HMS Hermes was a centaur class aircraft carrier which entered Royal navy service in 1959 and served until 1984, sold to India in 1986 she was recommissioned and served with India until 2017, so 58 years in that case

The Nimitz was commissioned in 1975 and is still serving currently so 48 years and counting.

The answer is then with the right ship you should be able to get 50 years out of them, of course that would be with long spells of maintenance/upgrading and in the case of Nimitz nuclear refuelling as well.

It’s hard to imagine what a carrier doing flank speed is like.

During our transit to the North Arabian Sea, we conducted a rendezvous in the Indian Ocean with an amphibious group that was transiting back to the US.

That day, the amphib guys showed off their LCACs, and we gave them an impromptu air show, with a couple of fly-bys for good measure.

As we parted company, our skipper announced “Let’s show them what an aircraft carrier can do”. We were barely making way at the time. He ordered us to depart at flank speed.

I left the combat center, and went to the aft of the ship to watch the fun. At the back of the hangar deck, there is an area (seen above) below the flight deck where you can access.

When flank speed is ordered, power is applied to the shafts to turn the propellers. On the Nimitz class carriers, the four propellers are approximately 25 feet in diameter, and each weighs about 30 tons. When power is applied, torque on the shafts is limited to prevent damage - the shafts can “twist” up to one and a half times (540 degrees). The longest shafts are 184 feet long (thanks Seth!).

When the propellers start to turn, the water behind the ship begins to churn - it looks like the sea is beginning to boil. You can feel the ship vibrating as the engines ramp up and the propellers start to rotate.

After about 10 minutes (I didn’t time it), we were at flank speed. The rooster tail behind the ship was approximately eye height (15–20 feet above sea level). I guess if you have a long enough cable and a death wish, you could waterski behind the carrier.

This question is asked in the wrong tense.

It’s not Will (present tense), it’s Was (past tense).

The aircraft carrier was replaced as the most powerful navy vessel at 12:39 on 20th July 1960, when Commander James Osborn, CO of the USS George Washington SSBN 598, sent the message to President Eisenhower that it had successfully conducted the first launch of a Polaris ballistic missile while submerged. Since then, the ballistic missile submarine has by an order of magnitude been the most powerful naval asset.

The Carrier is, of course, still an exceptionally powerful asset, significantly more flexible, and almost infinitely more visible. But its area of influence is rarely more than a few hundred miles in radius, roughly 1% of the Earth’s surface, whereas two modern US SSBNs can cover the entire planet with their 12,000+km-range Trident D5 missiles.

This graphic is for the earlier Trident C4 missile, which had a range only some 60% that of the D5, and even at that a single submarine in the middle of the North Atlantic can cover a huge swathe of America, Africa, all of Europe and a large chunk of Asia. Replace this with a D5, and the only land areas that would be out of range of the same submarine would be Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and South China Sea Islands, Malaysia, Cambodia and the southern half of Vietnam.

52 years and counting. The USS Hornet (CVS-12) was decommissioned June 26, 1970. It wasn’t scrapped because it was kept in reserve until 1989, and then when it was intended to be scrapped it was saved by historically-minded citizens and was donated to become a museum in Alameda, CA in 1998.

USS Hornet museum in Alameda. Own photo April 2014

Interestingly, the SECOND longest (and still counting) decommissioned Carrier is USS Yorktown (CVS-10), which was decommissioned one day later (June 27, 1970) but it became a museum in 1974.

Yorktown at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum. Own Photo, April 2014.

The longest the Navy held on to a carrier before ultimately scrapping it was over 25 years. USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) was decommissioned July 9, 1947 (after being completely rebuilt following major damage in 1945) but was not sold for scrap until February 1973. It took that long because the Navy held it in reserve until 1966, and then used it as a stationary electronics test platform at NAS North Island until 1972.

ex-Bunker Hill, as a test platform in 1971. USN Photo

Currently (as of December 2022, and this will change) the longest currently-stored decommissioned Aircraft Carrier is ex John F Kennedy. Decommissioned March 23, 2007 it’s been awaiting fate for over 15 years.

Kennedy is currently being stored in Philadelphia but the scrapping contract has already been signed. Once International Shipbreaking is done scrapping ex Kitty Hawk, the Kennedy will be towed down to Brownsville to be similarly disposed of.

The reasons it has taken so long was firstly, the ship was held in Donation Hold as a potential museum until 2017, and as the newest of the oil-fired Supercarriers it made more sense to scrap the older ones first. The Navy didn’t start scrapping supercarriers until Forrestal in 2013.

ex John F Kennedy in Philadelpha, awaiting her fate.

Edit for 2025: ex John F Kennedy has headed to the scrapyard, so the next (and only) decommissioned American carrier in storage is ex-Enterprise, whch was officially decommissioned February 3, 2017, although she was placed out of service December 1, 2012. The reason for the 4 1/4 year difference between deactivation and decommissioning is that the decommissioning could only occur after all 8 reactors had been de-fueled.

You have to bear in mind the extremely harsh environment these machines operate in. Apart from the hard wear of being used as a war machine, salt water is the sworn enemy of steel and nearly all construction materials used.

