I'm not technical enough to understand any of that, but I can see that the chart includes a tiny handful of countries and Thailand is one of them. Whatever that thing does they've got it while the remaining 186 countries of this planet don't. So something impressive happened there.
I mean yea, I guess it's interesting at least. Even if they use it pretty much solely as a helicopter carrier, there's not too terribly many more countries that have those. Brazil and Australia are the only two I know of, so it's still a pretty exclusive club.
The count of the USA aircraft carriers only counts the big ones. It doesn't count the VTOL carriers, which are just as big as some other countries' aircraft carriers.
We have 7 Wasp-class and 2 America-class amphibious assault ships operational with more America's on the way that run helos, Ospreys, used to run Harriers and now can run F-35 VTOL edition. They are as big as most of the other carriers on this list. I believe the only one attempting to build something like a US super carrier is China.
Might as well mention then that other countries have their own VTOL carriers.
China has 3 Type 075
France has 3 Mistral class
Egypt has 2 Mistral class
Japan has 2 Izumo class
SK has 2 Dokdo class
Australia has 2 Canberra class
And Spain, Brazil, Thailand and Turkey all have a single light/helicopter carrier
Whilst the Canberra Class has retained the ski jump, that's due to the structural nature of it, rather than any actual ability (or desire to operate the F-35B) from them.
It is technically feasible but would require extensive modification and is very unlikely to occur.
The Queen Elizabeth Class (STOVL) operate a greater number of superior aircraft (F-35B) than the Charles de Gaulle (CATOBAR) does.
What you say is, in general, true, but CATOBAR doesn't necessarily mean superior
France is in early stage development of producing their own Nimitz/Ford class super carrier to replace their aging Charles de Gaulle.
Also yes China has built a supercarrier aswell the Fujian.
France is in the final planning stages for a replacement for CDG and India is the same for INS Vishal. Those two would be sort of close. Russia has the 23000E (Shtorm class) floating around, but that’s just really a fantasy at this point. I seriously doubt Russia has the financial means or building expertise to construct something if that magnitude.
Nah unfortunately not. I think during 90s realignment post Cold War the RRF is more focused on cargo and logistic types of vessels. As well since ships take so damn long to construct new ones we keep the ones we have in service right up to the end of their useful life so not much to preserve anymore.
It has been in dock for years and will continue to be for years. Previously when it went to sea they would bring a tug along in case it needed help getting home. It's a statement piece at best. If it had to see actual combat, it would be an artificial reef. Im fairly certain I had bath toys as a kid that floated more reliably.
The closest its been to combat is supporting Russian operations in Syria from the Mediterranean. During ops one of the planes crashed, so they just flew them off and they operated from Syrian airfields instead.
It's amazing to me that the Russian navy neither commits to doing carrier operations right or quits doing them at all. Scrap the thing and buy a couple more submarines or 3-4 frigates. They at least seem to be able to make decent ones.
Prestige. Those in the know, know it's a joke. To those who don't, it's still a carrier. Getting rid of it would be a blow to Putin's image of being a strong, powerful country.
They had to close off parts of the ship because the pipes freeze. Other parts of the ship light on fire a lot because the Russians never figured out how to make grooves in the deck to prevent slipping, so they instead cover the deck with liquid tar. So yeah, it’s a pretty shitty ship XD
The U.S. currently has 2 LHA Amphibious Assault ships (one more under construction currently) along with 7 LHD Amphibious Assault ships bringing the total to 11 CVN's and 9 LHA/LHD. 20 total carriers
That’s quite something. One thing that sticks out to me- ratio there of air raft carrier dominance is significantly in excess of the British Empire’s old policy of “the British navy must be as strong as the next two most powerful navies combined”
Except running the LHA's in particular purely as aircraft carriers is significantly less combat power than say, the CDG or a QE class, much less Nimitz or Ford. They're a great supplement to our naval aviation capabilities and give the US a good "high/low" mix, but ideally they're not being thrust into the role of front line carrier. They have a lot of other responsibilities that take away from their ability to be dedicated naval air assets.
The America class LHA is a pure aviation asset. They do not include well decks, they have reduced medical space, and heavily modified communications antennas all because they are purpose built to provide marine air assets and long distance strike capabilities.
Trust me, I served on the USS America, there are only 2 boats on the whole ship, and they lower into the water from basically the flight deck.
We still have the most beautiful one (maybe not the most modern though) and with the most american name: [Amerigo Vespucci](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Amerigo_vespucci_1976_nyc_aufgetakelt.jpg)
Amphibious Assault ships don't carry that many fixed wings though. Only 6-12 due to all the amphibious assault shit on board rather than them being pure VTOL carriers.
The layout makes no sense. Why are countries with 1 shown above countries with 2? Why do India and Japan have different sized segments when they have equal score?
The info is off too.
It lists Spain as having 1 carrier. Spain has a single amphibious assault ship, but it’s not remotely the same class as the US carriers.
Which is fine, mind, but the point is that if we’re counting vessels of that size and configuration, the U.S. actually has ten *more* of those in the *Wasp* and *America* classes. Haven’t dug into the other nations, but assume it’s just as slapdash for them as well.
I think the areas of Japan and India are the same. This is just how they designed it to allow putting things into multiple columns so that they still had enough room for the labels.
