Playing devil’s advocate here for a forward looking conflict - I don’t need to sink it, I need to interrupt communications between it and satellites/command long enough to accomplish my objective.  I need to deter it from my theater of operations.  I need to wear down operational crew.  I need to drain your budget and your morale.

Are you going to outjam a nuclear reactor with drone engines, no.

Can you hit antennas, aircraft engines and canopies, gun emplacements, bridge windows, aircraft elevators … really cheaply, taking hundreds or thousands of opportunities?  Look what drones have done to the much-vaunted tank, trench, and maneuver operations.

And this is assuming aerial operations, not manta ray type drones.


As far as I can tell, the Navy is playing whack-a-mole with the Houthi’s and the only winners are the missile contractors.  That is not an affordable long term plan, and it’s already affected global shipping.

Now I am not a Navy guy and I have no idea of the logistics tail inherent in moving across the globe, but in an era where we are moving towards smaller quieter operations, the budget to build and maintain aircraft carriers pays for a lot of autonomy and special operators.