Commercial vessels have a design life of around 25 years. Some will stretch to 30 years if well maintained. I won’t go into Jones Act vessels operating in US waters. That’s another whole rotten steaming kettle of fish.

The US Navy, on the other hand, designs aircraft carriers with a projected 50 year lifespan. This is dictated by the status of the nuclear reactor. The earlier Enterprise needed refueling, as did earlier nuclear powered submarines. The ford class and newer submarines, are designed to operate their entire lifespan without refueling.

This doesn’t mean that aircraft carriers are inherently stronger than commercial vessels, more that the USN is ready and able to spend inordinate amounts of money on periodically refitting annd upgrading its carriers. It’s quite possible the USN may spend the same amount of money repairing and upgrading its carriers during their lifespans, as it did to build them in the first place, which would not make sense in the commercial world.

All of the above. Along with “Disposed of in support of fleet training exercise” (meaning, sunk as a target).

The vast majority of decommissioned US aircraft carriers were scrapped, starting with CV-4 Ranger in 1947. That’s generally the fate of most ships.

The only decommissioned American aircraft carriers that were NOT scrapped, can be listed fairly quickly.

CV-3 Saratoga, CVL-22 Independence, and CV-66 America were all sunk as targets, along with a couple Escort carriers.

CV-10 Yorktown, CV-11 Intrepid, CV-12 Hornet, CV-16 Lexington, and CV-41 Midway were donated as Museums.

The US did transfer 2 Light Aircraft Carriers (CVL) to other countries- CVL-24 Belleau Wood was loaned to France from 1953–1960, but was returned and subsequently scrapped. CVL-28 Cabot was loaned to Spain in 1967, but was eventually sold to Span in 1973. An attempt to preserve it in the US after it was decommissioned by Spain n 1989 failed, and it too was scrapped.

Escort Carriers had a little different fate. Again, the majority were scrapped, one (Makassar Strait CVE-91) was used as a target, but a fair number were converted back into Civilian cargo ships (particularly Bogue class ships) and sold for commercial use.

I never saw a carrier accelerate to top speed but I saw one at top speed.

I was on the nuclear powered USS Virginia CGN-38 in the late 1970’s. We were forward picket for the Nimitz and her task group. We usually swept the ocean for bad guys from a couple of hundred miles in front of the other surface units.

We all were returning from a Med cruise when we got ordered to head for home at top speed. Apparently Skylab or something else in orbit was coming down. Its final orbital path went over the Washington DC area. They Navy volunteered us and the Nimitz itself to be mobile missle platforms to defend the capital from plummeting stuff, if anything actually came down. No other units could go to top speed and stay there for the several days needed to get there in time, as only the two of us were nuclear powered.

The next morning, word was passed that the Nimitz would pass us at their top speed. During the night, they had closed the several hundred mile gap between us.

I had been on watch before breakfast so instead of going to the electric shop I sneaked up on the main deck to watch her go by. Pretty much anyone who could get away was up there.

We were doing more than 30 knots and were shaking a lot. The wind was sweeping over the decks and wewere throwing up a significant rooster tail.

The Nimitz looked like a 1000 foot long speed boat. A couple of yards vertically of red paint below the waterline was intermittently visible through her bow wave. The stern was a similar amount down. There was a significant rooster tail boiling up behind her. My guess from a few hundred yards away would be about fifty feet high.

The Nimitz came into view, passed us like we standing still and disappeared over the horizon in less than 30 minutes.

After she went by the word was passed to brace for rolls from the wake of the Nimitz. On the main deck, we could see the wake coming. A mini-tidal wave about 8 or ten feet high. The wake set us to rolling about ten or fifteen degrees. This was a cruiser around 500 feet long.

The Nimitz made it in time and was on station when nothing fell from the sky. Apparently the Skylab debris landed near Australia.

We got delayed by bad weather (Perfect storm type bad) but that's another story.

Considering that more than half of the aircraft carriers of the world to the United States Navy, let’s take a look at what comprises a standard US Carrier Strike Group(CSG), shall we?

Protecting the carrier in the innermost layer of the CSG’s air defense network are one or two Guided Missile Cruisers(CGs) of the Ticonderoga Class. These ships pack 122 VLS cells, all of which are loaded with an array of Surface to Air, Land Attack, and Anti-ship missiles. That being said, the majority of the cells are usually equipped with Standard-series Surface to Air Missiles of the SM-2,3 or 6 variety. Some are quad-packed with shorter ranger Surface to Air Missiles like the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow for medium and short-range air defense. There are always at the very least one, if not two Ticonderoga Class CGs in a CSG, and they are the most capable ships in the USN inventory in the role of blanket air defense. For the most part, CGs are more single purpose than the Destroyers and Frigates that assist in the defense of the Carrier, but they too can perform Anti-Surface, and Anti-Submarine warfare like their smaller cousins, albeit with marginally lesser effectiveness.