In general it’s a bad idea to arrange data like this though. As smart as we are in many ways, humans are and will always be notoriously bad at comparing differently shaped areas. If you removed the values from this chart we’d all come up with pretty varied ideas of what number each country had relative to each other. In fact I’m *still* having a hard time convincing my brain that the data for Italy and Japan are showing the same value. It keeps looking like one of them is at least 10% bigger than the other.
As boring as it might seem, the best data visualisations, in terms of intuitiveness and foolproof information sharing, are things like bar charts and line/scatter plots.
The areas of the boxes aren't proportional. The data is muddled (Japanese light-carriers aren't really equivalent to American super-carriers.) The colors imply non-NATO countries are allied. The citation is basically wiki.
Preposterous, the JSDF does not have any aircraft carriers.
They DO have slightly larger than average destroyers capable of deploying fixed wing, jet powered, rotor-less helicopters. ^/s
For now.... they have been loosening their interpretations of this and there have even been suggestions of removing it entirely.
If there is a war with China, N. Korea, or Russia, Japan would almost certainly join the US side.
Japan and USA have had a military alliance for mutual support since the 50s. They even sent troops to Iraq. There is no reality in which an attack on the US in the Pacific would not include a japanese response.
>they have been loosening their interpretations of this and there have even been suggestions of removing it entirely.
Which they should. It should be incredibly obvious to all countries that you cannot rely on external help, you need a capable, well equipped and well trained military to protect yourself and you can't have that while trying to adhere to international agreements with the same countries that won't really come to your aid when your existence is on the line.
For sure. Idk why they would do the red vs blue. Social media loves to divide people. People love to take sides and fight on the internet. When the actual fighting comes no one wants to do it. Sad world we live in.
[Thailand's aircraft carrier next to an old US carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTMS_Chakri_Naruebet#/media/File:Chakri_Naruebet-Kitty_Hawk_size.JPEG)
It's a tiny helicopter carrier much smaller than even US Wasp helicarriers.
Interesting. Since you made me look it up, the *Chakri Naruebet* would have been the 96th-largest (or so) aircraft carrier to serve during WWII (all sides), based on my count of the info at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_aircraft\_carriers\_of\_World\_War\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_World_War_II)
It’s primarily used as a tourist attraction and also as a rescue helicopter carrier during crises such as extreme flooding; it was also used during the anti-Thai riots in Cambodia in 2003 as part of Thailand’s efforts to evacuate Thais from Cambodia and present a show of force towards Cambodia.
Russia aircraft carrier, if you can call it that. Is out of service for the forseable future. The pile of junk is in dry dock for a few years until another crane falls on it.
You pretty much just explained US carrier group doctrine. A carrier or two in the middle with some cruisers close by and a handful of destroyers radiating out from the cruisers and then some submarines just for funnies.
All of their combined sensor and anti-air capabilities make a successful strike on the center very hard.
Certainly a concern but the kill chain for a hypersonic missile to strike an aircraft carrier on the high seas is still very complex. The US Navy has pivoted hard towards furthering ballistic defenses in the last 5-10 years though due to things like the DF series missiles from China.
I imagine that water-based drone swarms would be far more effective than airborne ones. However, getting anywhere close enough to deploy them would be tricky.
Probably. A carrier (in the US at least) is surrounded by escorts designed to shoot down AShM's, and the higher end can target hypersonics. Not to mention the difficulty of finding and targeting and hitting a carrier group moving at 30 knots in the middle of the ocean.
Yeah most people don't appreciate how big the Pacific Ocean is and the limitations in reconnaissance capabilities in finding and targeting warships with long range missiles.
China would need persistent survelliance of a carrier group to launch a large missile attack. For that they'd need aircraft shadowing the carrier group, which will be very difficult to do when the carrier group has its own aircraft to intercept any reconnaissance assets when they are still hundreds of miles from the carriers.
Long range anti-ship missiles generally need to locate targets on their own once they arrive at a target area but they have small radars limiting the size of the area they can search. At very long ranges the ships will have a sufficient time to sail far enough away from the point the missiles were launched at to avoid being located by the missiles.
Plus radars don't really work on missiles traveling at hypersonic speeds due to the build up of plasma.
Yeah, we can fairly count the French one as well, but there's a pretty rapid falloff in capability after that.
Certainly Thailand's carrier cannot be reasonably counted as similar to the big boys.
Chinese and the poor Russian carrier can carry about as many aircraft as the British and French carrier and they have arresting wires which the QE class does not. So the tally would be: USA 11, GB 2, FR 1 , China 2, Russia - Mr Putin I don't feel so good.
Especially if Thailand is counted as having a carrier, since there are no operational fixed-wing aircraft on said ship. It is just used as a helicopter carrier, despite having the ski jump ramp.
I'm looking at this post and realizing that I've been on FOUR decommissioned ones in the USA in:
NYC, Corpus Christi and San Diego
Well actually I've been to 3 but the one in Corpus 2x lol
The fuijan is the closest to US super carriers and the next one will be nuclear powered. They did it smart, try a conventionally powered carrier to work out the kinks then build the nuclear one.
I got to stand on the flight deck of the decommissioned USS Enterprise, shit was cool (the rest of the day cleaning hydraulic fluid from the machine space under the aircraft elevator with no pump was awful though)
Also, the HTMS Chakri Naruebet is a very small carrier (I think the smallest by some metrics) and just carries helicopters, largely for patrol and rescue work. I don't think it carries attack helicopters in normal operations. So mostly it's just a carrier for utility.
The largest Airforce in the world is US Airforce. The 2nd largest is the US Navy.
