An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Carriers have evolved since their inception in the early twentieth century from wooden vessels used to deploy balloons to nuclear-powered warships that carry numerous fighters, strike aircraft, helicopters, and other types of aircraft. While heavier aircraft such as fixed-wing gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft have not successfully landed on a carrier. By its diplomatic and tactical power, its mobility, its autonomy and the variety of its means, the aircraft carrier is often the centerpiece of modern combat fleets. Tactically or even strategically, it replaced the battleship in the role of flagship of a fleet. One of its great advantages is that, by sailing in international waters, it does not interfere with any territorial sovereignty and thus obviates the need for overflight authorizations from third-party countries, reduces the times and transit distances of aircraft and therefore significantly increase the time of availability on the combat zone.
The Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier, Soviet designation Project 1143.5, is a class of fixed-wing aircraft carriers operated by the Russian and Chinese navies. Originally designed for the Soviet Navy, the Kuznetsov-class ships use a ski-jump to launch high-performance conventional aircraft in a STOBAR configuration. The design represented a major advance in Soviet fleet aviation over the Kiev-class carriers, which could only launch VSTOL aircraft. The Soviet Union's classification for the class was as a heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser, which permits the ships to transit the Turkish Straits without violating the Montreux Convention, however the Chinese variants are classified as aircraft carriers.
Príncipe de Asturias, originally named Almirante Carrero Blanco, was a light aircraft carrier and former flagship of the Spanish Navy. She was built in Bazan's Shipyards and delivered to the Spanish Navy on 30 May 1988.
USS Forrestal (CV-59), was a supercarrier named after the first United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. Commissioned in 1955, she was the United States' first completed supercarrier, and was the lead ship of her class. The other carriers of her class were USS Saratoga, USS Ranger and USS Independence. She surpassed the World War II Japanese carrier Shinano as the largest carrier yet built, and was the first designed to support jet aircraft.
HMS Invincible was the Royal Navy's lead ship of her class of three light aircraft carriers. She was launched on 3 May 1977 as the seventh ship to carry the name. She was originally designated as an anti-submarine warfare carrier, but was used as an aircraft carrier during the Falklands War, when she was deployed with HMS Hermes. She took over as flagship of the British fleet when Hermes was sold to India. Invincible was also deployed in the Yugoslav Wars and the Second Gulf War. In 2005, she was decommissioned, and was eventually sold for scrap in February 2011.
NAeL Minas Gerais was a Colossus-class light aircraft carrier operated by the Marinha do Brasil from 1960 until 2001. The ship was laid down for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy during World War II as HMS Vengeance, was completed shortly before the war's end, and did not see combat. After stints as a training vessel and Arctic research ship, the carrier was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy from 1952 to 1955. She was returned to the British, who sold her to Brazil in 1956.
Giuseppe Garibaldi is an Italian aircraft carrier, the first through deck aviation ship ever built for the Italian Navy, and the first Italian ship built to operate fixed-wing aircraft. She is equipped with short take-off and vertical landing aircraft (STOVL) aircraft and helicopters. Giuseppe Garibaldi was involved in combat air operations off Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya.
USS Midway (CVB/CVA/CV-41) is an aircraft carrier, formerly of the United States Navy, the lead ship of her class. Commissioned 8 days after the end of World War II, Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955, as well as the first U.S. aircraft carrier too big to transit the Panama Canal. She operated for 47 years, during which time she saw action in the Vietnam War and served as the Persian Gulf flagship in 1991's Operation Desert Storm. Decommissioned in 1992, she is now a museum ship at the USS Midway Museum, in San Diego, California, and is the only remaining inactive U.S. aircraft carrier that is not an Essex-class aircraft carrier.
The fifth USS Independence (CV/CVA-62) was an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. She was the fourth and final member of the Forrestal class of conventionally powered supercarriers. She entered service in 1959, with much of her early years spent in the Mediterranean Fleet.
The Centaur class aircraft carrier was the final iteration of the 1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier developed by the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. They were designed in 1943 to operate higher-performance aircraft than the preceding Majestic-class aircraft carrier. Four ships were laid down in 1944-1945 and completed in 1953-1959. Rapid developments in carrier warfare and technology overtook the ships even as they were under construction, and the associated costs of modernization led to ships being completed to different specifications. Only the last ship, HMS Hermes (R12), was fitted as a modern fixed-wing carrier; she was also the last of the class to retire in 2017 as INS Viraat.