(A Ticonderoga Class Cruiser underway)

Beyond the CGs, there are a further three or four Guided Missile Destroyers(DDGs) or Guided Missile Frigates(FFGs) positioned further away from the carrier to perform outer air defense against farther away threats. Aside from the carrier’s air-wing itself, these DDGs and FFGs are tasked with engaging and screening incoming aerial threats well before the cruisers have to jump into the fray to defeat them. Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers Flight IIA and onwards pack 96 VLS cells, like the Ticonderogas, they’re mostly packed with Surface to Air Missiles, with some space allotted for Cruise Missiles, Anti-Ship Missiles and Rocket-propelled Torpedoes as well. Due to their *usual* positioning, farther out from the CSG’s proverbial king, the carrier, these guys are expected to be the first line of surface-based defense against incoming aerial, surface and subsurface threats, and their weapons complement and shipboard sensors reflect that mission set.

(Arleigh Burke Flight IIA DDG)

(Artist’s Rendering of a Constellation Class FFG)

Lastly, somewhere beneath the waves, a 688I or Virginia class boat will be lurking about combing the depths for subsurface threats. Usually, there will be at least one, if not more Attack Submarine/s in close vicinity of a carrier and their sole purpose is to screen and eliminate hostile sub-surface threats. These guys will not be seen, or heard, but they’re there, and they will ruin your day if you have hostile intentions. If there just so happens to be a Seawolf attached to any given CSG at this point in time, I pity the fool that tries to roll up on a Carrier guarded by the best Attack Sub class in the world. It’s not the Virginia Block V, not the Yasen, not the Suffren; but the Seawolf.

That just about rounds out the standard composition of a US Navy Carrier Strike Group during peacetime. Naturally, there are several supporting vessels that replenish the fleet whilst at sea, and they are vital to sustaining carrier flight ops, and keeping the sailors of the fleet well-fed, and the aircraft well fueled, but since they don’t partake in the active defense of the fleet, I didn’t include them. Just know that they’re there and their role is just as vital to the CSG as the Attack Sub/s, or one of the Surface Combatants.

That would be the US navy. Here is USS Nimitz, launched in 1972, and commissioned in 1975. So she is basically 50 years old.
She was the lead ship of a class of 10 super carriers which presently comprise most of our fleet of 11 carriers.
She has been constantly updated and improved throughout her career, and while some aspects of her design might be a little dated at this point, she is hardly obsolete. In fact, Nimitz is as capable today as she was when new.

She will be replaced by one of the new Ford class carriers within the next couple years, not because she is obsolete, but simply because she is physically old. Hulls only have so many years to give before the wear and tear begins to become difficult to overcome.

Nimitz and Ford class nuclear powered carriers are designed to last 50 years. The first nuclear powered carrier USS Enterprise was in service 51 years before being retired.

Previously, after about 25 years, the earlier nuclear powered carriers had to be put in dry dock for a couple of years for their mid life fuel replinishment and overhaul.

The Ford class is the first US Nuclear powered carrier that isn't supposed to need refueling during it's expected 50 year service. It will still need the overhaul but it won't be in dock for years.

In light of Chinas naval build and delays in getting the Ford operational the US Navy is looking at ideas to extend the operational use of some of the Nimitz class carriers.

The simple answer is they don't.

Only 14 navies operate Aircraft carriers worldwide, only 47 Aircraft/helicopter carriers are operated worldwide.

Out of these 47 Warships the United States operate 11 aircraft carriers, the UK, China and India operate 2 a piece, France and Russia 1 each.

Also notably nations such as Spain, Italy, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Thailand etc operate Aircraft /Helicopter carriers.

Royal Navy Aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth & HMS Prince Of Wales

In the US, 50-60 years with proper maintenance. Without maintenance, a couple weeks. The projected hull life is usually 50+ years with our newer designs.

The nuclear powerplant might need refueling unless it is a Ford class with the new reactor. I think they are designed to run for the life of the ship. They achieve this by using highly enriched fuel, near weapon grade.

Some of our carriers might get a service life extension program and be extended a few more years. But we find a ship has a hull life that is calculated at BUSHIPS and is projected onto the ship at construction, and it is very rare for us to go past the projected hull life of a ship.

We don't want a lot of mothers complaining that we knew the ship was dangerous when we put the crew on it.

Because it doesn’t make sense to do so. Purpose built ships usually do the job better than trying to use something built for another purpose and then converting it later.

The reason that there were so many aircraft carrier conversions during WW1 and into the 1920s was firstly, because naval Aviation was in its infancy and no one had developed Aircraft carriers. They were mostly experimental, and they were trying a lot of different ideas and the designs were fluid. Since they didn’t have a final design, it was easier to convert ships that were otherwise going to be scrapped.

The British converted 2 ships that were under construction for other countries but were suspended due to WW1- one was supposed to be an Italian ocean liner, the other a Chilean Battleship. These ships were chosen because they were sufficiently complete to have their propulsion machinery installed, fast enough to be used as a Carrier, and were available.

The United States converted the collier Jupiter into a carrier because it was available. Colliers were not going to be needed beyond the mid 1920s as the US Navy was switching to an all oil-fired fleet. Jupiter was relatively new, fairly large, so was converted into the carrier USS Langley.

