Navies across the globe crossed a doctrinal threshold in early 2025 as platforms purpose built or adapted to operate large unmanned air wings moved from prototype to fleet status. The shift is not a single breakthrough. It is the convergence of three trends: mature shipboard unmanned aviation, hardened shipboard command and control for remote air vehicles, and a pragmatic preference for lower cost, deniable standoff effects. The recent operational milestones out of Türkiye, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the continuing Chinese build program together sketch how naval aviation is fragmenting into manned and unmanned domains.

Turkish model: conversion plus indigenous UCAVs

Turkey’s amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu (L-400) has been the most visible early example of a conversion-first approach. Anadolu entered service with the Turkish Navy in April 2023 as a Juan Carlos I derivative and has since been reworked to host a primarily unmanned aviation wing. Turkish industry has validated shipborne UCAV operations with the Bayraktar TB3, which completed its first short-deck takeoff and landing trials aboard Anadolu in November 2024 and continued follow-on sea trials into 2025. The TB3 is a navalized evolution of the TB2 family with folding wings, strengthened landing gear, and a modest payload and endurance envelope that fits a short-deck profile. Turkish publications and defense reporting cite an Anadolu baseline displacement around 27,000 tonnes and a planned air wing that will emphasize multiple TB3 and Kızılelma unmanned types, with an initial tactical emphasis on ISR and precision strike across the near sea area.

Iran’s commissioning: a converted container ship reimagined as a drone carrier

On February 6, 2025, the IRGC-Navy publicly commissioned a large converted merchant hull, named Shahid Bagheri, presented by Iranian media as a purpose built drone carrier with a long, angled flight deck and ski-jump ramp. Open source technical summaries list the platform at roughly 40,000 to 42,000 tonnes displacement after conversion, an internal hangar complex and multiple drone types staged for sea borne strikes and surveillance. Tehran’s approach is notable for scale and for its combination of UAVs, helicopters and an internal well of asymmetric options such as fast attack craft. The Shahid Bagheri signals Iran’s intention to put large numbers of expendable or semi-expendable unmanned platforms on a single mothership in order to complicate adversary targeting and extend the IRGC’s operational reach.

China: a ship-class designed with catapults and arresting gear

China’s December 27, 2024 launch of the Type 076 lead ship Sichuan represents a different, higher-end technical path. The Type 076 is an amphibious assault hull fitted during construction with an electromagnetic launch trench and arresting gear. The ship’s authors and state reporting emphasize the ability to operate fixed wing aircraft and large UCAVs from a full length flight deck, not simply rotary wing and short takeoff craft. That design choice increases sortie flexibility and payload options for future long-range strike and ISR unmanned platforms, but it also imposes large electrical power and systems-integration requirements traditionally associated with full carriers. The Sichuan launch marks a key capability vector rather than an immediate operational surge.

United States: shipboard control, not a dedicated drone flattop

The US Navy has taken a different route. Rather than commissioning a dedicated unmanned carrier, the Navy has begun embedding Unmanned Air Warfare Centers and validated shipboard mission control suites on existing nuclear and large-deck platforms. In December 2024 the Navy installed an Unmanned Air Warfare Center aboard USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) as the first afloat Ground Control Station intended to host MQ-25 and follow-on carrier-based Group 5 UAS operations. Concurrently the MQ-25 program remains framed within a tanker-first doctrine designed to extend manned fighter reach and persistence rather than to create a separate, unmanned-only carrier air wing. The US approach is modular and incremental, prioritizing robust C2 chains and manned-unmanned teaming rather than wholesale redefinition of carrier strike groups.

What the numbers say about capability and cost

Comparing platforms helps make the operational choices clear. Anadolu at roughly 27,000 tonnes converts available hangar depth and short-deck operations into a relatively low-cost, rapid path to drones at sea; Shahid Bagheri’s post-conversion 40k+ tonnes posture prioritizes density and long endurance; Type 076’s integrated EM launch capability pushes the envelope toward larger, faster UCAVs and higher sortie generation. By contrast, US carrier integration investments aim to preserve multi-role capability and sortie density for manned aircraft while adding unmanned functions in tanker and ISR roles where the return on investment is clearest.

Operational payoffs and persistent risks

Unmanned carriers expand options: distributed strike, larger numbers of lower cost sorties, reduced risk to aircrew, and new kinds of attritable swarm or massed strike profiles. They also create clear vulnerabilities. First, command and control. Operating dozens of air vehicles off one hull stresses datalinks, SATCOM capacity, and the human workload of AVPs on a ship that must continue to manage navigation, self defense and logistics. Second, survivability. Platforms optimized for drones tend to be softer than nuclear carriers. A strike that disables a mothership could eliminate a large fraction of an actor’s at-sea unmanned effectors in one blow. Third, escalation control. Attribution and proportionality become harder when swarms of low signature platforms saturate a target set. Fourth, autonomy governance. The practical use of autonomous target prosecution at sea raises policy problems no less difficult than in land or air domains. These are technical problems with strategic consequences.

A short list of near term engineering priorities

1) Hardened, multi-path datalinks and adaptive spectrum management between ship, airborne relay, and onshore control nodes. Redundancy across HF, SATCOM, and line-of-sight links is non negotiable if carriers are to control dozens of AVs. 2) Robust human in the loop architectures for critical target engagement that prevent rapid escalation from ambiguous engagements. Design must treat autonomy as augmenting human decision making, not replacing it. 3) Distributed logistics and attritable concepts. If a mothership is vulnerable, fleets must commit to distributed basing, seabased replenishment, and inexpensive surrogate motherships as redundancy. 4) Electromagnetic compatibility, power generation and thermal management for catapult equipped platforms. EM launchers and high power sensors are integrated systems that drive hull electrical design choices.

Conclusion

The commissioning of multiple classes of unmanned-capable carriers in 2024 and early 2025 is less a sudden breakthrough than a predictable inflection point. It buys states new operational options and lowers some entry costs for sea control and power projection. It also forces hard choices about doctrine, C2 survivability and escalation control. For policy makers and fleet designers the core question is not whether to operate unmanned carriers. The question is how to integrate them into an architecture that preserves resilience and restraint, and that understands the physics and logistics that still determine naval combat outcomes. The malls of the future sea fight will be filled with inexpensive aircraft. The ships that command them will be as valuable and as fragile as any capital asset in that fight.