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Comment by aisofteng | Hacker News Reader

Interesting speculation. What's it based on?

"Zerg swarms" of smaller, less expensive, easily replaceable ships have trounced our carrier battle groups in at least one high-profile war game we conducted a few years ago. At the time, I think we assumed these were little more than manned, modestly weaponized, high-speed cigarette boats.

It's reasonable to speculate that drone swarms will become a real thing, probably very soon. Will they replace aircraft carriers? Not for decades, unless we stumble into a war and get humiliated by an enemy swarm. (For what it's worth, I think we've become so arrogant that another military humiliation in our lifetimes is almost a certainty. But now I'm editorializing.)

But again, this seems so reasonable as to almost seem inevitable. When you no longer have to worry about feeding, accommodating, and protecting human sailors, it's pretty amazing how much smaller, faster, cheaper, and more performant your ships can get.

Perhaps true for amphibious assaults, but like you said, it won't replace aircraft carriers. Or submarines. Minimum size requirement on launching airplanes with weapons and fuel. And minimum size on nuclear reactor and ICBMs. Oh, and you'll want really nice artillery, so keep around the battleships.

Maybe I'm missing the joke. There aren't any battleships in the navy anymore, are there? Submarines will be around as long as they ensure MAD.

I worry carriers will be like ships of the line after the invention of iron hulls. Huge investment instantly obsolete by new technology. The u.s. Is in a great position to repeat the British empire's mistakes.

> There aren't any battleships in the navy anymore, are there?

That's correct. To your earlier point :), post-Cold War consensus is that the traditional battleship should be replaced by destroyers with modern targeting capabilities.

So the US Navy is somewhat in between ships for naval gunfire support.

The Zumwalt-class destroyers [1] were supposed to take over here but that's been a bit of boondoggle.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer

No, small robotic vessels won't replace aircraft carriers. They will merely sink all of them.

They'll just hang out near the bases, latch on as they head out and start cutting holes.

Aren't you just describing torpedoes, but not submerged?

Torpedoes, not submerged, that carry their own weapons, can be individually programmed with complex missions (escort / patrol / hit-and-run), perform dynamic evasive maneuvers, and generally try to protect themselves rather than being one-shot disposables? There's a word for that kind of torpedo. We call them 'boats'.

Torpedoes are single use.

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