Royal Navy — Aircraft carrier class
Colossus-class aircraft carrier
The class in numbers
- 16 Planned
- 8 Completed
- 1 Cancelled
- 15 Scrapped
Design and service
- Type
- Aircraft carrier
- Navy
- Royal Navy
- Built
- March 1942 – April 1961
- In commission
- December 1944 – October 2001
- Succeeded by
- Centaur-class aircraft carrier
- Operators
- Brazil
- Subclasses
- Colossus class, Majestic class
Class specifications
Figures for the class as designed. Individual vessels varied, sometimes considerably — each vessel page carries its own configurations.
Colossus class: as designed
- Displacement, standard
- 13,200 long tons (13,412 t)
- Displacement, full load
- 18,000 long tons (18,289 t)
- Length
- 211.84 m (695 ft) OA
- Speed
- 25 knots (46.3 km/h, 28.8 mph)
- Complement
- 1,050
- Main gun
- 40 mm (1.6 in)
- Armament
- 6 × 4-barrelled 2 pounder anti-aircraft guns
- 16 × twin 20 mm Oerlikon mountings
- All weapons later replaced by 40 mm Bofors in varying configurations
Majestic class: as designed
- Displacement, standard
- 15,750 long tons (16,003 t)
- Displacement, full load
- 19,500 long tons (19,813 t)
- Main gun
- 40 mm (1.6 in)
- Armament
- 30 × 40 mm Bofors (6 twin mountings, 18 single mountings)
Roster
Holding 7 of the 8 hulls recorded for this class. Vessels transferred to another navy are catalogued under the navy that sailed them and appear there instead.
| Vessel | Pennant | Commissioned | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| French aircraft carrier Arromanches | R95 | 1944 | Scrapped 1978 |
| HMS Colossus (R15) | R15 | 1944 | Scrapped 1978 |
| HMS Glory (R62) | R62 | 1945 | Scrapped 1961 |
| HMS Perseus (R51) | R51 | 1944 | Scrapped 1958 |
| HMS Pioneer (R76) | R76 | 1944 | Scrapped 1954 |
| HMS Venerable (R63) | R63 | 1945 | Scrapped 2000 |
| HMS Vengeance (R71) | R71 | 1945 | Scrapped 2004 |
Sources
- Facts harvested from Colossus-class aircraft carrier on Wikipedia. Figures only — no wording is taken from it.