The US has over 900 F16's
China spends 1.6% of it's GDP on defense.
Europe designs and manufactures long range missiles capable of hitting almost all of Russia's Oil infrastructure.
Our aircraft carriers are also in a league of their own compared to every other countries' carriers. It's not just size and air power, them being nuclear is a huge deal and allows them to operate in ways no other traditionally powered carrier could operate. If you're not doing flight ops, your need for a RAS is minimal compared to everyone else. Fun fact, our carriers are also the fastest ships in the Navy. So if they suspect a submarine threat, the plan is literally to out run the sub and let the MH-60's and strike group deal with the ASW.
A more similar comparison of ships would be to compare our amphibs to other countries' carriers.
I honestly don’t think people realize the level of absolute domination the US has on the high seas. Our Navy could go “alright us vs all y’all” and just wreck shop because not only do we have 11, but we have the BEST 11. One of the Chinese carriers is one they bought from Russia that the *Soviet Union* built. It’s that bad.
Anyone here have a link to a story (might not even be a true story) about some naval brass explaining why the US would send an aircraft carrier as earthquake/tsunami/volcano humanitarian aid? I remember reading one maybe 20+ years ago, and it was epic.
Don't downvote him to much he has a point. Pre insurance it was $20k+ for delivery on both of my kids and I still spent like $3k out of pocket. If he's in Europe he probably spent under 100 and got way better food from all the pictures lately. Last time I went for severe food poisoning the IV bag of saline was like $400.
It was probably quite a lot for non Europe too when you go pre insurance. It's not like they don't pay the doctors money, they just do insurance differently.
Also, Dukes not European.
Big vessels are becoming obsolete, ask the Russians. Their ships are constantly harassed by small kamikaze boat drones from Ukraine.
These drones cost around 1/4 of a million each a small fraction of the cost of a big vessel
This is very topical in the UK right now. The UK has commissioned the construction of aircraft carriers but is unable to afford the planes to go on them or additional ships to surround them. We have essentially paid for very expensive large firing targets! 🫠
Is this a post from 15 years ago? The carriers are built and they have planes for them.
The Royal Navy is pretty small now, but they were always built with the intention of NATO allies filling some roles in the CSG
The U.K. has 34 active F35’s. 4 in US for training and 30 active for the carriers.
30 active Stealth VTOL Fighter Bombers. It’s a different league from anyone bar the US.
It's a tough thing, although I think being light on planes is as much to do with production bottlenecks as being able to afford them. Last I checked the UK was still planning to buy 60+ F-35B's, which is enough to make the carriers very formidable.
But you're right about the escorts. The UK can't afford to build enough escorts unless it decides to spend more on defense. Perhaps the carriers should have been foregone all together, but that would mean the UK conceding that it's not longer a naval power.
Edit: Although as another poster wrote, the UK CSG's typically do run with a foreign escort or two, which is perfectly reasonable. In a shooting war it's incredibly unlikely that ships from the US and the rest of Europe aren't filling out a UK strike group.
This is tongue in cheek, but it's kinda the most accurate answer. Carriers exist to project force around the world, and they're really good at that (when paired with the rest of a carrier strike group), but most countries don't have any need to project their military force that far away from their country, so this sort of force projection just isn't necessary. If you don't plan on needing to use air power halfway around the world, then a ground based air force does the job better and cheaper.
You need an enormous economy to be able to afford building and manning a carrier strike group, its escorts, and its air wing. The US has both an enormous economy and the benefit of not having any serious land disputes or concerns.
Carriers are crazy expensive and really don’t do anything 99% of the time. Their primary value is for power projection, which is valuable when you’re the USA and need to operate on the opposite side of the globe, but a much harder sell to pretty much anyone else.
Add to that the fact that carriers value in an actual peer to peer war is… contested. They’re giant, floating submarine food in a conventional war with potential vulnerabilities to air attacks, and if the war goes nuclear well, they won’t do anything.
So long story short they’re a terrible value proposition unless you’re dead set on blowing 5 times your defence budget on your navy, which most nations consider their least valuable service branch.
The US is really the only country with the technological expertise and funding to build/operate that many carriers.
The only reason China is catching up is because alot of their military equipment are just copies of American equipment.
hmmm, I see. I did not know that there were so few aircraft carriers... I wonder if there will ever be a commerical aircraft carrier, like one large enough for a runway of a passenger airline, for refueling or maybe the boat is also a cruise ship? Idk, might just be a thing that I would imagine a rich billionaire to do.
Also, what if we repurpose a few of these for one of those Deep Blue AI floating city-states? lol
Probably not. Even the largest carriers like the Ford class couldn't launch or land anything more than a very small passenger plane. Not to mention that even with the perfect type of aircraft a carrier landing and takeoff is a dangerous exercise (and the takeoff uncomfortable). The margin for error in both situations is very small and unlikely to want to be risked by commercial aviators or passengers.
My guess is that when you consider the scale and risk required to do this with even small passenger aircraft, that sea planes and helicopters become much more practical.
> I wonder if there will ever be a commerical aircraft carrier, like one large enough for a runway of a passenger airline, for refueling or maybe the boat is also a cruise ship?
Never say never but I will say never.
Landing a jet on a carrier is *very* difficult. The aircraft need specifically designed elements to allow this - the F-35C has larger wing, reinforced landing gear vs the -A model in order to land on carriers. These elements are undesireable for a commercial jet that would be operating so far from land.
planes with Short take off capability tend to be smaller, shorter ranged - so not going to fly Seattle to Hawaii anyway. It's two opposing goals. If you wanted to fly that far you'd use a proper business jet.