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 caused a fair number of conversions of Capital ships. The treaty limited the signatory nations in both the size of Capital ships, as well as total tonnage of capital ships. Any ships still under construction, barring a few exceptions, would have to be scrapped. One of those exceptions was that some ships could be converted into Aircraft carriers, up to a certain size limit.

This resulted in the British converting 3 Battlecruisers into carriers- one of which was converted in WW1 during construction into a rudimentary Carrier with only a flight deck over the bow (later converted into a full-deck carrier), the other 2 were converted to free up tonnage for capital ships even though they had been in service as battlecruisers during WW1.

The United States converted the incomplete battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga, the Japanese converted the incomplete battlecruiser Akagi and the battleship Kaga, and France converted the incomplete Battleship Bearn all under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.

WWII brought back converting ships. The main reason was to get ships built faster and cheaper than could be done with full Fleet carriers. The United States and the UK needed ships, fast, so converting cargo ships by building a flight deck above the main deck formed the first “Escort Aircraft Carriers”. Later CVEs would be purpose built, but used the cargo ship design as the basis of the hull. The US also built “Light” Aircraft carriers utilizing the hulls of incomplete Cruisers. These had the advantage of being fast enough, and larger than the Escort carriers, but had limited air wings due to their shorter, narrower hulls compared to a full Fleet carrier.

Japan started converting ships into carriers in the late 1930s in order to build up their Navy, converting all sorts of ships into carriers. Ocean Liners, Seaplane Tenders, Cargo ships became Light carriers or Escort carriers, and these conversions continued during the war. The largest, Shinano, was converted from a Yamato class battleship.

Italy attempted to convert several passenger liners into carriers during WWII but none were completed before Italy surrendered, and all were sunk.

The converted ships were never optimal. Most were smaller and slower, had very little resistance to battle damage, and once the war was over had little use outside of becoming aircraft ferries. Some Escort carriers were converted back into cargo ships but the majority were simply laid up until they met their date with the scrapper’s torch. Light carriers occasionally served later, a few went to other countries that didn’t have the means to build their own carriers, but their small size badly restricted what kinds of aircraft they could operate. There simply hasn’t been the need to put a lot of new carriers in service quickly since WWII- the only mass reactivation happened due to the Korean war and even then, the US had a dozen or so Essex-class carriers in mothballs to draw from.

While it’s technically feasible to convert a modern container ship or tanker into an aircraft carrier, there isn’t the need to do so. The countries building carriers have the time and resources to design purpose built ships.

I was responsible for tuning and testing the boilers and main engines of the USS John F Kennedy CV67, the last non-nuclear carrier the US operated.

Every six weeks we had to do a performance test. I always had my head under the hood, turning little screws to get the best out of the main turbines and boilers, so I usually did not get a view.

This is the USS Truman doing sea trials.

The performance tests we had to pass had these requirements:

• Go from 10% to 90% power in 45 seconds.
• After 4 minutes the main propulsion controls should be steady and within limits.

From those observations, I could tell when the ship caught up by how fast the screws were turning. From this I can say that the Kennedy would go from around 5 knots to 30 knots in 1/2 nautical mile and it would take around 2 minutes.

It took the JFK around six miles to stop from 30 knots to a drifting halt. You could stop much faster using reverse or by doing a hard turn. Here is the George H.W. Bush CVN 77 doing a full reverse.

I’ve never seen a picture of a carrier making turns for 30 knots from a stop but I have been on the fantail when we did this. During the first minute, the screws (propellers) are turning fast, but the ship is not moving fast and the screws force water from underneath the ship. This makes the aft section of the carrier sit down in the water while the water from the screws pile up behind the ship making a rooster tail about 30 ft high behind the ship.

The big one is End of Life. US Nimitz and Ford class Carriers have an expected lifespan cycle of 50 years. 2 nuclear fuel cycles. They get fueled once when built. And refueled once at around the 25 year halfway point.

Refueling is a major undertaking involving cutting open much of the ship. Ideally it should take 3 years. But just recently it took USS George Washington 6 years to be refit and refueled. Due to situations like Covid. Washington only just entered back into full service this week. And is heading for Japan to relieve USS Ronald Reagan. USS Stenis is currently in for her mid lifestyle major refit and refueling. It already looks like it will be slow.

Refueling costs billions. It just is not economically viable to do it again at the 50 year mark, as the ships are worn out past the point of refit. And the cost of Refueling the old ship is about half what just building a new state of the art carrier costs. So they get replaced at or around 50 years.

A carrier may be mothballed if the Navy finds the need to drastically reduce costs. Although this has never happened with a Nuclear Carrier.

If a Carrier suffers a catastrophic event, be it natural event, wartime combat damage, or some massive failure of a critical ships system, past the point of repair, the Navy may elect to deconission and scrap the ship. This has never happened to Carriers in the modern US Navy. But it does happen. The quasi carrierlike Marine Assault Ship BonHomme Richard was recently stricken and scrapped following a catastrophic fire while she was undergoing a refit. The Navy worked out that simply building a new ship was cheaper and faster than trying to rebuild the fire gutted ship.

