Not counting foreign intelligence, obviously.

"Did it work?"

"We, uh, dunno. We can't find what it hit."

Version 2:

"Did it work?"

<Turns on CNN> "Yup."

Indeed, I follow a guy on twitter that has photographed it.

Quickest link I could find to one of the photos https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-skywatcher-photo.htm...

And here is his account where he also has photos of stuff like the ISS https://twitter.com/ralfvandebergh

EDIT: looked it up a bit: both the start of this and previous missions had media coverage, and amateurs temporarily tracked the plane, so no point in secrecy.

It's in the news every time they decide to put it in the news. Many other things could happen in secret.

How do you define "good" at war? By the time you've reached "war" as a solution, "good" really isn't on the table.

Pretty much the only way to be "good" at war is to be willing to kill every single person in the theatre--civilians included. You are "good" at war and "win" in that case--there is no enemy left.

We also have a word for that--genocide. And we view that very negatively for good reason.

You win a war when the outcome lets you plausibly declare victory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

the same article linked in the wiki article that mentions motorcycle use.

Obviously the swarm of small things that are effectively man-piloted missiles are going to be able to take out the slow 200 million pound behemoth that requires 3-5 miles to turn around.

Change generic speedboat to fastboat and you have something that can do 30-90mph (50-80 knots) depending on wave conditions while the previously m entioned cyclone-class tops out at 40mph (35 knots).

Carrier groups aren't exactly in a tight circle around an aircraft carrier either and then you have to consider friendly fire (with deck guns/artillery) so enough much smaller craft can come zooming in and easily overwhelm any defensive capabilities.

Depending on distances and angle you might be firing a 62 caliber projectile directly at your own ships with a craft randomly adjusting course, in choppy waters. Software is only going to do so much to increase the odds of hitting your target and something like a deck gun is going to be used long before anti-ship missiles that cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars well into million dollar plus range a pop. Especially if you have a half dozen, a dozen, two dozen cheaply acquired speedboats/fast boats coming at you.

Naval warfare isn't much different now than it was hundreds of years ago for proper ships. Sure the projectiles can be laser guided and carry way more destructive potential while the ships can move under their own power but you're still talking about incredibly heavy ships that move slow and are bobbing up and down in the water.

Similarly put a dozen guys on performance dirt bikes and give them explosive backpacks and throw them at an M1 Abrams and unless you have one hell of a lucky gunner, one of those dozen people is going to get right up on that tank and at a minimum will render it immobile.

Naval ships are meant to fight other ships and in the case of the aircraft carrier itself, simply support a small fleet of aircraft. They are not designed, or intended to, fight multiple much smaller craft. Speedboats have very limited ranges, rarely leave coastal waters and can't carry any weapon system that poses a risk to naval vessels EXCEPT for shoulder-fired rockets and by acting as suicide man-piloted missiles laden with explosives.

Like, your whole argument is equally applicable to torpedoes, except those are even harder to hit.

Torpedos can cost a million bucks each, a stolen/commandeered/seized speedboat is free.

Torpedos are covered under ITAR and require quite a bit of sophistication to manufacture and are effectively limited to nations. Anyone can obtain a speedboat, or a dozen speedboats, and deploy them. Kinda like when the USS Cole was successfully attacked, leaving a 40x60 foot hole in the side, by a small fiberglass boat carrying several hundred pounds of explosives and modern day pirates usually use small fishing boats.

But the whole point of how carrier defenses work is to not wait until they're literally on top of you (like on your example of shooting your own ships). Speed boats are stupid loud on SONAR, so you should detect and destroy them before they can even see the carrier group.