What we need is a huge battleship. To this day, one would be useful. And it would be blown up domehow by something small.
These planes are great. They will be lown up on the ground by something small in their home country or on our aircraft carrier that looks like a seagull.
We need 10,000 drones that can link together to be one of these planes, carry the load, and then as soon as hit by a missile, or to land 9n the ground, disperse into 10,000 buggers, or to do a different mission.
What we need is a huge battleship
Funny how people don’t realize that most Battleships, during and after WWII weren’t used that much for surface warfare. They were used as artillery. Fast forward to Ukraine, and Artillery in land warfare 100+ years from Verdun, is still very lethal on the battlefield. Sure, the drones are ‘sexy’ and new, but artillery is still important.
My issue with the Navy is that missiles are great against surface targets. Drones would be great against surface targets. How would you take out a concrete bunker 25 miles inland now? How would you destroy shore based emplacements for invasion? In other words, were is the Artillery. More importantly, what and were is modern artillery.
I am not calling for battleships, but I think the US needs to rethink naval support artillery, in a world of hypersonic missiles, drones, deadly aircraft, and instant satellite visualization. What is survivable, what could create a sustained pounding for an invasion.