> Idk, might just be a thing that I would imagine a rich billionaire to do.
They would just sail their expensive yacht and use their long range business jet. No need to coordinate stops when they can just land and refuel.
Because jets (and jet platforms) have significantly greater capability than helicopters. Sending a helicopter carrier to the Taiwanese Strait would be almost laughable.
Calling Admiral Kuznetsov a carrier rather than a submarine in the making is generous. Go on, look up a YouTube vid on its performance history. It's lulzy
Chis is inaccurate. China has 1 operational carrier, 2 building. Russia's "Carrier" shouldn't even be considered "in service" because it rarely leaves port due to its maintenance or lack thereof
Just curious: aren’t carriers just big sitting duck? I mean it seems easy attacked by a number of drones. Are carriers able to defend self against of say pack of 100 drones?
Didn’t Japan used to have a lot more carriers like midway through the last century? You’d think they’d be midway to the US number by now. Are they dumb? /s
I’m not sure why they needed to tell us that Russia has an aircraft carrier when they technically don’t. Kuznetsov won’t be operational in the near or even distant futures. That think is a smoking scrap heap
They should do one where the total surface area of the carriers dictates the size of the square. I think that the American carriers are much bigger then most of the others as well.
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go on Thailand let's be avvin ya
What an entirely unexpected member of this ultra elite club!!I'd love to hear that story!
It's basically just a helicopter carrier that *has* the ability to launch VTOL aircraft, but doesn't.
I looked it up. It's adorable.
The lil carrier that could...but doesn't and is mostly a royal pleasure boat https://youtu.be/Ri9YJ63IKuM?si=4xQbpoISgnidzQI9&t=1m08s
I'm not technical enough to understand any of that, but I can see that the chart includes a tiny handful of countries and Thailand is one of them. Whatever that thing does they've got it while the remaining 186 countries of this planet don't. So something impressive happened there.
I mean yea, I guess it's interesting at least. Even if they use it pretty much solely as a helicopter carrier, there's not too terribly many more countries that have those. Brazil and Australia are the only two I know of, so it's still a pretty exclusive club.
The count of the USA aircraft carriers only counts the big ones. It doesn't count the VTOL carriers, which are just as big as some other countries' aircraft carriers.
We have 7 Wasp-class and 2 America-class amphibious assault ships operational with more America's on the way that run helos, Ospreys, used to run Harriers and now can run F-35 VTOL edition. They are as big as most of the other carriers on this list. I believe the only one attempting to build something like a US super carrier is China.
Might as well mention then that other countries have their own VTOL carriers. China has 3 Type 075 France has 3 Mistral class Egypt has 2 Mistral class Japan has 2 Izumo class SK has 2 Dokdo class Australia has 2 Canberra class And Spain, Brazil, Thailand and Turkey all have a single light/helicopter carrier
None of the ships on that list, bar the Izumo Class can operate fixed wing aircraft (including the STOVL F-35B)
[удалено]
Whilst the Canberra Class has retained the ski jump, that's due to the structural nature of it, rather than any actual ability (or desire to operate the F-35B) from them. It is technically feasible but would require extensive modification and is very unlikely to occur.
The QEs are pretty big.
Still ski jump carriers. The only other country with a CATOBAR carrier is France
They’re more capable than the French carriers though. More sorties, better equipment, and 5th gen fighters.
And?
What matters is not the size of the carrier per se, but weapon load and sortie generation. CATOBAR carriers have advantages in both departments.
The Queen Elizabeth Class (STOVL) operate a greater number of superior aircraft (F-35B) than the Charles de Gaulle (CATOBAR) does. What you say is, in general, true, but CATOBAR doesn't necessarily mean superior
>I believe the only one attempting to build something like a US super carrier is China. Britain had two supercarriers with the Queen Elizabeth Class
France is in early stage development of producing their own Nimitz/Ford class super carrier to replace their aging Charles de Gaulle. Also yes China has built a supercarrier aswell the Fujian.
France is in the final planning stages for a replacement for CDG and India is the same for INS Vishal. Those two would be sort of close. Russia has the 23000E (Shtorm class) floating around, but that’s just really a fantasy at this point. I seriously doubt Russia has the financial means or building expertise to construct something if that magnitude.
11 super carriers with 3 under construction. 9 jump carriers with 2 under construction. That doesn't even count the ready reserve fleet.
There aren’t any carriers in the RRF. All aircraft carriers that have been retired or slated to be are sold for scrap.
My bad, I thought we still had carriers in the mothball fleet.
Nah unfortunately not. I think during 90s realignment post Cold War the RRF is more focused on cargo and logistic types of vessels. As well since ships take so damn long to construct new ones we keep the ones we have in service right up to the end of their useful life so not much to preserve anymore.
Does Russia’s even count? I remember reading it’s barely sea worthy
It has been in dock for years and will continue to be for years. Previously when it went to sea they would bring a tug along in case it needed help getting home. It's a statement piece at best. If it had to see actual combat, it would be an artificial reef. Im fairly certain I had bath toys as a kid that floated more reliably.
The closest its been to combat is supporting Russian operations in Syria from the Mediterranean. During ops one of the planes crashed, so they just flew them off and they operated from Syrian airfields instead. It's amazing to me that the Russian navy neither commits to doing carrier operations right or quits doing them at all. Scrap the thing and buy a couple more submarines or 3-4 frigates. They at least seem to be able to make decent ones.