CVA-01 was a proposed United Kingdom aircraft carrier, designed during the 1960s. The ship was intended to be the first of a class that would replace all then-existing Royal Navy carriers, most of which had been designed before or during the Second World War. CVA-01 and CVA-02 were intended to replace HMS Victorious and HMS Ark Royal, while CVA-03 and CVA-04 would have replaced HMS Hermes and HMS Eagle respectively.
Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases.
An anti-submarine warfare carrier is a type of small aircraft carrier whose primary role is as the nucleus of an anti-submarine warfare hunter-killer group. This type of ship came into existence during the Cold War as a development of the escort carriers used in the ASW role in the North Atlantic during World War II.
Vittorio Veneto was a helicopter cruiser that served with the Italian Navy. Originally intended to be a class of two ships specifically designed for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), only Vittorio Veneto entered into service in 1969, its sister ship Italia being cancelled. Vittorio Veneto was decommissioned in 2003. This ship has the same general layout as the smaller Andrea Doria-class helicopter cruisers, but with two elevators in the flight deck and the hangar below, rather than with the hangar as part of the superstructure. It was named for the decisive Battle of Vittorio Veneto which ended World War I on the Italian front.
The Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers are a pair of aircraft carriers which served in the French Navy from 1961 until 2000. From 2000 until 2017 one served with the Brazilian Navy as São Paulo. The Clemenceau class was France's first successful aircraft carrier design after World War II and was the backbone of the French Fleet for the duration of its forty years of service.
An amphibious assault ship is a type of amphibious warfare ship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory by an amphibious assault. The design evolved from aircraft carriers converted for use as helicopter carriers. Modern ships support amphibious landing craft, with most designs including a well deck. Coming full circle, some amphibious assault ships also support V/STOL fixed-wing aircraft, now having a secondary role as aircraft carriers.
Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 14 (HSC-14) "Chargers" is an aviation unit of the United States Navy based at Naval Air Station North Island, California (USA). HSC-14 was established as Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 14 (HS-14) in 1984 and was redesignated HSC-14 in 2013. The squadron is equipped with the Sikorsky MH-60S Seahawk.
Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron Seven Seven (HSM-77) "Saberhawks" is a United States Navy helicopter squadron based at Naval Air Facility, Atsugi, Japan. HSM-77 is attached to Carrier Air Wing Five and deploys aboard USS Ronald Reagan and air capable ships attached to Carrier Strike Group Five (CSG-5). The squadron was established as Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron (Light) Forty Seven (HSL-47) on 25 September 1987 and was redesignated HSM-77 on 2 Apr 2009.
Cross-deck is naval jargon which may refer to either informal, ad-hoc sharing of resources between naval vessels, or the use of carrier decks to host aircraft of foreign allies, aircraft from other ships in the same navy, or as re-fueling platforms for naval aircraft to extend flight operations beyond the range of the aircraft type. The operations may be entirely within a single navy, or between allied navies such as defined in the HOSTAC agreement. This may be required for ferrying aircraft or supplies, power projection operations involving fixed or rotary-wing aircraft, or to provide flexibility in operating limited numbers of specialized aircraft over a wide theatre of operations. Spare parts that can be lifted by helicopter are often crossed decked between ships operating compatible equipment, to reduce redundancy in carrying spares.
The Essex class was a class of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. The 20th century's most numerous class of capital ship, the class consisted of 24 vessels, which came in "short-hull" and "long-hull" versions. Thirty-two ships were ordered, but as World War II wound down, six were canceled before construction, and two were canceled after construction had begun. Fourteen ships of the class engaged in combat operations during World War II. No Essex-class ships were lost to enemy action even though several sustained crippling damage. The Essex-class carriers were the backbone of the U.S. Navy's combat strength during World War II from mid-1943 on, and, along with the three Midway-class carriers added just after the war, continued to be the heart of U.S. naval strength until the supercarriers came into the fleet in numbers during the 1960s and 1970s. They had considerable growth potential, with numerous members of the class rebuilt to handle the heavier and faster aircraft of the early jet age, and some of these would serve until well after the end of the Vietnam War.
