Light aircraft carrier

A light aircraft carrier is an aircraft carrier that is smaller than the standard carriers of a navy. The precise definition of the type varies by country, typically having a capacity of 1/2 to 2/3 of the aircraft of a full-sized carrier.

In the post War period, the Royal Navy operated a force of Light Aircraft Carriers, all of which were born out of Wartime designs. In World War II, the United States Navy produced a number of light carriers by converting cruiser hulls. The Independence class aircraft carriers, converted from Cleveland-class light cruisers, were unsatisfactory ships for aviation with their narrow, short decks and slender, high-sheer hulls; in virtually all respects the escort carriers were superior aviation vessels. The Independence class ships, however, had the virtue of being available at a time when available carrier decks had been reduced to Enterprise and Saratoga in the Pacific and Ranger in the Atlantic. Late in the war, two Baltimore-class heavy cruisers were converted to Saipan-class light carriers, they were completed after the war's end and after very brief lives as carriers, ended prematurely by the rapid advances in aircraft technology brought on in the 1950s, were converted to command and communication ships.

Some modern references call the French Charles de Gaulle a "light carrier," though at 40,000 tons and nuclear powered she dwarfs the vast majority of the world's aircraft carriers with the exception of the American supercarriers.