However, that possibility does not touch upon my larger point: aircraft carriers — the most expensive weapons ever created (which I love, and my favorite uncle was an aircraft carrier pilot and later commanded a carrier) in an age of ever smarter ever cheaper drones will almost certainly soon be more obsolete than battleships are NOW, but we are still building paying to build lots more of them.
Time to mention a truely far sighted and great patriot, Billy Mitchell:
“He argued particularly for the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea.
“He antagonized many administrative leaders of the Army with his arguments and criticism and in 1925, his temporary appointment as a brigadier general was not renewed, and he reverted to his permanent rank of colonel, due to his insubordination. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing Army and Navy leaders of an “almost treasonable administration of the national defense”[3]for investing in battleships. He resigned from the service shortly afterwards.”
We need some more Billy MItchells. Instead we have a surfeit of corporate free speech aspiring brass.
War is changing RADICALLY fast, away from the USA Civil War through early WWII style dominated by massiveindustrial productionwins wars model to a model first widely noted in the Chad Libyan Toyota War
and now exemplified by the Ukrainians in their David Goliath response to Russia, a mode of war wherein constant tech innovation generated largely at the front (short feed back loop) engenders new winning tactics allowing major new strategies model.
Listen to this interview with a battle line Ukrainian war reporter starting at 7:46 https://youtu.be/o5w3suPJc1g
Last week, the company confirmed its BlueHalo subsidiary had been awarded a $499 million, eight-year contract from the Air Force to continue development of systems that can survive electromagnetic jamming. AeroVironment bought BlueHalo earlier this year as a new avenue of growth, and the contract suggests that the company is having success turning that potential into revenue.
Carriers are enormously useful. They are mobile airfields, and an unequaled way to project power. They pretty much never operate alone. They are the core of a “battle group”, which will include various destroyers, subs, etc. I totally get your point. They are very expensive, and swarms of drones are -generally- cheap. We will have to adapt tactics to deal with that.
Ironically, bringing back the battleships (Iowa class) might be a good idea. I read an article in high school while they were refitting them under Reagan. At the time, the only weapons that could sink one of those Iowa class was another Iowa class, or a nuke. Everything else would -almost literally- bounce off. They were designed to slug it out with other battleships. By comparison, the anti-ship weapons of the time (and even today) are designed to punch a hole in a much more lightly armored vessel. Missouri took a direct kamikaze hit. I saw the dent made in the hull for myself. It was just a dent, and you had to know it was there to notice it. A swarm of drones isn’t going to penetrate some number of feet of armor. Outfit her with some anti-drone weaponry, and park her next to a carrier.
Billy Mitchell saw the end of the battleship, because the carrier was more lethal (and at a longer range). Carriers still have the range advantage. Drones may be a good reason to bring back battleships. Incredibly heavily armored drone killers, if refit properly. (Just my speculating…I haven’t read anything about that in the literature so far.)
Don’t tell that to the crews of the Arizona or the Oklahoma. The Arizona is well-known; the Oklahoma was hit below water with a torpedo. Later in the war the Kongo and Shinano were sunk by submarines. The Musashi and Yamato were sunk by carrier aircraft.
The drones (perhaps submersible?) would have to be large enough to carry enough explosives, so perhaps not practicable.
This will help a bit. At extremely low cost (estimated at about $2 per shot, no decimal point missing). And very fast as well (roughly the speed of light). And it’s been in operation for a few months now (in parallel with other air defense systems).
Those weren’t Iowa class battleships. They were pre-WWI design, later refitted in the 20s. No where near the armor of the Iowa class. The torpedo belt is a foot thick of high-grade armor, and also designed to deflect a lot of the explosion due to its sloping. The superstructure is in some places 3’ thick armor (to ward off other battleship shells).
Yep. Multiple attacks in each case. Lots of 1000 lb bombs, and several torpedoes.
Exactly. Aerial drones would have to be too large to send a swarm of them (basically, the size of fighter/bombers). Sea-borne would be an option, but many nations already have submarines. A small motorboat-sized drone wouldn’t be able to do much damage. It’s not like the USS Cole.
The Iowa class is not invulnerable. Hit it with enough “stuff” and you can sink it. But it would take a lot. More than would be practical with drones, at least for the foreseeable future. Never say never, of course.
Chatted with one of the guys I know about the battleship idea.
He thinks it would be prohibitively expensive to convert a museum ship back into a functional ship of the line. He’s also concerned about the power plants, as they aren’t designed to handle the quantity of electronics in a modern naval vessel (plus the power required to operate an energy weapons to destroy the drones).
The question then would be if it would be cheaper to purpose-build such a vessel, or refit the existing hulls we have. I don’t think either option would be cheap. My gut says it is probably cheaper to refit what we have, including upgrading the power plants (nuclear?). But I have no data.
And, of course, one needs to get the drone firing platform, drones, and operators within range of the target. A large ship seems like one way to do that.
The document sent to press outlets also notes: “DoW [Department of War] information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”
Eventually American citizens will be exterminated. We are marching there.
In total, three UUV versions are being developed: TLK 1000 (4 to 12 meters), TLK 400 (4 to 6 meters), and TLK 150 (2.5 meters).
The TLK 150 will be equipped with an electric propulsion system, will have an operational range of 100 km, and will be able to carry up to 20-50 kg of explosives.
The TLK 400 will receive 500 kg of explosives and a range of 1200 kilometers. And a 4 to 12-meter TLK 1000 UUV with a range of 2000 kilometers will be able to carry up to 5000 kg of explosives.
The UK government is primarily paying for the defensive drones for Ukraine through its own military aid budget and by administering the International Fund for Ukraine (IFU), which includes contributions from multiple partner nations.
Key funding streams:
UK Military Aid: The UK has committed significant military aid to Ukraine, with a portion of this allocated specifically for drones. For example, the government announced a £350 million investment to deliver 100,000 drones in 2025–2026. This is part of a larger, multi-billion-pound package of support.
International Fund for Ukraine (IFU): The IFU is a UK-administered fund that collects financial contributions from a coalition of international partners. This money is then used to procure high-priority military equipment, including drones, for Ukraine. Contributing nations include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and others.
Seized Russian Assets: Some funding for air defense equipment, which includes drones, comes from loans that will be repaid using the profits generated from immobilized Russian assets.
Joint Manufacturing Initiatives: The UK government has also established industrial partnerships with Ukraine to produce drones. In one such project, the UK is mass-producing Ukrainian-designed interceptor drones, with costs covered by the UK’s military support.
In summary, the costs are covered by a combination of British taxpayer money, contributions from a coalition of partner nations through the International Fund for Ukraine, and loans backed by immobilized Russian assets.
Without getting into the weeds, they are probably working on it. There are several problems to be overcome. Especially with FPV drones, which all need independent control. You have to have the bandwidth to have enough control signals in a limited area. And the warheads of each needs to be large enough to damage a ship (probably at least 50-100 kg, depending on the ship).
AI will probably fix that. Send a command to one drone, and it figures out what to do and communicates with all the other drones in its swarm. Not specifically “torpedo drones”; any drones.
I recall a mediocre movie that featured a aerial drone swarm that overwhelmed the security detail to assassinate the President. The tech is coming. Probably within my lifetime. We need to be ready to defend against that.
