They didn’t stop building battleships due to opponents just flying around them; they stopped building battleships because aircraft were far more effective weapons than any of the big guns on the ship. Hence, aircraft carriers took the place of battleships. With improved missiles and now drones, that aircraft advantage is no longer as clear cut as it was.
The purpose of battleships was to destroy enemy fleets before they should destroy shipping and to bombard coastal targets. Both offensive and defensive tasks are supplanted by aircraft and that has not changed at all, whether that aircraft is manned or not.
If I want to launch a lot of drones that don’t require runways, what would that ship look like?
I’m not saying that surface ships are suddenly better than aircraft, I’m saying that what constitutes air superiority has changed. A fighter jet is useless in defending against a drone swarm.
Probably a big flat platform, like something specifically made for launching aircraft because A) a shit ton of drones DO need runways and B) the ones that don’t still generally launch from a flat platform which is why helli-carriers still look like aircraft carriers:
You are desperate to make this idiotic idea make sense and its pretty sad to watch. There is no use case for this platform which is why it is being recommended by idiots and named after a moron. This is the most obvious fraud in the history of the military industrial complex and it takes a real special kind of idiot to act like it isn’t.
Lasers and anti-air drones are the future of anti-drone weaponry, both of which are needed in addition to existing air defense solutions like CIWS, Patriot, and THAAD.
For the lasers specifically, it makes a ton of sense powering them with a nuclear reactor which mandates at least a battlecruiser sized ship. Powering them with diesel generators is just not realistic.
With all that said, lasers currently aren’t ready for prime-time; I would like to see the Trump battleship money put into laser R&D, anti-drone drones (like Ukraine has), and small frigates, a ship class we are sorely lacking on.
Once the lasers are close to fully operational, we can revisit nuclear powered battle-cruisers to power the lasers for fleet defense; as it might make sense to simply go with more nuclear powered carriers with lasers on them instead. In fact, the Ford-class carriers we are building have about double the power budget they currently use, precisely for future upgrades to radars and lasers.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the US does have lasers that are ready for prime time. There’s been plenty of examples in the past of them managing to keep higher tech stuff out of public knowledge until it’s already been obsoleted.
If they are using the lasers as missile/drone defense, then they theoretically could withstand thousands of drones.
Right, but why wouldn’t the drones and missiles simply fly around it to their intended target?
This is literally the reason we stopped building battleships almost a hundred years ago and drones don’t make that less true today.
They didn’t stop building battleships due to opponents just flying around them; they stopped building battleships because aircraft were far more effective weapons than any of the big guns on the ship. Hence, aircraft carriers took the place of battleships. With improved missiles and now drones, that aircraft advantage is no longer as clear cut as it was.
The purpose of battleships was to destroy enemy fleets before they should destroy shipping and to bombard coastal targets. Both offensive and defensive tasks are supplanted by aircraft and that has not changed at all, whether that aircraft is manned or not.
If I want to launch a lot of drones that don’t require runways, what would that ship look like?
I’m not saying that surface ships are suddenly better than aircraft, I’m saying that what constitutes air superiority has changed. A fighter jet is useless in defending against a drone swarm.
Probably a big flat platform, like something specifically made for launching aircraft because A) a shit ton of drones DO need runways and B) the ones that don’t still generally launch from a flat platform which is why helli-carriers still look like aircraft carriers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_America_(LHA-6)
You are desperate to make this idiotic idea make sense and its pretty sad to watch. There is no use case for this platform which is why it is being recommended by idiots and named after a moron. This is the most obvious fraud in the history of the military industrial complex and it takes a real special kind of idiot to act like it isn’t.
Lasers and anti-air drones are the future of anti-drone weaponry, both of which are needed in addition to existing air defense solutions like CIWS, Patriot, and THAAD.
For the lasers specifically, it makes a ton of sense powering them with a nuclear reactor which mandates at least a battlecruiser sized ship. Powering them with diesel generators is just not realistic.
With all that said, lasers currently aren’t ready for prime-time; I would like to see the Trump battleship money put into laser R&D, anti-drone drones (like Ukraine has), and small frigates, a ship class we are sorely lacking on.
Once the lasers are close to fully operational, we can revisit nuclear powered battle-cruisers to power the lasers for fleet defense; as it might make sense to simply go with more nuclear powered carriers with lasers on them instead. In fact, the Ford-class carriers we are building have about double the power budget they currently use, precisely for future upgrades to radars and lasers.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the US does have lasers that are ready for prime time. There’s been plenty of examples in the past of them managing to keep higher tech stuff out of public knowledge until it’s already been obsoleted.
Then just wrap the drones in Cucumber or wet towels and you’re laser proof again.
Or use waterbeads/gel like tech ingredients.