Aircraft carriers are the premiere warships used by blue water navies around the world, and it's been that way since World War II. After the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, aircraft carriers were some of the only remaining American large warships in the Pacific theater. As a result, much of the American military strategy in the Pacific theater was centered around aircraft carriers.
This remained true long after the war, and these days, it's no different — aircraft carriers are the central force in any country's blue water navy . Of course, like any military hardware, not every aircraft carrier that was designed, built, and employed by a navy turned out to be effective. Aircraft carriers have been around since World War I, and it took decades for navies to figure out how to properly use them.
In fact, most early aircraft carriers were created by converting existing vessels by throwing a wooden flight deck on top. These didn't perform as well as a modern purpose-built carrier for obvious reasons. Ultimately, many aircraft carriers used since their inception have been exceptional warships, but not all of them.
There are stories of terrible aircraft carriers thrown into combat during several 20th and 21st-century conflicts. Throughout the development of modern aircraft carriers, serious design flaws, construction problems, and operability limitations occurred, causing several vessels to be more pomp and circumstance than viable weapons of war. .