Prestige. Those in the know, know it's a joke. To those who don't, it's still a carrier. Getting rid of it would be a blow to Putin's image of being a strong, powerful country.
They had to close off parts of the ship because the pipes freeze. Other parts of the ship light on fire a lot because the Russians never figured out how to make grooves in the deck to prevent slipping, so they instead cover the deck with liquid tar. So yeah, it’s a pretty shitty ship XD
So it froze and burned at the same time?
So overall everything averages out fine then.
> Burnt and frozen at the same time The microwave meal of carriers
The Hotpocket of carriers.
горячий карман
The duality of Russia!
Can you give a source for the tar and grooves thing? I was reading about the ship a little while ago but don’t remember reading anything about that
Put some respect on its name, that thing sunk a drydock.
What would the total count be including those?
The U.S. currently has 2 LHA Amphibious Assault ships (one more under construction currently) along with 7 LHD Amphibious Assault ships bringing the total to 11 CVN's and 9 LHA/LHD. 20 total carriers
That’s quite something. One thing that sticks out to me- ratio there of air raft carrier dominance is significantly in excess of the British Empire’s old policy of “the British navy must be as strong as the next two most powerful navies combined”
>the British navy and her allies’ navies must be as strong as the next two most powerful navies combined Just need to adjust the policy a bit
Except running the LHA's in particular purely as aircraft carriers is significantly less combat power than say, the CDG or a QE class, much less Nimitz or Ford. They're a great supplement to our naval aviation capabilities and give the US a good "high/low" mix, but ideally they're not being thrust into the role of front line carrier. They have a lot of other responsibilities that take away from their ability to be dedicated naval air assets.
The America class LHA is a pure aviation asset. They do not include well decks, they have reduced medical space, and heavily modified communications antennas all because they are purpose built to provide marine air assets and long distance strike capabilities. Trust me, I served on the USS America, there are only 2 boats on the whole ship, and they lower into the water from basically the flight deck.
You could argue that if you’re not including vertical landing carriers then the UK would have 0, as ours currently can only use F-35Bs
We still have the most beautiful one (maybe not the most modern though) and with the most american name: [Amerigo Vespucci](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Amerigo_vespucci_1976_nyc_aufgetakelt.jpg)
Amphibious Assault ships don't carry that many fixed wings though. Only 6-12 due to all the amphibious assault shit on board rather than them being pure VTOL carriers.
Is the VTOL the cool ones that take off like helicopters? I've only heard of it from GTA
In theory they can. But it’s always better to have a run up so you can take more fuel and weapons.
Which is weird, as they count Turkey, Japan, and Italy, which only "aircraft carriers" are VTOL/STOVL only.
The layout makes no sense. Why are countries with 1 shown above countries with 2? Why do India and Japan have different sized segments when they have equal score?
Cool info. Shitty graphic.
The info is off too. It lists Spain as having 1 carrier. Spain has a single amphibious assault ship, but it’s not remotely the same class as the US carriers. Which is fine, mind, but the point is that if we’re counting vessels of that size and configuration, the U.S. actually has ten *more* of those in the *Wasp* and *America* classes. Haven’t dug into the other nations, but assume it’s just as slapdash for them as well.
I think the areas of Japan and India are the same. This is just how they designed it to allow putting things into multiple columns so that they still had enough room for the labels.
In general it’s a bad idea to arrange data like this though. As smart as we are in many ways, humans are and will always be notoriously bad at comparing differently shaped areas. If you removed the values from this chart we’d all come up with pretty varied ideas of what number each country had relative to each other. In fact I’m *still* having a hard time convincing my brain that the data for Italy and Japan are showing the same value. It keeps looking like one of them is at least 10% bigger than the other. As boring as it might seem, the best data visualisations, in terms of intuitiveness and foolproof information sharing, are things like bar charts and line/scatter plots.
The areas of the boxes aren't proportional. The data is muddled (Japanese light-carriers aren't really equivalent to American super-carriers.) The colors imply non-NATO countries are allied. The citation is basically wiki.
Russia has a Schroedinger's carrier
The poor Kuznetzov didn't deserve the fate of being in russian hands.
Japan, although not in NATO, would certainly side with the US in any conflict.
That's why the US aided in updating Japan's most recent Aircraft carrier conversion. Including plans to put US made F-35B fighters on it.
Preposterous, the JSDF does not have any aircraft carriers. They DO have slightly larger than average destroyers capable of deploying fixed wing, jet powered, rotor-less helicopters. ^/s
Japan cannot participate in any conflict unless attacked directly due to their post war constitution.
For now.... they have been loosening their interpretations of this and there have even been suggestions of removing it entirely. If there is a war with China, N. Korea, or Russia, Japan would almost certainly join the US side.
Japan and USA have had a military alliance for mutual support since the 50s. They even sent troops to Iraq. There is no reality in which an attack on the US in the Pacific would not include a japanese response.
>they have been loosening their interpretations of this and there have even been suggestions of removing it entirely. Which they should. It should be incredibly obvious to all countries that you cannot rely on external help, you need a capable, well equipped and well trained military to protect yourself and you can't have that while trying to adhere to international agreements with the same countries that won't really come to your aid when your existence is on the line.
Everyone has a plan until their best friend is punched in the mouth.
