The US has almost as many as the rest combined. There shouldn't be much doubt about where the world's military power is concentrated. Interesting to note India's lead on its trans-Himalayan rival.
The answers here are out-of-date and the question is vague. The list is much longer if you define a carrier as: "a warship with a full-length flight deck, hangar and facilities for arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft" and mean that to include ships classed as amphibious assault ships and helicopter carriers, whose primary purpose is to carry, arm, deploy, and recover aircraft, and the list would include the UK, Egypt, Japan, South Korea and Australia. The list will also soon include Turkey. Also, the US numbers would go up to 19. Japan calls their carriers "destroyers" for legal reasons, but their three Hyuga-class DDH ships meet the above definition. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service
It looks like the numbers have changed a little since July but the list of countries remains the same. If you're an expert, I'd recommend getting the Wikipedia article changed, and then I'll edit the quiz. I'm not an expert so I'm not going to try to make decisions about what qualifies.
...and ICBM's. And their less advanced artillery is probably still able to rain fire on Seoul. And they've probably got biological and chemical weapons. And of course they'll probably have some kind of nuclear capability in the near future. They won't win a war with those, but they do have more than mere manpower.
If you believe their propaganda (and really, why wouldn't you?), they have at least 100, maybe closer to 200 aircraft carriers. And Thanos is fighting for them as well.
if you look up pictures of Thailands carrier on Google(HTMS Chakri Naruebet) and Wikipedia there are pictures of it containing or launching Harrier Fighter Jets in some instances. While they might not use it for that purpose it's still a class of near full size Aircraft Carrier that is capabale of launching jets. Also they bought it from the Spanish who used it as a full swing all purpose Aircraft Carrier as well prior to its sale.
I'm curious what the update was for December 2017. Did USA's number increase because of the USS Gerald Ford making its debut this summer? Or did another country change?
While I don't necessarily think we need to be spending as much, and certainly not more, on the US military... I gotta disagree with this one comment. Aircraft carriers are extremely valuable in a lot of different situations, whether it's destroying the armored divisions of an insane warlord as they are en route to massacre a city from a safe distance, or delivering vital emergency aid to disaster-struck archipelagos nobody else can get to, this is money well-spent. Only thing the military spends money on that might be more cost-effective is predator drones. Or possibly sniper rifles.
The U.S. actually has 21 when counting the 5 LHD and 5 LHA which are designed to carry the F-35 and all the USMC helos. They are bigger and carry more aircraft then most of these other countries carriers.
the spanish one only supports vertical take off aircrafts like Harrier and such. and helicopters. It is defined as an Amphibious Assault Ship, not as an aircratf carrier. but who cares... it is big and expensive.
Germany only has a handful of helicopters that can actually fly and guns that stop working when its too hot. Still surprised about the none existent aircraft carriers?
Russia should be removed from this list, their only carrier caught fire in december 2019 and is currently under reconstruction, so not usable at the moment
The Russian carrier will probably not be replaced as the large crane needed to fix it is inoperable. I think it fell into the superstructure of the carrier after the fire. What a mess.
Once you start adding ships that carry VTOL aircraft, like the F-35B, or the Harrier, then you have to add every LHA/LHD in the US fleet along with the CVNs (catapult launched). You have to even add the large destroyer (helicopter) that Japan has. China is delivering or building new carriers that will have catapult launch for take off and arresting gear for landing. Also keep in mind that the American total of CVNs went down recently with the retirement of the Enterprise, the the LHD total went down with the accidental fire that gutted the Bon Homme Richard.
It never occurred to me that aircraft carriers weren't common. It's presence in Battleship made me assume they were a common enough vessel (although, considering the size of them, I'm not surprised there aren't a whole lot of them out there)
Couldn’t agree more with Canadry - aircraft carriers are a massive waste of money. I live and work in the same harbour as the two British carriers, and can confirm that they do the grand total of sweet fig all. We still don’t even have planes to use on them, only a few helicopters and some limited training with US aircraft, one of which fell off the ship and sank in the Mediterranean. They spend the vast majority of their time alongside, providing endless millions of pounds of taxpayer money to private contractors such as BAE Systems (who also built the ships) to repair and maintain the colossal white elephants.
The problem is, they are too valuable to be of any real use. Every time they sail they require a medium-sized armada of support craft, from destroyers to submarines to protect them. What’s more, with the astronomical rise of drone technology, they are on the verge of obsolescence.
The prestige and supposed influence they bring is not worth the enormous outlay.
I mean, the new Ford-class aircraft carriers cost like $10-15 billion to construct, and that's without getting into the cost to staff and supply them. I have ZERO doubt that WAY more humanitarian work could be done with that money instead of what you list here. Obviously, they aren't built for humanitarian purposes. This is just a silly piece of propaganda.
Sounds like your country has wasted its aircraft carriers and/or has no use for them if that's the truth. Doesn't mean they aren't useful to militaries and disaster relief lol.
They are airports that can move over the world. It takes years to build a runway somewhere and in some places you can't even place one. If necessary you can send an aircraft carrier fleet to that place and give massive air support or bombing abilities. They can carry drones as well and they are practically invincible thanks to the support ships around them.
The US citizens pay taxes to maintain peace across the oceans and make sure the world doesnt descend into an international anarchy, we kinda gotta thank uncle sam cause if it wasn't the US it could be way worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_country
It looks like the numbers have changed a little since July but the list of countries remains the same. If you're an expert, I'd recommend getting the Wikipedia article changed, and then I'll edit the quiz. I'm not an expert so I'm not going to try to make decisions about what qualifies.
The problem is, they are too valuable to be of any real use. Every time they sail they require a medium-sized armada of support craft, from destroyers to submarines to protect them. What’s more, with the astronomical rise of drone technology, they are on the verge of obsolescence.
The prestige and supposed influence they bring is not worth the enormous outlay.
Remember the earthquake in Indonesia.
One of our carriers went there.
Our carriers have three hospitals on board
That can treat several hundred people,
They are nuclear powered and can supply
Emergency electrical power to shore facilities,
They have three cafeterias with
The capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day,
They can produce several thousand gallons of
Fresh water from sea water each day,
And they carry helicopters for
Use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.
When the carriers aren't protecting the world this is what they do.......Helping survivors of disastors