Iranian Drone Carrier

The Iranian drone carrier, Shahid Bagheri, has been attacked and set afire by US forces and is, apparently, now burned out and grounded.
 
Setting aside the fate of the vessel, the ship offers some interesting thoughts for the US Navy.
 

The Shahid Bagheri represents Iran’s most significant naval aviation platform. The 40,000-ton vessel was commissioned in February 2025 after being converted from the Perarin, a South Korean-built container ship. Iranian engineers modified the hull to accommodate a 180-meter flight deck equipped with a ski-jump ramp for drone launches.
 
According to CENTCOM, the vessel had been operating as a “mothership” in the Gulf, serving as a floating launch platform for both unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic missiles.[1]

Regardless of the actual capabilities of the vessel, it stands as an object lesson about the ease with which a run of the mill merchant ship can be converted into a drone carrier; something the US Navy could surely use, at least as a prototype for operational experience and doctrine and tactics development.
 
Such a carrier does not need to be the typical gold-plated monstrosity that the USN always tries to produce.  It can be a simple converted merchant ship which is exactly what Iran did with the Shahid Bagheri.  If Iran can do that, surely we can?  Against the scale of USN budgets, such a conversion would be nearly free.
 
The Navy seems committed to unmanned everything so why not acquire and convert a merchant ship as a drone carrier to gain operational experience and develop doctrine and tactics?
 
Heck, had they been thinking ahead, the Navy could have seized the Shahid Bagheri for our own use!  Iran was kind enough to do the conversion so why not take advantage of it?  What a great mission for a bunch of SEALs!  Well, too late now, I guess.
 

Iranian Drone Carrier

This is just idle thinking on my part.  The Navy is probably better off just building more Burkes.  We’re up to … what? … Flt 27 now?  Anything different, or experimental, or innovative would be too much of a risk for the Navy.

 
 
 
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[1]Naval News website, “CENTCOM Releases Footage Showing Strike on Iran’s Drone Carrier”, Tayfun Ozberk, 6-Mar-2026,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/03/centcom-releases-footage-showing-strike-on-irans-drone-carrier/