Iran is huge, though. This is shaping up to be President Trump’s replay of the NATO bombing campaign on Serbia and no more. It will be interesting to see what happens when Iran launches 200 or so drones at a carrier strike group.
The carrier strike group is not going to enter the gulf.
They will stay out of the range of drones out in the Arabian Sea.
This is just speculation on my part, but Epirus has developed a High Powered Microwave system (Leonidas) that can take down entire drown swarms, including fiber optic controlled drones.
This system has been in development since 2020.
I am speculating that this is why they had to wait for the USS Ford carrier group. Either it, or one of the vessels in that group, has this system aboard.