Perhaps, but weaponized lasers are an affordable deterrent to just that. The navy was the first to field them. They were worried that Iran would simply swarm th

Perhaps, but weaponized lasers are an affordable deterrent to just that. The navy was the first to field them. They were worried that Iran would simply swarm their big battleships in a carrier strike group with dozens upon dozens of small speedboats + suicide bombers, or remotely piloted. Some lasers that are taught to focus on burning out the engine make short work of that. Things like this are what I'm referring to: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boeing-drone-laser-weapon/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boeing-drone-laser-we... The anti-small swarm lasers are already in active duty on a few newer Naval warships. In the 10 years time you mention for a possible ww3, not only will airborne lasers be viable, they'll be commonplace. So again, no I don't think that's really going to be a big issue. Also, if your idea did happen, it would be awful hard to defend a floating UAV 3d printing factory in the ocean. The US is slowly losing air superiority over the rest of the world, but there isn't a navy that would come close to even matching the might of the blue water US navy in 10 years, not by a long shot. Even China struggles with that.