Business Insider:

Turkey and Iran say they're building navies capable of projecting power far from their shores, and at the center of these ambitions are motherships for aerial drones.

These regional powers are betting they can build an expendable air force without the massive costs of aircraft carriers, fighter jets and pilots trained to fly them.

"I think both navies will use these carriers in the same way — to attack enemy troops and facilities ashore and enemy ships in littoral areas where they can be targeted by shore-based radar and spotters," Bryan Clark, a naval expert at the Hudson Institute think tank, said.

Naval experts agree that drone ships represent new possibilities while pointing out that these ships fall far short of the aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships that top navies sail. Indeed, an amphibious flattop capable of launching helicopters and short-landing and take-off jets was Turkey's original vision, but things didn't go according to plan.

The US banned Turkey from acquiring the F-35B, the jump-jet version of the Joint Strike Fighter it had planned to fly from the deck of its TCG Anadolu flagship. Consequently, Turkey made some modifications in the final stages of the Anadolu's construction, ultimately transforming it into a first-of-its-kind drone carrier.

Turkey developed the Bayraktar TB3 naval drone for the Anadolu and claims the unmanned Kizilelma fighter jet it is developing could also operate from it. Ankara has plans for a second, larger vessel like the Anadolu, which it claims will have even more domestic components.

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