USS Ranger (CV-4)

History of USS Ranger (CV-4)

The USS Ranger (CV-4) was the US Navy's first purpose-built and keel-engineered aircraft carrier. The previous three carriers were converted from existing ship designs to form USS Langley, USS Lexington and USS Saratoga - Langley (CV-1) was the converted miner, while Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV- 3) ) Constructed from broken battlecruiser keels. In 1922, the U.S. Navy asked to design an aircraft carrier with more speed and storage space than the aircraft carriers in the fleet at the time.

The USS Ranger will have a flat, unobstructed flight deck with no island structure and six funnels (funnels) - three on each side - that can fold horizontally during flight operations. An island-style superstructure was eventually added during construction. A pair of service cranes will aid in the recovery of the seaplane.

Construction began in 1931 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard at a cost of $2,160,000 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.

The USS Ranger is named after American colonial warriors who understood the habits of their enemies and could effectively serve as scouts and fighters behind enemy lines. The Ranger is smaller than the USS Saratoga and USS Lexington, but since she was designed from the ground up as a purpose-built aircraft carrier, she was allowed to be designed for the largest aircraft load possible. She displaces about 1/3 the size of larger ships, but can carry nearly the same number of aircraft86 versus 91 aboard the Saratoga and Lexington. She is 769 feet (234.39 m) long and measures 109.6 feet (33.41 m) from port to starboard, while her draft will draw 22.5 feet (6.86 m) of water.

She is slower than the Lexington class, with a surface speed of 29.3 knots (34 mph) and a range of 12,000 miles (19,312 km). For air and sea defense, it was single-seat and 40 x .50 in (13 mm) anti-aircraft machine guns were placed in various positions around the flight deck.

Her normal crew consists of 2,461 officers and men, and when fully loaded she weighs 17,859 tons. The Ranger has six oil-supplied boilers driving two steam turbines providing 53,500 hp on shafts, which equates to 39,000 kW connected to 2 shafts.

The small carrier concept outlined by the General Directorate of the Navy includes a speed of 29.4 knots and a free flight deck. Navigation and signal bridges are designed below the flight deck and extend beyond the ship's side to port and starboard. The secondary liaison station should be located on the starboard side of the upper deck together with the flight control station.

A mapping station consisting of flag maps and flight information services will be installed on the island's superstructure. Aircraft lifts were considered during the planning phase, and the rear lifts will be used to expedite aircraft recovery.

After an aircraft has landed on the flight deck, it is sometimes necessary to send it from the stern (or stern) of the deck below it.

The speed of the carrier to and from combat hotspots is most desirable, but speed also retains its inherent disadvantage. The location of the general workshops at the stern is impractical and it is advisable to move them forward. Experience with the CV-2 and CV-3 shows that these workshops cannot perform precision work at full speed at 22 knots. Night landings of naval aircraft to land safely on the carrier and expand its combat range were also reviewed. Adequate lighting was the theme at the time to enable pilots to conduct controlled landings in conditions where the ship remained dark enough to prevent revealing the carrier's position to patrolling enemy aircraft, submarines or surface ships.

The technical difficulties of the project led to a series of experiments, including multiple lighting arrangements on U.S. aircraft carriers. These attempts provided safe lighting for night landings, but were less successful in maintaining dark ship conditions.

Tried various lamps - tested low wattage incandescent lamps in various configurations. Tried white, green, red, blue, or amber fluorescent lights but didn't find a solution. Therefore, the issue of the night deck lighting of the aircraft carrier was not resolved at that time.

The final design decision entailed reducing the Ranger's fire control system, reducing ammunition storage space, and eliminating the torpedo plane along with the torpedo due to lack of storage space. Instead, dive bombers will be used and deck catapults, aircraft booms and safety nets will be eliminated. Safety devices have been reduced. The Ranger was originally planned as a 13,800-ton aircraft carrier under the Washington Naval Treaty, but she surpassed it by about 700 tons, eventually displacing 17,500 tons fully loaded.

A major design change was made in 1932 when an island superstructure was added to the starboard side of the deck forward of the three articulated funnels. The fuselage is 730 feet long, and her flight deck increases its overall length to 769 feet.

On September 26, 1931, the Rangers were officially off the assembly line. Seventeen months later, the ship was launched and commissioned on June 4, 1934. On June 21, 1934, the first aircraft to land on her deck was an SBU-1 biplane flown by Lieutenant AC Davis. The Rangers also received Grumman J2F Duck twin seaplanes.

Due to the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty, the Ranger is more or less an experiment in the debate within the Admiralty about whether a carrier should be small or large. The U.S. Navy sees that the Japanese Navy has been producing smaller aircraft carriers and believes that smaller U.S. aircraft carriers could be used for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), aerial reconnaissance and destroying enemy coastal bases.

During operations in the 1930s, however, it was generally agreed that the U.S. Navy should focus on larger, faster carriers.

The aircraft carrier USS Ranger left Norfolk on 21 June 1934 for a "regrouped" training cruise with her new crew and Air Wing. She cruises off Cape Virginia, USA, conducting standard crew and flight operations exercises for her new squadron. She continued south to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Montevideo in South America.

