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Saw a movie once about an MI-X head recruiting a Naval Commander to become part his unit. He was standing next to UKs potential version of an AB class cruiser and the man asked the commander what he thought about it. “It’s everything its X-billion pound price tag says it should be.”
“But what if YOU were in charge?” “I’d trash the cruiser and spend the billions on thousands and thousands of drones.....”
This was a pretty far out there movie - Three Body Problem but I can’t help but thinking there is a bit of wisdom there. A ship - rather inexpensive one, equipped with thousands of drones, launching bays and possibly some longer launch and recovery room for Reapers and or other big ticket long range killers.