Fleet aircraft carrier

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Fleet aircraft carriers with their aircraft are the main combat weapon of a large navy for combating sea and land targets.

History up to World War II

When the aircraft carriers were developed towards the end of the First World War , in the first few years they were initially conversions from other types of ship such as passenger ships , freighters and large warships and very different in size, performance and number of aircraft on board. The first ships designed as aircraft carriers from the drawing board were initially also more experimental ships than operational aircraft carriers.

By the Second World War , the aircraft carrier developed into a unit type of a fast, very large warship for the large naval forces, which was then the type of the fleet aircraft carrier in the Second World War and is still today.

History in World War II

British aircraft carriers Indomitable and Eagle in the Mediterranean in 1942

The distinction between different types of aircraft carriers did not begin until the first years of the Second World War, when there was an urgent need for aircraft carriers for various military uses that could not be met by the few fleet aircraft carriers.

As protection for convoys against bombers and submarines , the slowest simple aircraft carriers , the escort aircraft carriers , were built from freighter and tanker hulls , the speed of which was sufficient to escort convoy trains but not sufficient for service with the fast ships of the fleet .

Since the construction of the large and fast fleet aircraft carriers was and is costly and lengthy, the hulls of the smaller but fast cruisers were converted into aircraft carriers. These ships were named light aircraft carriers because they could carry far fewer aircraft on board than the large fleet aircraft carriers.

The fleet aircraft carriers themselves were the main combat weapon in the naval warfare between the United States and Japan during World War II. Towards the end of the war, the United States also used its fleet aircraft carriers on a massive scale for aerial bombardment of targets on the Japanese islands.

After the Second World War

USS Ranger 1987

Since the middle of the Second World War, the fleet aircraft carrier had established itself as the most powerful weapon in naval warfare - and as a strategic weapon in war in general. In the decades since World War II, the size of fleet aircraft carriers, especially those in the US Navy , and with their nuclear armament in the mid-1950s, their clout took another leap.

In its wars since World War II, the United States has used its fleet aircraft carriers as the main weapon in aerial warfare .

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