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Iran has other threats, including mines and antiship missiles, that can threaten US ships in the strait. It's also true that a sufficient mass of anything could cause a ship to run out of ammunition! It doesn't surprise me that the Navy is keeping its ships further back where they have more flexibility.
I can also turn this question on its head: if Shaheds are so good, why haven't the Iranians sunk any destroyers yet? The long-range ones are supposed to go over 1,000 miles, and the Iranians are believed to have satellite imagery from Russia to help with targeting. We have reason to believe that the carrier strike groups were close enough to launch missiles at them because Trump specifically said that the carrier battle group was targeted with and shot down 101 missiles ("missiles" which suggests not Shahed, but Shaheds are really just cruise missiles and apparently Iran said their drone units were involved, so it could have been Shaheds). Either way, why didn't the Iranians use Shaheds to sink a carrier or a destroyer?
Correct.
You are shifting your goalposts here. What I was contesting specifically was the idea of
It's true that a Shahed costs less than a CIWS, the same as an anti-tank missile costs less than a tank, or an anti-ship missile costs less than a ship. But it looks like a CIWS burst is going to be cheaper than a Shahed.
It's quite likely that the US does not have enough robust and cost-effective anti-Shahed systems! Simply because there are cheaper ways to shoot down drones does not mean they have been procured at the necessary scale. A plausible end result of US counter-drone technology is giving aim-assist technology to riflemen or machine-gunners, which obviously has not happened yet.
It certainly appears that the US Navy did do this, including the "drones defeated" part.
Yes – in which case I think they can be a powerful tool. But I think as a cheap weapon they are at their best against fixed targets. If you have assured satellite coverage, then using them as an anti-ship weapon makes more sense, because you can put a man-in-the-loop. (But ironically this arguably makes them better suited in the role for the US than for Iran.)
This was an interesting claim. On a quick look, it looks like most of these drones are copters, and Alibaba apparently doesn't consider the range worth specifying (at least for the ones I viewed), which makes evaluating their utility as a weapon troublesome. I'd be very interested if you could provide the specific product you had in mind?
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