Those are pretty much the three big reasons a Carrier would be decomissioned. The only other one is painfully obvious. If a ship is sunk it will be stricken from the rolls, if it is not salvageable. For example the New Zealand Navy just lost a large ship after it struck a reef near Samoa.

Enterprise and John F. Kennedy were both stricken from the Naval register, with Kennedy being sold for scrap.

Kennedy is likely no longer sea worthy, much less able to be able to be returned to service. Enterprise is to be scrapped, but has not yet been sold to be scrapped yet. I imagine that Enterprise could be updated to be returned to service should an emergency come up (perhaps the loss of a Nimitz-class or the Gerald R. Ford?).

Beyond that, the only serviceable carrier that has been decommissioned and still exists is the USS Midway. She is currently serving as a museum in San Diego.

A decommissioned aircraft carrier is a ship that’s been stricken from the US Navy rolls and is essentially no longer part of the US Navy. The ship goes to the mothball fleet for a period of time where all modern electronics and secret/ sensitive information is removed.

The ship will eventually be sold for scrap or turned into a floating museum. The USS Enterprise is the latest aircraft carrier to be decommissioned, but is the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier to have nuclear reactors removed which has proved to be a lengthy and costly endeavor. Here is the decommissioned Enterprise on her final voyage to Newport News shipbuilding for dismantling:

Nothing. At least in the near future.

Some may object to me here that since the 1960s, and especially since 1976 with the simultaneous commissioning of the Ohio-class strategic missile submarine cruisers for the United States and the Kalmar class for the USSR, strategic nuclear submarines have replaced aircraft carriers. as a “most powerful navy ship”. And to some extent they will be right. Indeed, the advent of submarines with ballistic and cruise missiles, the strengthening of coastal and missile aircraft made the importance of aircraft carriers in strategic strikes secondary.

But there is a catch here. Since they have been on the high seas, how many wars have strategic missile submarines fought? In none. When did any of them use their weapons for their intended purpose? Never.

From that 20th July 1960, when Commander James Osborn, CO of the USS George Washington SSBN 598, sent the message to President Eisenhower that it had successfully conducted the first launch of a Polaris ballistic missile while submerged, 60 years had passed. During these 60 years, the United States has been involved in more than 60 wars and military conflicts. How many of them involved submarines carrying strategic nuclear missiles?

Strategic submarines carrying nuclear missiles, which are de facto unusable weapons. Aiming rifle whose trigger will never be pressed. They serve as a political argument. And knowing the total lack of courage to take responsibility for their use by modern politicians, we can safely predict that strategic submarines will never fire. Because they will be replaced by other, more avant-garde carriers of strategic weapons long before they even show their capabilities.

At the same time, US aircraft carriers are active and actively involved in almost all US wars and military missions. And not just the United States. What was the involvement of British strategic missile carriers in the Falklands War? Nothing. Nothing. Instead, the light aircraft carriers Invincible and Hermes, albeit with limited capabilities, made the difference and de facto won the war.

While strategic submarines are on their missions to respect, strengthen the surface and submarine fleets of the USSR, and then Russia, China, etc., as well as its long-range aviation, has regained the traditional role of aircraft carriers - maintaining dominance in the air at sea by deploying air groups anywhere in the world's oceans, protecting ships from enemy air strikes, destroying enemy ships and surface objects by air strikes, securing anti-submarine forces and protecting their submarines from enemy anti-submarine forces.

The combat units of the Navy also underwent significant changes during the development of this doctrine. These changes were influenced mainly by local wars and conflicts of the second half of the twentieth century, as well as the policies and agreements of the states that own and build aircraft carriers.

Today, aircraft carriers are perhaps the most versatile - truly multi-purpose - and expensive combat units, equipped in addition to basic weapons - deck aircraft - missiles, cannon weapons, capable of solving universal problems, but most importantly - to provide the necessary advantage - support and conquest of superiority in the air. on the verge of an offensive by ground troops, and then throughout the conflict zone. The main advantage of the aircraft carrier in comparison with ground airfields is its high mobility, which allows aircraft carriers to concentrate at a particular point superior aviation forces faster than the enemy will be able to redeploy their aircraft at ground bases. Aircraft carriers are one of the main components of US military power from the standpoint of their use in the nuclear deterrent and missile security forces, and are also an important link in theories and real plans for possible conflicts with the use of nuclear weapons.

No one has removed the aircraft carrier from his throne as ruler of the seas. This will not happen in the near future.

They? I will assume that “they” means global naval powers and “they” haven’t stopped at all! After building 10 of the Nimitz class aircraft carriers, the US has embarked on the latest Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers to ultimately replace them, currently constructing the John F Kennedy as the second carrier in the class. The USS Nimitz:

USS Gerald R Ford:

Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers are the Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales:

The Chinese PLA Navy has just launched their third and by far most advanced aircraft carrier Fujian in June 2022:

Aircraft carriers project power globally and are extremely expensive to build, outfit with planes and personnel and maintain. “They” aren’t going away anytime soon!

