Comment by wredcoll

> Aerial drones are also highly maneuverable. Large navy ships are pretty tough on the outside, able to withstand a blast of a moderate-size shell or bomb. But they have smaller, harder-to-reach vulnerable areas. This is the kind of target drones are apt to attack precisely.

Yeah, except missiles are better at it and the navy has spent the last 30+ years innovating ways to defeat missile attacks. What exactly do you think is the difference between a "drone" and a missile here?

> Once the big valuable vessel is found, it can be reasonably tracked from orbit.

Satellites orbit. They move. They have a limited area they can see at any given time and that area is constantly shifting.

Something with the budget of the US Navy can do the math to figure out where the satellite can look and then move. If your sat is orbiting the earth every 4 hours, a carrier group could be 100+ miles away by the time it comes back around.

And, even if you manage to get a satellite picture that shows that at 8:32pm the carrier group was at lat 32/long 42; you can't exactly just open up your missiles and program that in and sink a carrier.