ships of the line) were: Given expensive armaments (cannon), it is cheaper to concentrate these on a mobile platform that can geographically reposition itself than build / deploy / supply equivalent power everywhere , and the former allows for local overmatch. Sufficiently cheap and powerful unmanned guided munitions (drones, cheap cruise/ballistic missiles, UAV/USV/UUVs) are a fundamentally different balance of power, especially with enough range. What does make sense is a return to cheaper escort carriers, where the carrier should be as cheap as possible (preferably unmanned) as the platforms it hosts are no longer exquisite.

If carriers would be designed for drones and missiles and guns instead of for manned aircraft, it is likely that it would be preferable to have a great number of small carriers, instead of a few vulnerable huge carriers. The launch of drones and missiles could be completely automated and there would be no need for the complex maintenance of reusable airplanes, so such carriers would need only a much smaller crew.

Would it not be preferable to launch drones from less of a big target? The issue is that the carrier is clearly visible and targetable. You could go submersible or just spam much smaller ships with smaller payloads. In those cases you get the benefits of the same level of assault without the potential of a hugely expensive loss. At a guess, I assume much of the scale of carriers is tied to the logistics of air power, which are considerably less relevant in drone warfare. Carriers will always remain useful for more accurate strikes and operating aircraft that work at higher altitudes, but this broadside idea of volume might work better on a platform that scales better instead of the huge and expensive carrier footprint.

Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target. That's why aircraft carriers exist. Everything else either is too expensive per unit of destruction or sacrifices too much lethality. The size of the ship has little bearing on the visibility of it to sensors. You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship.

> Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target. An important variable missing from your calculus is distance from munitions factory/supply depot. There are far cheaper and scalable ways to deliver tons of explosives if your supply lines are short, such as rail when you're defending your homeland. Carrier groups are both transport and FOBs > You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship. How did that turn out for the Russian Black Sea flagship, the Moskva?

sure but if we're simply delivering drones then it might be better to have 1,000 small platforms than one big one. You can then still use the carrier in its classical role from further back.

sure but that's the purpose of most drones. If you want big ordinance then that's why you have the carriers and the planes and missiles. I'm just saying that a carrier is probably the wrong footprint for something that serves up drones.

I think this strategy is effective for Ukraine and Iran because they fight an enemy that is superior in terms of weapon capabilities. If you are the big boy with the bigger gun you don't necessarily need that. PS: I will take that back when someone manages to hit a carrier with a low cost drone boat.

sure but America's ship building doesn't appear to be at the level of being able to cranking out carriers should they start losing them. Conversely I imagine it might have a better shot at cranking out a smaller blue print en-masse.

Lol carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles, this now means a multi billion dollar ship can and will be destroyed by cheap drones if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone.

> carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles Where? When? > if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone What are you referring to? The entire modern carrier strike group is architected around using stand-off weapons to clear threats to make way for stand-in weapons. The relevant ranges are what your stand-in bombers can hit without re-fuelling versus with. The era of direct firing from ships passed ages ago–that doesn't make carriers less valuable, just changes their role.

Where? Any war games in the last 10 years. It’s a known issue with aircraft carriers agiants anti ship missiles. What’s protecting them right now is what would happen to a country if they attacked one of those. Retribution is not a great defensive capability in the long run. Contrary to popular belief, an aircraft carrier does more than just launch airplane. Its optimal deployment zone will be defined by the range of its helicopters. So not as far as you think. Take the helicopters out and you have easily 50% less missions this thing can launch per day.

You have any evidence for this? Because low cost drones can't fly very far, are easy to spot with radar, are slow as hell and can be shot down with cheap intercepters, or even lasers as the US is already deploying. Traditional anti-shipping missiles are a bigger danger. The optimal deployment zone is far off shore, and there its very hard to reach. Is your point that you can put a huge carrier literally in the straits?

Also the standard Shahed-136 style drones carry less than 200 pounds of explosives, and deliver that to the surface of a target. Antiship missiles carry larger warheads, often double the size, and deliver that warhead deep inside a warship where it is much more vulnerable. A shahed blowing up on a carrier deck will be upsetting but won't do much. With particularly egregious negligence of standard US Navy damage control methodology, you might cause a lot of damage by fire, like what happened to the Ford. Not that I'm suggesting it was hit by a Shahed.

100% interception … drone interception is NP complete dude, there’s nothing you can do against 1000 drones like that, and they’ll get cheaper, faster, smaller, bigger, more manoeuvrable. So 10Million bucks to down an aircraft carrier. With 0 casualties to your side.

> Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete. What are ours doing during this war?

Adding 70+ strike and AEW aircraft apiece, individually more than most national air forces could muster.

