From design flaws to the incompetence of crews and dismal combat records, history has certainly seen the making of some of the worst aircraft carriers ever built. It is included here, being partially part of the merit of this retrospective, that these cavernous constructions have been products of their time—maimed or molded by the technological limitations and strategic thought of their epoch. However, their failures can serve as warnings in the history of naval warfare.
The Shinano: A Colossal Failure on Maiden Voyage In November 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s great battleship-reverted-aircraft carrier, Shinano, met a tragic fate during sea trials near Yokosuka Naval Base. The 69,000-ton behemoth, carrying 1,435 officers, enlisted sailors, and civilians, was struck by three torpedoes from the American submarine USS Archerfish and sank within seven hours of the attack. Quoted from the source article, “69,000 tons and 1,435 officers — including the skipper, Capt. Toshio Abe — enlisted sailors, and civilians, down the drain.” The Shinano’s loss before she saw any action in the war ensured she would be counted with the worst carriers ever constructed.
The Taihō: A Floating Time Bomb The IJN Taihō, Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa’s flagship, succumbed to a single torpedo hit from the American submarine USS Albacore on June 19, 1944. As the reference article explains, “a novice took over the damage control responsibilities. He believed that the best way to handle gasoline fumes was to open up the ship’s ventilation system and let them disperse throughout the ship. This action turned the ship into a floating time bomb.” A catastrophic explosion followed, sealing the Taihō’s fate and underscoring the consequences of crew incompetence.
The Graf Zeppelin: The Wonder That Never Fought Although the Kriegsmarine did quite well during World War II concerning battleships, battlecruisers, and U-boats, its carrier program was a complete failure. As if commissioned to the seas in 1938, the vaunted Graf Zeppelin remained seaworthy until delays occurred due to the outbreak of war. “By 1943 it turned out that the Graf Zeppelin was still not seaworthy, and the then 67-year-old Admiral Erich Raeder was pushed aside by der Führer as commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine and replaced by Admiral Karl Dönitz, who did not believe in the strategic importance of aircraft carriers and put the kibosh on any further work on the Graf Zeppelin.” This technical wonder never saw action or even reached full status, representing the squandered potential of Germany’s carrier program.
The Admiral Kuznetsov: Russia’s Troubled Flagship Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, has been dogged with problems ever since it was commissioned in 1990, in the dying days of the Soviet Union. In fact, according to the reference article, “Between 1991 and 2015, she completed only six patrols at sea.” Reliant on the polluting fuel Mazut, plagued by a sunken dry dock in 2018, and hobbled by a costly onboard fire in 2019, the Kuznetsov has had reliability problems that have essentially made it a liability for the Russian Navy.
The Vikramaditya: India’s Inherited Headache India’s flagship aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya, sheds some light on the challenges of keeping Soviet-era carriers afloat. Originally commissioned as the Soviet Navy’s Admiral Gorshkov in 1987, India purchased the carrier from post-Soviet Russia in 2004. Since then, the Vikramaditya has been plagued by incidents such as “a toxic gas leak occurred during maintenance work in the vessel’s sewage treatment plant compartment, resulting in two deaths,” followed by “three fires in 3.5 years,” according to the reference article. These recurring problems underline the intrinsic flaws of the Soviet design in Vikramaditya’s make.