An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase , equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering shipborne aircraft. While heavier fixed-wing aircraft such as airlifters , gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft have not landed on a carrier due to flight deck limitations.
The aircraft carrier, along with its onboard aircraft and defensive ancillary weapons, is the largest weapon system ever created. By their tactical prowess, mobility, autonomy and the variety of operational means, aircraft carriers are often the centerpiece of modern naval warfare , and have significant diplomatic influence in deterrence , command of the sea and air supremacy.
Since the Second World War , the aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship in the role of flagship of a fleet, and largely transformed naval battles from gunfire to beyond-visual-range air strikes. In addition to tactical aptitudes, it has great strategic advantages in that, by sailing in international waters , it does not need to interfere with any territorial sovereignty and thus does not risk diplomatic complications or conflict escalation due to trespassing, and obviates the need for land use authorizations from third-party countries, reduces the times and transit logistics of aircraft and therefore significantly increases the time of availability on the combat zone.
There is no single definition of an "aircraft carrier", [ citation needed ] and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers, [ 2 ] and sometimes as distinct types of aviation-capable ships. As of January , there are 50 active aircraft carriers in the world operated by fifteen navies. The United States has 11 large nuclear-powered CATOBAR fleet carriers — each carrying around 80 fighters — the largest in the world, with the total combined deck space over twice that of all other nations combined.
Some of the types listed here are not strictly defined as aircraft carriers by some sources. A fleet carrier is intended to operate with the main fleet and usually provides an offensive capability.