Are you joking? Sending F-18s into the air.

No, just asking—I know they're staying out of the gulf, but I don't know how involved they are, and I figured someone here did.

They're the only thing involved pretty much. The gulf nations have not allowed the US to launch from their bases in the region. Maybe that will change as they keep getting attacked but as of now the carriers (and now the base on Cyprus) are where the planes are coming from. The strategic bombers, prior to Cyprus, were taking off from the US and flying all the way to Iran and back.

The article is reflecting on the observed reality that US Navy operations in this war are taking Iran’s littoral combat power into account by operating its ships further from the Iranian coast…why can’t you imagine that they are operating this way under Trump?

How exactly do drones project power globally?

Operation Spiderweb was not a power projection exercise though, it was an espionage mission. This is like arguing you don't need a military because you'll just have 1 spy turn the enemies own weapons on them. Sure...its not that it can't work, but there's more then a few issues with the strategic plan.

Fair, it's not an aircraft carrier. But you can turn any container vessel into a cheap rough equivalent. Take the coastline, then maybe 30 km inland and see what installations you could reach. Pearl Harbor on a shoestring budget is a realistic threat now.

Would you mind listing the major functions of a carrier group and explain why a container ship full of drones is a "rough equivalent".

Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait... Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers. The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack, precisely the kind of advantage that parties that put carrier groups in distance places to project power tend to be looking for. The ability to destroy lots of stuff in a relatively short time without losing a lot of personnel or exposing yourself. And that capability is now to a large extent available to states that before would not have been able to do meaningful damage to coastal cities and coastal infrastructure (think refineries and large scale shipping ports). And you can't even be sure that whoever operates the vessel is in on it. It's not going to help you to stop China from invading Taiwan if they decide to. But it could put a very large dent in the economic capability of any country or bloc that came under a concerted attack. Also note that 'drone' is a pretty wide label that crosses over into what previously was territory reserved for cruise missiles and ICBMs for air power and on the water there are many developments as well. So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it. And long term that just makes more enemies, it doesn't really solve anything.

> Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait... Gottem! Not really though. I don't think anyone would claim a carrier group should be able to hold an adversary's coastal waters. Empty them from beyond visual range? Yes. Camp out in them? No. That said, if and when Mango decides to land troops in Iran, the fleet will be an irreplaceable piece of that operation. That is global force projection. > Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers. I mean but it helps in coming to an understanding if you articulate them. Acknowledging them will suffice! > The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack Agreed! > So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it. Disagree!

> That said, if and when Mango decides to land troops in Iran, the fleet will be an irreplaceable piece of that operation. Against all available evidence I still hope he's not that stupid. > That is global force projection. I think I'll withhold judgment on that until the dust settles.

I've seen the range of drones that is available and they are very impressive, the variety is precisely what makes them so powerful: you can adapt mix and match to whatever mission profile you have in mind and there most likely will be something that you can use unmodified. And if the task requires it modifications can be done on very short notice. An F-35 is of course going to absolutely outclass any drone. But a hundred million (roughly) spent on drones is going to do more damage than that F-35 and is going to be more versatile. The second that F-35 lands it is going to be at risk from a (low cost) drone attack. And some aicraft aren't even safe in the sky anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACjCP-Dt3GY Speaking of Aircraft Carriers, how is the Ford doing?

Mix and match how? Your entire one-way arsenal is sitting in cargo containers off the coast of an enemy nation by definition within drone range. At this point you've built a very slow, very short ranged undefended arsenal ship. Your proposal is to put a large supply of systems closer to enemy forces and the you're implying that somehow this wouldn't be vulnerable to being attacked while landed?

That's a submarine. Which is notably not going to be launching a drone the size of a even a Shahed, nor anything close to the same range. It also cannot detect nor engage incoming air threats, like essentially every single in service submarine on the planet due to the whole "being underwater" thing.

>> How exactly do drones project power globally? > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb "The next country over" != Worldwide

We (the US) probably spend too much per munition and do not have manufacturing capacity like China. We're not helpless, but i dont get the sense we have plenty of stock either. Both are problems. (1) In this back and forth I'm surprised mines in the straight are not mentioned. (2) im having difficulty seeing how cheap drones incapacitates a carrier. They are there to project force well into enemy territory for precise strikes. The carrier can be some distance from the shore. Now, the question turns to strike what? Surely drone manufacturing plants and barracks would have to be on list or ... they'd be less effective. (3) if drones are sub-mach speeds why not shoot down with a glorified gattleling gun as opposed to expensive missiles or lasers?

to quote: "in the Persian Gulf today, the Navy grasps the reality of the circumstances, recognizing that it simply can’t sail into the strait without risk getting blown to smithereens by Iran’s missiles. Today, its carriers are stationed well outside the Gulf and the ranges of Iranian missiles."