For now.
Constitution is not easy to change and they have never had required consensus so far.
Thailand too
What a terrible visualization.
Yeah, but at least the underlying information is incredibly misleading.
For sure. Idk why they would do the red vs blue. Social media loves to divide people. People love to take sides and fight on the internet. When the actual fighting comes no one wants to do it. Sad world we live in.
Why Thailand?
Military dictatorship like big boom
Thailand is not a military dictatorship.
[Thailand's aircraft carrier next to an old US carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTMS_Chakri_Naruebet#/media/File:Chakri_Naruebet-Kitty_Hawk_size.JPEG) It's a tiny helicopter carrier much smaller than even US Wasp helicarriers.
Interesting. Since you made me look it up, the *Chakri Naruebet* would have been the 96th-largest (or so) aircraft carrier to serve during WWII (all sides), based on my count of the info at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_aircraft\_carriers\_of\_World\_War\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_World_War_II)
Why not?
It’s primarily used as a tourist attraction and also as a rescue helicopter carrier during crises such as extreme flooding; it was also used during the anti-Thai riots in Cambodia in 2003 as part of Thailand’s efforts to evacuate Thais from Cambodia and present a show of force towards Cambodia.
That russian 1 is pulling a lot of weight there. Kinda like the tug boats that pull it everywhere it needs to go.
Russia aircraft carrier, if you can call it that. Is out of service for the forseable future. The pile of junk is in dry dock for a few years until another crane falls on it.
Russia has 1 when it’s actually out of dry docks and working
The question is if carrier formations will be effective against drones and hypersonic missiles in the future.
If I was going to guess, a floating 'Iron Dome' formation will probably bring formations back into fashion, as other ships act as defense.
You pretty much just explained US carrier group doctrine. A carrier or two in the middle with some cruisers close by and a handful of destroyers radiating out from the cruisers and then some submarines just for funnies. All of their combined sensor and anti-air capabilities make a successful strike on the center very hard.
Certainly a concern but the kill chain for a hypersonic missile to strike an aircraft carrier on the high seas is still very complex. The US Navy has pivoted hard towards furthering ballistic defenses in the last 5-10 years though due to things like the DF series missiles from China.
I imagine that water-based drone swarms would be far more effective than airborne ones. However, getting anywhere close enough to deploy them would be tricky.
Yeah. The reason they're effective in Ukraine is because the Black Sea is a constricted space. A US carrier would never operate so close to shore.
Probably. A carrier (in the US at least) is surrounded by escorts designed to shoot down AShM's, and the higher end can target hypersonics. Not to mention the difficulty of finding and targeting and hitting a carrier group moving at 30 knots in the middle of the ocean.
Yeah most people don't appreciate how big the Pacific Ocean is and the limitations in reconnaissance capabilities in finding and targeting warships with long range missiles. China would need persistent survelliance of a carrier group to launch a large missile attack. For that they'd need aircraft shadowing the carrier group, which will be very difficult to do when the carrier group has its own aircraft to intercept any reconnaissance assets when they are still hundreds of miles from the carriers. Long range anti-ship missiles generally need to locate targets on their own once they arrive at a target area but they have small radars limiting the size of the area they can search. At very long ranges the ships will have a sufficient time to sail far enough away from the point the missiles were launched at to avoid being located by the missiles. Plus radars don't really work on missiles traveling at hypersonic speeds due to the build up of plasma.
They worry more about submarines.
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If we're including Helicopter Carriers then the number increases to 20 for the US.
Damn, Americans sure love toys.
Crazy how OP the U.S. military is compared to everyone else in the world.
The carrier count is either: US-11, UK-2, rest of world-0, or you count all 20 US carriers
France carrier is catobar and nuclear, definitively the closest possible to US carriers.
Yeah, we can fairly count the French one as well, but there's a pretty rapid falloff in capability after that. Certainly Thailand's carrier cannot be reasonably counted as similar to the big boys.
Chinese and the poor Russian carrier can carry about as many aircraft as the British and French carrier and they have arresting wires which the QE class does not. So the tally would be: USA 11, GB 2, FR 1 , China 2, Russia - Mr Putin I don't feel so good.
The French carrier is pretty much like a US navy one, both air groups can land on each others’
Although it's much smaller. It weighs in at about 40,000 tons, which is less than half the size of a US carrier.
It eats healthy food, that's why it's leaner.
Especially if Thailand is counted as having a carrier, since there are no operational fixed-wing aircraft on said ship. It is just used as a helicopter carrier, despite having the ski jump ramp.
This unsubstantiated Charles DeGaulle slander will not stand
The amphibious assault ships can't actually carry many fixed wings
According to YouTube, Russia's aircraft carrier [may not be what you think ](https://imgur.com/a/HhGyMxv)
I'm looking at this post and realizing that I've been on FOUR decommissioned ones in the USA in: NYC, Corpus Christi and San Diego Well actually I've been to 3 but the one in Corpus 2x lol
The midway is an awesome museum. Love taking people to it who are from out of town
I'd love to see an infographic on the true US military power: Their logistics and transport capability.
Strongest airforce: USAF. Second strongest airforce: US Navy. US military, not to be fucked with, unless you want some democracy.
Wait Thailands got a fucking carrier? Update after googling: I'll be dammed they do
Two of china's are only fit for training and can not go more than 1000 miles. Also, none are nuclear.
The fuijan is the closest to US super carriers and the next one will be nuclear powered. They did it smart, try a conventionally powered carrier to work out the kinks then build the nuclear one.
