alt Hacker NewsThe structure is engineered to survive a multitude of conventional threats intact. It is testing properties of the design rather than specific weapons per se. Also, these tests are intended to be non-destructive which impacts their design.
Exercises where the US military uses decommissioned aircraft carriers and other large ships as targets are illustrative. They are basically unsinkable. You can hit them with torpedoes, bombs, missiles, etc all day. At the end of the exercise they usually have to send over a specialized demolition crew to actually scuttle the ship. Astonishingly damage resistant.
A nuke would of course do the trick but now you are playing a different game.
People chronically underestimate how difficult it is to get enough conventional explosive on target to sink a major naval vessel, even ignoring the extensive active defenses.
> People chronically underestimate how difficult it is to get enough conventional explosive on target to sink a major naval vessel, even ignoring the extensive active defenses.
American ships, certainly. Russian ships? Oh boy. The Ukrainians, a country with no navy to speak of, sunk the Russian flagship Moskva to widespread memefied acclaim, a bunch of other Black Sea assets and are now taking potshots at the shadow fleet.