Americans have been sold an image of the US being an omnipotent presence, due to its Navy. It is a legitimate question to wonder why a relatively weak, long embargoed country has the power to control the waters when the US has spent a pretty penny on all these warplanes and aircraft carriers. If little Iran can prevent the US from being able to establish security in a little straight, it (ideally) shatters that image and causes some soul searching for what US taxpayers are buying with the military.

The situation is massively favourable to Iran, from a strategic point of view. The Gulf is narrow, bordered by Iran all the way and with mountains and rugged terrain nearby, which is very convenient to hide rockets. What a carrier brings is completely irrelevant in this configuration.

Very few Americans realize the scale of the defeat that the US military is facing in this war. Loss of CSG capabilities as well as anti missile radars, refueling planes, AWACS and ground bases all over the Middle East means this is the worst damage the US has taken since WW2.

The title should change 'won't' to 'shouldn't'. This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction. The US Military could, at an unknown cost, just blast away. This article points out, rightfully, how scared we are to put our weapons in harms way because of how expensive they are. I made this argument many times to friends years ago. From a military strategic point of view we should be developing drone/cruise missile carriers (and upping our SSGN capabilities) and abandoning the carrier navy. They are only good for show at port visits and turn useful ships like DDGs into escorts instead of front line assets. That being said, from a diplomatic strategic point of view, I really like a useless navy full of ships that are good for port visits and not real wars. If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars. If you build ships good for visiting other countries you tend not to go to war with those countries.

I think the point is it's like the parable of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight, because that's where the light is. The Navy is performing well at the things it's being tasked with because it's only being tasked with things it can do well! But I think the point of this thread is that it still reflects poorly on the Navy if those things aren't actually useful in this war. They say generals are always preparing for the previous war and perhaps that's happening here.

I think our navy is mostly designed for prestige too, but it seems like you could use the current carriers to transport like a million disposable drones?

> it seems like you could use the current carriers to transport like a million disposable drones? To what end? You can use them as an extremely expensive cargo ship, sure. But if you're talking about launching drones off of our carriers, you have the problem that whatever you are in drone range of is also in drone range of you.

Not a lot of prestige in that.

Drones have limited range. Perhaps a submarine would be better: sneak close to your target, raise a pipe from the sub to the surface, then launch a bunch of drones from it.

Look at SSGNs. Not drone carriers, but TLAM is pretty close to drone warfare from the US's point of view.

"Cruise missile carriers" are what the Burke class destroyers are. It's also what Russia built their navy around. How'd that work out? The US carriers have been involved in every naval action since WWII. They're hardly unused. But attacking a country of 90 million people and a high level of military sophistication AND who's been expecting the attack and planning for it for many years was always going to be a tall order.

> at an unknown cost We know the cost. We've conducted that type of warfare before. It's incredibly destructive and barbaric and requires huge amounts of human sacrifice to positively take control of territory after you've finished battering it with high explosives from every available angle. It looks really bad on TV. > cruise missile carriers You don't get very large payloads this way. It's fine if you want to pierce the armor of another ship or if you want to launch an "assassination missile" at a single unit but not awesome if you want to replace the capabilities of carriers and battleships and the literal BFGs they carry. > If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars. It was meant to be a deterrent against other nation states and one particular form of naval warfare. In the modern world of terrorist cells and asymmetric warfare this may be a moot point.

Losing just one carrier would give Trump all the excuse he needs to drop a nuke, declare a monster emergency and cancel elections…

Regardless, Iran sinking an aircraft carrier does not excuse Trump to nuke Iran and cancel elections. Your point is that he does not care about having a justification.

Who says they didn’t? Although not widely reported in mainstream US media, there are lots of claims online that US Navy ships were hit by missiles, including a clip from Trump himself. Why is the Ford and Lincoln so far away?

This version of the "end of the power of the aircraft carrier" sounds like it will play out a lot like the end of the tank, the end of the helicopter, etc. Yeah, it's not going to have the same untouchable power it used to. But it's not going to stop being useful or go away either.

Aircraft carriers will always be needed. However, I doubt that the huge and vulnerable carriers of today have any future. Carriers designed not for manned aircraft, but only for drones, missiles and guns would allow the use of a much greater number of small carriers instead of a few huge and expensive carriers. Such carriers could be mostly automated and they would need much smaller crews, instead of being floating cities.

Why though? Iranian missiles aren’t new and they seem to be the only threat to the aircraft carriers.