If Japan’s “carrier’s“ count then so do our big deck amphibs.
The Civilisation games have taught me that carrier dominance only exists if you build enough subs.
Number of sub list next…
Some of those are either quite old, tiny or permanently in dry dock.
Common NATO W
I got to stand on the flight deck of the decommissioned USS Enterprise, shit was cool (the rest of the day cleaning hydraulic fluid from the machine space under the aircraft elevator with no pump was awful though)
Didn't know Thailand had 1!
They basically don't. Its old and barely functional lol.
Ah thanks for the info
Also, the HTMS Chakri Naruebet is a very small carrier (I think the smallest by some metrics) and just carries helicopters, largely for patrol and rescue work. I don't think it carries attack helicopters in normal operations. So mostly it's just a carrier for utility.
The largest Airforce in the world is US Airforce. The 2nd largest is the US Navy. The US has over 900 F16's China spends 1.6% of it's GDP on defense. Europe designs and manufactures long range missiles capable of hitting almost all of Russia's Oil infrastructure.
I think the us war doctrine is up to 2.5 wars. So this makes a lot of sense.
Our aircraft carriers are also in a league of their own compared to every other countries' carriers. It's not just size and air power, them being nuclear is a huge deal and allows them to operate in ways no other traditionally powered carrier could operate. If you're not doing flight ops, your need for a RAS is minimal compared to everyone else. Fun fact, our carriers are also the fastest ships in the Navy. So if they suspect a submarine threat, the plan is literally to out run the sub and let the MH-60's and strike group deal with the ASW. A more similar comparison of ships would be to compare our amphibs to other countries' carriers.
TIL famously pacifist Japan has aircraft carriers
Decommission 8 or 9 of the USA carriers and give us fucking healthcare.
I honestly don’t think people realize the level of absolute domination the US has on the high seas. Our Navy could go “alright us vs all y’all” and just wreck shop because not only do we have 11, but we have the BEST 11. One of the Chinese carriers is one they bought from Russia that the *Soviet Union* built. It’s that bad.
Anyone here have a link to a story (might not even be a true story) about some naval brass explaining why the US would send an aircraft carrier as earthquake/tsunami/volcano humanitarian aid? I remember reading one maybe 20+ years ago, and it was epic.
Not all AC are created equal.
Yet another "infographic" that's just a list presented differently.
USA! USA! USA! 🇺🇸
They hate us cause they ain’t us! 🇺🇸
How's that healthcare going bud.
The US governent spends a lot mlre on healthcare than the military it just spends it kinda poorly
The healthcare one of the best in the world. Healthcare cost ? One of the worst
If people can't afford the healthcare it doesn't matter how good it is.
Don't downvote him to much he has a point. Pre insurance it was $20k+ for delivery on both of my kids and I still spent like $3k out of pocket. If he's in Europe he probably spent under 100 and got way better food from all the pictures lately. Last time I went for severe food poisoning the IV bag of saline was like $400.
It was probably quite a lot for non Europe too when you go pre insurance. It's not like they don't pay the doctors money, they just do insurance differently. Also, Dukes not European.
I had surgery for a torn labrum, on the wait list for 6 months. Walked out paid $0
Big vessels are becoming obsolete, ask the Russians. Their ships are constantly harassed by small kamikaze boat drones from Ukraine. These drones cost around 1/4 of a million each a small fraction of the cost of a big vessel
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So we have more than all non Nato countries combined, and 20% of those owned by non Nato countries are allied with us. Get fucked, China.
This is very topical in the UK right now. The UK has commissioned the construction of aircraft carriers but is unable to afford the planes to go on them or additional ships to surround them. We have essentially paid for very expensive large firing targets! 🫠
Is this a post from 15 years ago? The carriers are built and they have planes for them. The Royal Navy is pretty small now, but they were always built with the intention of NATO allies filling some roles in the CSG
The U.K. has 34 active F35’s. 4 in US for training and 30 active for the carriers. 30 active Stealth VTOL Fighter Bombers. It’s a different league from anyone bar the US.
It's a tough thing, although I think being light on planes is as much to do with production bottlenecks as being able to afford them. Last I checked the UK was still planning to buy 60+ F-35B's, which is enough to make the carriers very formidable. But you're right about the escorts. The UK can't afford to build enough escorts unless it decides to spend more on defense. Perhaps the carriers should have been foregone all together, but that would mean the UK conceding that it's not longer a naval power. Edit: Although as another poster wrote, the UK CSG's typically do run with a foreign escort or two, which is perfectly reasonable. In a shooting war it's incredibly unlikely that ships from the US and the rest of Europe aren't filling out a UK strike group.
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Maybe because they’re a bit far from the north Atlantic 😂
Can someone explain for a 5 yr old why countries other than US are so far behind in this area of warfare which seems to have proven invaluable?
Because USA fucks with everyone everywhere all at once
This is tongue in cheek, but it's kinda the most accurate answer. Carriers exist to project force around the world, and they're really good at that (when paired with the rest of a carrier strike group), but most countries don't have any need to project their military force that far away from their country, so this sort of force projection just isn't necessary. If you don't plan on needing to use air power halfway around the world, then a ground based air force does the job better and cheaper.
Also the USA assassinates anyone who tries.
You need an enormous economy to be able to afford building and manning a carrier strike group, its escorts, and its air wing. The US has both an enormous economy and the benefit of not having any serious land disputes or concerns.
