Kontraband Know It All

Which country invented aircraft carriers? What was the first one called?
France and Japan invented aircraft carriers, with the British not far behind when it came to aircraft carrier development. It was the French who converted a torpedo boat tender into a seaplane carrier in 1911; the ship was called La Foudre. The first British seaplane carrier was HMS Hermes, which was converted from being a cruiser in 1913.
The world's first specially commissioned aircraft carrier, purposely built to accommodate an air wing, was the Imperial Japanese Navy vessel Hosho (1922). Although HMS Hermes of the Royal Navy was actually the first aircraft carrier to be designed and built, it was commissioned later than the Hosho, in 1924. Ship commissioning is an important ceremony where the vessel becomes officially part of active service. It involves dress uniforms, royalty, champagne and seamen. So, much like a weekend in Las Vegas with Prince Harry then.

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Which is the largest aircraft carrier ever built? What size crew does it have?
Currently, the largest aircraft carrier in the world is the American supercarrier USS Theodore Roosevelt of the Nimitz-class of ships. The displacement of this ship is 117,200 tons and it is over 1,000 ft long. TI Class supertankers are longer and heavier, but these American Nimitz-class supercarriers are way ahead of any other aircraft carrier on the oceans when it comes to sheer size and mass. When fully complemented, the Theodore Roosevelt carries 5,680 people.
It is interesting to compare the USS Theodore Roosevelt with the 1924 British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. The modern vessel weighs about 10 times more than its predecessor and is almost twice as long. The Roosevelt has several thousand more crew and can operate with 90 aircraft, compared to the 20 planes that the Hermes could carry. In all fairness, comparing the Roosevelt with the Hermes is like comparing a Cray supercomputer with a ZX81, a Bugatti Veyron with a Ford Model T or Leo Messi with Andy Carroll.

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How much are the new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy costing?
The Royal Navy does not currently operate any aircraft carriers for their original purpose. The Invincible was decommissioned in 2005, the Ark Royal was decommissioned in 2011 and the Illustrious is now being used as a helicopter carrier. After a considerable amount of political wrangling, the British government decided the Royal Navy needed new aircraft carriers to maintain its status as a blue-water navy (a navy that has global operating capabilities). The new British carriers will be called the HMS Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales.
These new carriers are the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy and will be closer in size to the American supercarriers than previous British aircraft carriers. However, huge vessels like these don't come cheap, current estimates are around £3 billion for each ship. To put that figure into perspective, for £3 billion you could buy 3 super-modern guided missile destroyers, an ostentatious navy of 150 luxury yachts or your own rather intimidating fleet of 10 million rowing boats.

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Has an aircraft carrier ever been sunk in battle? What was the largest warship ever sunk at war?
Many aircraft carriers have been sunk in battle. Although often well defended and with a large escort, they are an obvious target for attack and sinking one has two polar opposite morale effects. The Royal Navy lost 5 carriers to German U-boats in the Second World War. Many American carriers were sunk by the Japanese during the same war, but the Americans managed to sink more Japanese carriers than they lost. The French, Germans and Italians also lost aircraft carriers during wars. The massive Japanese carrier Akitsu Maru was sunk by an American submarine at the cost of 2,046 lives.
The 3 largest warships sunk during wartime were all Japanese. The Yamato-class battleships (Yamato, Musashi and Shinano) were 70,000 ton leviathans which could have ruled the Pacific if it wasn't for fear of US submarines and the formidable American aircraft carrier groups. Musashi was sunk by torpedoes and bombs in 1944, Yamato was sunk by the same combination of attack in 1945 and Shinano had been sunk by an American submarine in 1944. Over 200,000 tons of wrecked metal lying on the ocean floor coming from just 3 vessels. That's enough scrap metal to make about 290,000 Minis (the British ones), the frames for 2 colossal skyscrapers or all the robots for one series of Robot Wars (who could forget Sgt Bash, Matilda or the ferocious Shunt?).

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