Aircraft carriers are the epitome of naval power, but no one projects strength and influence around the world like the class leader, the Gerald R Ford class, leading the pack in the United States Navy. The USS Gerald R Ford, CVN 78, at a full-load displacement of 100,000 tons, is the largest aircraft carrier in the world. Delivered in May 2017, the aircraft carrier achieved initial operational capability in December 2021. A 78-meter-wide flight deck is fitted out with an electromagnetic aircraft launch system and advanced arresting gear. With the ability to accommodate more than 75 aircraft and up to 4,539 personnel, it stands as the biggest warship the US Navy has commissioned.
Its full load displacement of 97,000 tons grants the Nimitz class second place in the ranking. The lead of this class was commissioned in May 1975, while the most recent, USS George HW Bush (CVN 77), was commissioned in January 2009. The carriers are designed to provide a 50-year operational life, requiring only one mid-life refueling. The Nimitz class carries a 4.5-acre flight deck and can carry more than 60 aircraft. The ships are powered by two nuclear reactors which give them a top speed of over 30 knots.
The Queen Elizabeth class sets the record as the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy, with a displacement of 65,000 tons. The first one in this class is HMS Queen Elizabeth, which was commissioned in December 2017, while another, known as HMS Prince of Wales, was commissioned into the Navy in December 2019. These carriers are capable of supporting up to 40 rotary and fixed-wing aircraft and can work with a lean crew of 679.
The only operational aircraft carrier of the Russian Navy is a 58,500-ton-displacement vessel: Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov. It has a flight deck area of 14,700 square meters and is designed to carry a mix of Su-33, MiG-29K, and Su-25UTG/UBP STOVL fighters along with helicopters of different types. The propulsion includes a steam turbine for a maximum speed of 32 knots.
The INS Vikramaditya is a modified Kiev-class carrier that India had procured from Russia. Displacing 44,500 tons, the Vikramaditya was commissioned in November 2013. It can carry upwards of 30 aircraft and has a complement of a variety of missiles and guided bombs.
The first is the French nuclear-powered surface vessel Charles de Gaulle-identified as R91-which displaces 42,000 tons and supports operations of 40 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. This vessel underwent a significant refit in 2013 and remains a critical component of French naval capabilities.
Building such massive vessels is often an epic undertaking that may take a few years to plan and coordinate among several thousands of skilled craftsmen. Contemporary shipbuilding is largely modular, where larger sections of the vessel are fully completed before being connected in a “super lift.” This requires large cranes and dry docks, such as at Huntington Ingalls Industries, HII Newport News Shipbuilding yard, which boasts the largest dry dock and gantry crane in the United States.
Regardless, the future of aircraft carriers remains a question mark. While questions persist about the vulnerability of Ford-class carriers in the face of modern missile technology and the changing nature of naval warfare, the US Navy is ramping up production of the vessels. A 2019 study from the Lexington Institute emphasized the need to secure air and sea lanes around key manufacturing sources proximate to adversaries like Russia and highlighted the role of forward-deployed US airpower in maintaining global stability.
However, it may be the development of increasingly advanced A2/AD capabilities on behalf of adversaries and the constraints imposed by traditional ship designs that will drive the requirement for significant numbers of unmanned platforms and distributed lethality concepts. The future carrier strike group could well be built around multiple smaller drone carriers, reducing vulnerability while gaining significant operational flexibility.
History attests that aircraft carriers bear strategic value which is hard to overestimate. That argument of a fleet being robust and ready is one echoed throughout history, perhaps most demonstrably in the Battle of Midway in World War II, where Herculean efforts were involved in trying to get the USS Yorktown ready on time. These have been very important ships in many major naval battles. The lessons from the past remain ever-relevant. In turn, peacetime investment in naval power is necessary to make the fleet strong and responsive, ready to face whatever the future may bring.