INS Vikrant, pennant number R-11 was the first aircraft carrier that India acquired from the British for its Navy. India was not in possession of technology and did not have the capability during the 1950s to build it's own aircraft carrier.

This is INS Vikrant during its service. It was acquired in 1957 and the navy began operating it in 1961, which is just 14 years after the independence of India from the British and the partition. Indian economy was left in shambles after a 200 year loot of its resources by the British and other European powers. India needed to keep two of its major adversaries Pakistan and China at bay. To ensure Indian interests were always protected, the navy needed a carrier. Thus it acquired the never commissioned British carrier HMS Hercules.

By the year 1999, India began designing it's own carrier and in the year 2020, India has began the basin and sea trials of its first indigenously developed aircraft carrier named after the country's first carrier, INS Vikrant.

India acquired a carrier to defend its seas and then slowly and gradually, with a lot of delays, finally built a carrier of it's own.

Image courtesy: Google

First off, to answer the submarine-enthusiasts who say the aircraft carrier has already been replaced as the most powerful warship afloat by a submarine, that is a blatant lie.

Currently. the aircraft carrier is STILL the most powerful warship afloat because she’s more versatile than even the most advanced nuclear submarine.

Nuclear-armed subs don’t do mercy missions. They also don’t conduct a nearly-unlimited number of strikes, both conventional and nuclear. The number of strikes for a boomer (SLBM-carrying) submarine is rather limited to 16 strikes for the Vanguard according to one answer’s graphic, and 32 I believe for the Ohio-class boats. Even fewer for hunter-killer submarines such as the Seawolf-class and Los Angeles-class, which carry tomahawks.

Submarines, even nuclear-armed ones, are a very close second as power goes - but the aircraft carrier remains the king of the sea and will for a VERY long time.

So no, it’s not what “replaced” the carrier, past tense. Instead it’s as the questioner asked, “what WILL replace” the carrier, present tense.

Now, for the answer to my question.

Call me crazy, but I think the battleship will replace the carrier.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinkin - “The battleship, the World War II vintage ships that are currently all museums? Those are going to replace the carrier?! This guy really IS crazy!”

Well, that might be the case if we were talking about old World War II battleships that don’t factor in modern technologies like railguns and directed energy weapons.

A modern, new-build battleship could be made with materials that supersede those used in armor of the past in terms of strength, armor thin enough to float while still being angled enough and thick enough to be over a hundred times its’ value in armor.

With nuclear propulsion and capacitors to create a massive reserve of energy, it would be no problem to mount nine sixteen inch-caliber railguns in three-gun turrets, two forward and one aft in the conventional style.

And without the powder magazines and fuel storage tanks required in a conventional battleship, a new-build ship is far less likely to blow up. Plus all that weight saved means the armor can be physically thicker.

Additionally, practically all of the Anti Aircraft Artillery (AAA) and Close In Weapons Systems (CWIS) can be replaced by pulse-laser and full-stream laser weapons. Lasers can also take over anti-missile defense.

Additionally, automation can take the place of a lot of the manpower.

For example, it took up to nine hundred people to keep the Iowa-class battleships’ Diesel Fuel Marine power plant running. On a modern nuclear powered carrier or submarine however, that is reduced down to a couple of men who spend their lives watching gauges, according to other sources here on Quora. Naval nuclear reactors practically run themselves, according to the same sources.

Additionally, we’ve had automation for battery guns of all sizes going back to 1946. In fact, the main battery aboard the USS Salem, a World War II-vintage heavy cruiser, could NOT be run manually.

Here, have some video evidence:

In this video, you see the three-inch, fifty-caliber anti-aircraft guns firing both under local control, and under remote or director control. Under remote or director control, the gun loads and fires rather rapidly without anyone nearby.

Additionally, the main battery on USS Salem, consisting of three turrets of three eight-inch, fifty-caliber guns as seen in the video above, cannot be run manually. That’s right, it’s all automatic, from projectile loading, to remote arming of the fuses, all the way to firing. Not bad for a World War II-vintage ship!

And my point in pointing that out? Something very similar could be done for a modern battleship. With this kind of automation, the gun crew per turret could be reduced to three men, one per gun, strictly to clear blockages and other malfunctions. That’s a LOT of men saved - down to nine men!

Now, the Combat Information Center or CIC is the heart of a modern warship, basically the fire control center. It’s where the weapons are controlled, and where information is relayed. It’s also where any spotter drones are operated from, as USS Missouri used in Gulf War I. That’s another six to nine people, and it’ll likely remain the same.

The bridge of a modern carrier is usually manned by four to five people, That will also remain the same.

In total, the number of men aboard a modern battleship, incorporating all the latest advances in technology and automation, will be 27 men for a non-combat skeleton crew.

Accounting for three combat shifts, day shift night shift and emergency shift (for damage control situations and field repairs, etc.), brings the total to 81 men, which is drastically decreased from the old Iowa-class ships’ totals of 2,700.

