The UK’s Telegraph ran the following picture story: The World’s Largest and Most Powerful Destroyers and Aircraft Carriers.

The impetus for the article appears to be the recent news that Japan recently launched its first aircraft carrier since the end of World War 2. The ship is marketed as a “destroyer” to fit into Japan’s self-defense Navy but it carries aircraft (14 helicopters for anti-sub warfare).

New Japanese “destroyer” actually an anti-sub copter carrier. It could be converted to accommodate fixed wing aircraft.

WW2 Japanese aircraft carrier Shinyo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The story features ten ships, the first two are Japanese with the first being the above mentioned destroyer\aircraft carrier.

The second, oddly enough is the Battleship Yamato, the biggest warship ever built. The Yamato at the bottom of the ocean sunk by the US Navy late in WW2. The Yamato was neither a destroyer nor an aircraft carrier so as interesting as the ship might be it’s hard to understand how it got into a story about the world’s largest (current) destroyers and aircraft carriers.

Imperial Japanese Navy’s battle ship, Yamato running full-power trials in Sukumo Bay, 1941 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of the remaining 8 ships only the last is a destroyer, a South Korean one at that. The others are all aircraft carriers. The countries that own the carriers are the US, UK, France, India, China and Russia.

It’s a pretty exclusive club when you consider that 2/3 of the planet’s surface is water. The fact that India, Japan, Russia and China have all entered into the fray is an indication that United States position as the world’s dominant sea power is starting to be challenged.

USS Nimitz (CVN-68), a US Navy aircraft carrier. Photo is from after her 1999-2001 refit. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) A Nimitz size Aircraft Carrier has a crew of 5000.

USS John C. Stennis and the smaller British Invincible-class HMS Illustrious operating together, April 1998. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) There is a huge variation in size and roles with today’s aircraft carriers.

Little known fact but the Germans nearly had an aircraft carrier of their own to challenge the Royal Navy. It was never completed. It was named the Graf Zeppelin.

Related articles

• The world’s largest and most powerful destroyers and aircraft carriers (telegraph.co.uk)