USS Carl Vinson has first UAV command center install aboard an aircraft carrier
This reminds me a lot of the development of aircraft carriers during WW1 and the interwar period.<p>At first, all aircraft carriers were converted tankers&#x2F;freighters&#x2F;cruisers&#x2F;etc, and aircraft were only used for scouting (much like drones here will be used as tankers).  Then came the converted battlecruisers - the capital ships of the day, much like the USS Carl Vinson is now.  Even then, people didn&#x27;t trust carrier-based air power: Lexington and Saratoga had a full suite of 8-inch guns, in case they ended up in a surface engagement.  It was only in the run up to war in the late-30s that major parties started commissioning purpose-built aircraft carriers, and then only in small numbers.<p>I predict that in the next major conflict, aircraft carriers will be utterly useless, most of our big flat-tops will be sunk in the first couple months, and the bulk of combat will fall to a large fleet of inexpensive drones.  And then the AI controlling them will gain sentience and we&#x27;ll be forced to send one of these drones back in time to save John Connor so that he can become the leader of the Resistance as they take over humanity...