So a modern, tough, heavily-armed-and-armored battleship can in fact be done, safely and economically. It won’t be your granddaddy’s old World War II battleship, but a modern, much tougher, much faster, much less expensive version of the exact same concept. It’ll be more than capable of blowing anything out of the water before the enemy can even see it over the horizon, armored enough to take its’s own hypersonic shells without a scratch, and fast enough to run away from anything it cannot take.

Like the first ironclads against older wooden hulls, thinly-armored modern vessels would not be able to keep up with the awesome power of a heavily armored, new-build battleship.

It totally depends on what you call an “aircraft carrier.”

The USN will claim to their dying breath that this thing IS NOT A CARRIER:

It’s an LHA. “Landing Helicopter Assault” ship. So, ok. It’s technically not a carrier because it has a different name.

But really?

Ya, it’s a carrier.

It carries helicopters and aircraft. It does not have a well deck. It’s an aviation only ship.

So, ya. Carrier.

I have seen some answers saying “it can’t be a carrier because it only supports STOVL aircraft.

Oh yeah? The Royal Navy would like to have a word:

The QE class of ship are DEFINITELY carriers. And they (checks notes) only support STOVL aircraft.

Just like the USS America.

So, ya.

Of course the USN isn’t the only service to play this game. The Japanese are worse:

Come on. That’s not a destroyer.

Anyway, the USN decided not to operate small carriers but at the same time decided to operate small aviation ships called LHAs. Are they carriers? Not officially. Do they do the work of small carriers? Ya, sorta. Would another navy call them a carrier? Well, the RN would but the Japanese would not.

While undergoing repairs, the ONLY Russian drydock in Murmansk capable of accommodating the carrier sank. To make matters worse, one of those 70-tonne heavy cranes fell on the ship punching a large gash in the hull and deck. The nearest possible Russian drydock capable of taking the carrier is in Novorossiysk, in the Black Sea, more than 2,000 miles from Murmansk.

Even the Russians understand the “law of diminishing returns”. It is now worse off than when it limped in for repairs, cannot be repaired in the forseeable future and has such an abysmal performance record to date, the writing on the wall is very plain.

That being said, senator Frants Klintsevich is quoted as stating “Gentlemen, you're celebrating too early. In a year you'll see the Admiral Kuznetsov and be very upset.”

Currently, the oldest Destroyer in active US Navy Service is the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51).

Commissioned in July 1991, it has served over 31 years and is expected to serve until around 2026, which is right at the designed 35-year service life. The Navy had planned to extend the lifespan to 45 years, but cancelled the upgrades in 2020 for budgetary reasons. There is no reason the ships can’t serve over 50 years other than budget pressure.

The longest serving USN Destroyer (as of 2022) was the USS Harold J. Ellison (DD-864) which was in commission from June 1945 to October 1983, a period of over 37 years. This was significantly beyond the normal design life of destroyers at the time - 25 years was considered high, and many WWII destroyers saw less than 4 years service before being mothballed and never sailing again. The ship wasn’t scrapped, though. It was sold to Pakistan and served almost 10 more years before being sunk as a target 47 years after being first commissioned. Other Gearing and even one Fletcher class Destroyers served over 50 years combined between USN and foreign service.

If you’re asking how many are in reserve (that is still on the Naval Vessel Register), the number is ZERO. All of the conventionally-powered aircraft carriers of the FORRESTAL (CV-59), KITTY HAWK (CV-64), and JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV-67) classes have now been broken up for scrap at Brownsville, Texas. AMERICA (CV-66) was sunk as an experimental target in the Atlantic on 14 May 2005. The hulk of the former ENTERPRISE (CVN-65) is still afloat at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock but that is only because the Navy can’t decide on how to dispose of her. She was inactivated on 1 December 2012 and subsequently her eight reactors had their cores removed which required making huge holes both on her hangar deck and on her flight deck. The only reason she hasn’t been scrapped and recycled is that only Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state scraps and recycles nuclear-powered warships where their reactor compartments are removed and subsequently barged to Hanford, Washington where they are buried. In the process the rest of the ship’s hull is dismantled in dry dock - a process that takes a considerable amount of time (years). Not a problem with nuclear-powered cruisers and submarines (PSNS has six dry docks), but PSNS only has only dry dock that accommodate ENTERPRISE, No. 6, and that dry dock is also used to dock the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers for routine overhauls and also has to remain reasonably available for emergency repairs as well. The only other nuclear-certified dry docks that can dock CVN’s are on the East coast - No. 8 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (like No. 6 at PNSN, used to dock CVN’s for routine maintenance), and No. 11 and No. 12 at Newport News Dry Dock and Shipyard. No. 11 was used to build ENTERPRISE (and a number of other conventionally-powered aircraft carriers as well), but is now used exclusively to re-core CVN’s exclusively (a process that takes 3–5 years although not all of that time is in dry dock) with CVN-74 currently in the dock. No. 12 is used exclusively for building CVN’s and so isn’t available either with the future ENTERPRISE (CVN-80) now under assembly in the dry dock (laid down 27 August 2022) . There used to be (and still might be, some have almost certainly been filled in like the three dry docks at the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard) quite a few other dry docks that could accommodate CV/CVN super carriers, but non were certified to dock nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

The Navy needs to decide something soon. NIMITZ (CVN-68) will begin deactivation 2025 on reaching her designated lifespan of 50 years, and her sisters will follow her at regular intervals thereafter beginning with DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN-69) in 2027. Newport News SB & DD where ENTERPRISE is docked (for security reasons) doesn’t have the berthing space to dock all the aircraft carriers coming up for disposal. In theory, they could be towed around the “Horn” to PSNS and laid up there for future disposal but even then, the dry dock availability issue remains.