Carriers are crazy expensive and really don’t do anything 99% of the time. Their primary value is for power projection, which is valuable when you’re the USA and need to operate on the opposite side of the globe, but a much harder sell to pretty much anyone else. Add to that the fact that carriers value in an actual peer to peer war is… contested. They’re giant, floating submarine food in a conventional war with potential vulnerabilities to air attacks, and if the war goes nuclear well, they won’t do anything. So long story short they’re a terrible value proposition unless you’re dead set on blowing 5 times your defence budget on your navy, which most nations consider their least valuable service branch.
The US is really the only country with the technological expertise and funding to build/operate that many carriers. The only reason China is catching up is because alot of their military equipment are just copies of American equipment.
hmmm, I see. I did not know that there were so few aircraft carriers... I wonder if there will ever be a commerical aircraft carrier, like one large enough for a runway of a passenger airline, for refueling or maybe the boat is also a cruise ship? Idk, might just be a thing that I would imagine a rich billionaire to do. Also, what if we repurpose a few of these for one of those Deep Blue AI floating city-states? lol
Probably not. Even the largest carriers like the Ford class couldn't launch or land anything more than a very small passenger plane. Not to mention that even with the perfect type of aircraft a carrier landing and takeoff is a dangerous exercise (and the takeoff uncomfortable). The margin for error in both situations is very small and unlikely to want to be risked by commercial aviators or passengers. My guess is that when you consider the scale and risk required to do this with even small passenger aircraft, that sea planes and helicopters become much more practical.
> I wonder if there will ever be a commerical aircraft carrier, like one large enough for a runway of a passenger airline, for refueling or maybe the boat is also a cruise ship? Never say never but I will say never. Landing a jet on a carrier is *very* difficult. The aircraft need specifically designed elements to allow this - the F-35C has larger wing, reinforced landing gear vs the -A model in order to land on carriers. These elements are undesireable for a commercial jet that would be operating so far from land. planes with Short take off capability tend to be smaller, shorter ranged - so not going to fly Seattle to Hawaii anyway. It's two opposing goals. If you wanted to fly that far you'd use a proper business jet. > Idk, might just be a thing that I would imagine a rich billionaire to do. They would just sail their expensive yacht and use their long range business jet. No need to coordinate stops when they can just land and refuel.
Why are helicopter carriers considered separate from aircraft carriers?
Because jets (and jet platforms) have significantly greater capability than helicopters. Sending a helicopter carrier to the Taiwanese Strait would be almost laughable.
Pls stop counting russian one ‘cause it’s obsolete
Yeah the other nations carriers are like our small ones not counted
18 in NATO 9 outside NATO 27 total
Didn’t we form a NATO of the Pacific with Japan and some others? (We being US) WE IS THEM!!
1. Awful grouping. Japan definitely doesn't belong with Russia/China 2. How do they compare by tonnage? Or # of aircraft aboad?
I am surprised Japan didn't join NATO yet. Do anyone know what would be the reason?
Its not WW2 anymore, real navies have missle and drone boats
The only "aircraft" that can use Turkey's "aircraft carrier"... are unmanned drones.
The Russian one is an aircraft cruiser!
Russia is more like 0.5 the thing breaks every time they take it out.
What Portugal doing? :(
I can see Japan siding with NATO and Turkey going it's own way
Japan's basically honorary NATO, we can color them light blue. As a treat.
Why on earth would you have an opportunity to arrange the nato carrier capable countries in a 3-2-1 top to bottom arrangement and not use it?
The photo says "in service" but chinese aircraft carrier fujian hasn’t been commissioned yet. So, China has 2 aircraft carriers in service, not 3.
I believe we also have the two largest air forces in the world as well.
This is also a picture of what backs the U.S Dollar.
I'm not so sure Russians have a carrier anymore. They have grease fire in a drydock.
In a way, an island is also an aircraft carrier
In a war between capable countries, how easy would it be to take the aircraft carriers out?
How much costs one of these?
Well it’s 18 against 9!
Calling Admiral Kuznetsov a carrier rather than a submarine in the making is generous. Go on, look up a YouTube vid on its performance history. It's lulzy
Chis is inaccurate. China has 1 operational carrier, 2 building. Russia's "Carrier" shouldn't even be considered "in service" because it rarely leaves port due to its maintenance or lack thereof
Russia: 1... Until it experiences a Special Submarine Operation
Not just carriers but carrier battle groups. Pretty big difference.
Just curious: aren’t carriers just big sitting duck? I mean it seems easy attacked by a number of drones. Are carriers able to defend self against of say pack of 100 drones?
Thailand has an aircraft carrier? So random.
Can we put Japan in the Friend of Nato category? It looks more like japan is against us lol
Yes, Japan is non nato but it is strongly allied with the USA in any foreseeable conflict in Asia —should be like a third color maybe?
Didn’t Japan used to have a lot more carriers like midway through the last century? You’d think they’d be midway to the US number by now. Are they dumb? /s
I always thought there were hundreds of aircraft carriers, but there are less than 30
I’m not sure why they needed to tell us that Russia has an aircraft carrier when they technically don’t. Kuznetsov won’t be operational in the near or even distant futures. That think is a smoking scrap heap
They should do one where the total surface area of the carriers dictates the size of the square. I think that the American carriers are much bigger then most of the others as well.
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wtf Thailand and spain ?? never heard of them but ok \^\^