While the US Navy cannot hide from every satellite, turning off transponders significantly complicates Iran’s targeting loop. Iran utilises a mix of domestic satellites and commercial data to monitor naval movements in the Arabian Sea. By going dark, the Lincoln creates a “tactical vacuum.” Without a transponder signal to correlate with visual or radar imagery, the IRGC must dedicate significantly more resources to “finding and fixing” the carrier, often resulting in a delay of several hours, a lifetime in modern missile warfare.