When a carrier is built, it has a projected service life. Generally between 40 and 50 years. The US Navy knows the service life of every ship built and abides by them. What you call “obsolete", are nearing the end of their service life. A prime example was the Midway class of carrier. The last of the marine diesel carriers used by the Navy. All three were considered ”obsolete" by civilians who know nothing about carriers. I was on the Coral Sea CV-43, third in the Midway class, about a decade before she would reach the end of her service life. At that time, during OREs (Operational Readiness Exercises) we proved that we could match capability with the newer Nuclear powered carriers, repeatedly. Including the newest at the time the Carl Vinson, which had been on active duty less than six months.

What you call obsolete, are nothing of the sort.

John Doyle IV has already given a very detailed answer on the makeup of a USN carrier strike group (CSG), so this is a more general answer.

Carriers face four main threats:

1. Submarines
2. Aircraft
3. Surface ships
4. Missiles

The last one is a bit more complex as of course missiles have to come from somewhere; which is usually - but not always - an aircraft or surface ship. Submarines and land platforms can also launch missiles. Either way, for the most part protecting from missiles and protecting from aircraft get rolled into one, as both involve shooting at small, fast moving things travelling through the air.

One key thing to understand is that the first line of defence is the carrier’s aircraft; typically they can engage the threats at the longest range. Fighter aircraft shoot down enemy aircraft or missiles at ranges of hundreds of km from the carrier, strike aircraft can attack enemy shipping at similar ranges and ASW aircraft operating from the carrier will likely make up the bulk of the ASW force - even though they might be the same type of aircraft as will fly from escort vessels.

Submarines

In addition to ASW aircraft - whether flying from the carrier, from an escort vessel or a combination of the two - the CSG will typically have both surface ships and submarines to tackle enemy submarines; arguably the greatest threat to the CSG. The surface ship might be a generalist platform such as the USN’s Arliegh Burke class, or a specialised ship such as the Royal Navy’s Type 23 and upcoming Type 26 Frigates. The submarine will typically be a nuclear fleet submarine (if the navy has such boats available - smaller CSGs such as Spain and Italy don’t have this option) which means that it will be fast, long-ranged and capable of highly independent action, taking the initiative against enemy submarines.

Aircraft and missiles

Anything that gets past the carrier air group will be primarily the responsibility of surface ships; once again these could be specialised (USN Ticonderoga Class, RN Type 45/French Navy Horizon) or more general ships (Arliegh Burke) - and virtually every ship in the CSG will also have some level of AA weaponry including the carrier herself (levels vary significantly based on doctrine - for example USN and French carriers have missiles as well as gun-based CIWS (ESSM and Aster respectively) whereas RN doctrine puts the missiles on other vessels and gives the carriers only gun CIWS).

Surface ships

Probably the smallest area of threat, no CSG that I’m aware of has a ship specialised for anti-surface warfare (ASuW). However, between the aircraft of the CSG, helicopters of the escorts (particularly useful for combating fast attack craft, as the Lynx/Sea Skua combination of the Royal Navy proved with devastating effect during the Gulf War), surface ships with their own missiles and the submarine, there is plenty of capacity within the CSG to defend against surface ships. Of course, the main attacking method of enemy surface ships will be through missiles, in which case the paragraph above about defending against missiles comes into play.

Each carrier has an assigned Air Wing. An Air Wing is comprised of multiple squadrons with multiple aircraft. These aircraft are Fighter/Attack aircraft, early warning aircraft, electronic warfare aircraft, logistics aircraft and helicopters. The Air Wing and the carrier train together for about a year off and on doing multiple training exercises, then at the end of the training cycle, they deploy together for about 6+ months depending on what is going on in the world. At the end of the deployment, the ship returns to its home port and the squadrons return to their respective bases. Sometimes Air Wings are transferred to another ship. In my time in the Navy, I did 5 deployments aboard aircraft carriers. My first 2 deployments were with my squadron that was attached to Carrier Air Wing 3, attached to the USS John F Kennedy (CV-67). My next 2 deployments were with Carrier Air Wing 11…. When I got to the squadron, the air wing was assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). We deployed aboard that ship after our “work ups”, and when we returned, the Kitty Hawk was reassigned home ports to Japan, and our air wing was reassigned to the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), and we did work ups and a deployment aboard it before I transferred out of the squadron. My last carrier deployment was again, aboard the John F. Kennedy (CV-67), but this time I was actually assigned to ships company. But Carrier Air Wing - 3 was no longer assigned to the ship. We had a different air wing.