The U.S. Navy Is Hoping That Drones Would Fill A Gap In Aircraft Carrier Defenses

Boeing conducts an MQ-25 deck-handling demonstration at its facility in St. Louis, Missouri, in January 2018. US Navy/Boeing

Business Insider: The US Navy's carriers have a gaping hole in their defenses against a growing threat, and drones may soon fill it

* The US military is gearing up for a conflict with a comparable adversary.
* At sea, this means countering new threats to aircraft carriers and to their air wings.
* The US Navy retired one of its main anti-submarine hunters a decade ago and may need a new kind of aircraft to replace it.

The return of great-power competition has the US military refocusing on the potential for a conflict with a sophisticated adversary whose submarines can sink the US's supercarriers.

Defense experts are increasingly concerned by a resurgent Russian undersea force and by China's increasingly capable boats.

But the centerpiece of the US Navy's fleet has a decade-old gap in its submarine defenses, and filling it may require new, unmanned aircraft.

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WNU Editor: On paper it looks good, but can drones replace the S-3 Viking? I guess we are going to find out soon enough.