Weapons Systems
Aircraft Carrier
Modern, United Kingdom
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The aircraft carrier is a warship built around a flight deck and hangar so it can launch, recover and support fixed-wing aircraft at sea, functioning as a mobile air base independent of land airfields. Early experiments, including the first shipboard takeoff from USS Birmingham in 1910 and the first landing on a moving ship aboard HMS Furious in 1917, led to HMS Argus entering service in 1918 as the first vessel able to both launch and recover aircraft with a full-length flight deck. Carriers displaced the battleship as the capital ship of major navies over the following decades, most consequentially in the Pacific theater of the Second World War, where carrier-based air power rather than surface gunnery decided the largest naval engagements.
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Disputed
Introduced YearHMS Argus (1918) is usually credited as the first true aircraft carrier able to both launch and recover aircraft; earlier ships from 1910 onward experimented with takeoff and landing at sea without full carrier capability. Weapon ClassAviation warship (fixed-wing carrier flight deck) 1 Sources
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