Fixed wing? Using Starlink perhaps? $10k or so, maybe less. Taking out a billion...

XorNot · 2026-03-21T01:09:58 1774055398

A Ukrainian high speed Shahed interceptor costs that much and has a very short range.

You're off by at least an order of magnitude. The camera mount you'd have to put on such a drone would cost about that much, probably more.

You're also vastly underestimating just how big the ocean actually is.

And finding the aircraft carrier is not the penultimate step to destroying it (a "few" anti shipping missiles aren't getting through those defenses).

adgjlsfhk1 · 2026-03-21T06:19:08 1774073948

interceptors are much shorter range than attack/scouting drones because they need to go a lot faster and be more manuverable than the target they are intercepting. Cameras are cheap and really light compared to ordinance, and ziplime was able to make a fleet of fairly cheap drones with 200 mile range (as a private company a decade ago). Cheap drones definitely can maintain targeting of a carrier within a couple hundred miles of the coast (and if you can get to 5-600 miles you keep most carrier based aircraft out of range of your shores)