Here, she showed the flag and continued to train and train. On October 4, 1934, she sailed back to Norfolk for the usual drydock repairs. On April 1, 1935, she sailed across the Panama Canal toward the Pacific Ocean, arriving in San Diego, California, six days later, on the 15th.

San Diego was the first port she designated, and for the next four years she patrolled up and down the West Coast, north to Alaska, north to Callao, Peru, and west to Hawaii.

The aircraft carrier USS Ranger left Santiago on January 4, 1939, for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for naval operations in the Caribbean. After the exercise, she sailed back to Norfolk, arriving on 20 April 1939.

The Rangers were then assigned to sail out of Norfolk and into the Caribbean as their normal East Coast patrol station. In the fall of 1939, following the outbreak of all-out war in Europe, she began neutral patrol operations from Bermuda along the mid-Atlantic trade routes and east coast to Newfoundland.

She was found to lack airworthiness and was unable to operate the aircraft on deck in adverse weather conditions.

Rangers returning to Norfolk from patrols around Trinidad and Tobago when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The Ranger arrived in Norfolk on December 8, where she was resupplied and took over the normal scheduled personnel exchange. She sailed patrolling the South Atlantic on 21 March and returned to Norfolk Naval Shipyard for repairs on 21 March 1942. As one of 14 U.S. Navy ships to receive the early RCA CXAM-1 radar system, the Ranger has also adopted a new squadron of Grumman Wildcat fighters to replace its outdated SBD-1 biplanes.

The Ranger serves as the flagship of Rear Admiral A. B. Cook, the carrier commander of the Atlantic Fleet. It was ordered to Quonset Point, Rhode Island, loaded with 68 U.S. Army Curtiss P-40 Warhawk pursuit fighter jets, as well as pilots and ground crew from the Army's 33rd Pursuit Squadron. The Ranger set sail on April 22 and landed at Aeera on Africa's Gold Coast on May 10, where she launched the Army's P-40 squadron.

This is the first time a U.S. Army aircraft has been launched from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

On May 28, 1942, she returned to Quonset Point, Rhode Island, loaded with another 72 Army P-40 pursuit aircraft, and traveled again to Aeera in Africa, where she finally arrived and launched the aircraft on May 19.

After returning to Norfolk, she trained with four escort carriers converted from outgoing tankers. The convoy has a new crew, and the rangers have received valuable training in all phases of the carrier's operations.

Escorts were brought online to help protect the convoy at the Atlantic crossing from attack by the German navy. The Ranger, the largest aircraft carrier in Atlantic waters, received four Sangomon-class escort carriers for defenseeach with 25 to 34 aircraft. The task force's mission was to provide air cover for the imminent German-controlled French Morocco amphibious invasion on November 8, 1942.

The Rangers and her task force, located 30 miles north of Casablanca, launched their aircraft at 06:15, attacking Rabat airfield, destroying 21 ground enemy planes, and shelling the French headquarters with no casualties . Other aircraft of the Ranger force destroyed seven other enemy planes at Puerto Riotai airfield, while others shelled four French destroyers at the port of Casablanca.

The operation lasted for three days, and the Ranger Task Force deployed 496 sorties in support of the three-track landings. The French destroyer Albatros was bombed twice in its foredeck area, inflicting 300 casualties. The French cruiser Primaugut was attacked and damaged while leaving the port of Casablanca.

Aircraft dropped depth charges on two submarines, destroying coastal defenses and anti-aircraft batteries. Ranger pilots reported that 21 enemy light tanks were attacked, many of them destroyed along with 86 military vehicles. In all, Allied aircraft destroyed more than 70 enemy aircraft on the ground and shot down 15 in dogfights. The Ranger Task Force lost 16 aircraft.

After Casablanca surrendered to the Allies on November 11, 1942, the Rangers left the Moroccan coast the next day and docked at Norfolk, Virginia, on November 23.

From December 16, 1942 to February 7, 1943, the Rangers remained at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for necessary repairs and replacement of aircraft. Returning to her role as a ferry, she loaded 75 P-40-L Army pursuit aircraft and flew to Casablanca, Africa, arriving on 23 February 1943. After returning to Norfolk, she patrolled the east coast of the United States and sailed with the British Home Fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland on 19 August, and helped patrol the sea passage to the British Isles. The new mission was to attack German shipping in Norwegian waters.

On October 2, she set sail and attacked a small convoy, sinking two ships and damaging two merchant ships. Further combat missions destroyed one freighter and damaged two others. The melee shot down two German aircraft and lost three Ranger Wildcats.

The Ranger and her squadron returned to Scapa Flow on October 6, 1943, and again patrolled with the Home Fleet before arriving in Boston on December 4, 1943.

She began training shortly after returning home, but was soon ordered to Staten Island, New York, to receive 76 P-38s with personnel from the U.S. Army and Navy, as well as the French Navy. Casablanca, in turn, was her destination on May 4, 1944. After the Ranger was destocked, the damaged U.S.

Army aircraft was loaded onto the plane for repairs in the United States. In addition, some military passengers were taken on the plane back to New York. The Ranger arrived in New York on May 16 and returned to Norfolk Naval Shipyard for repairs and new equipment. The flight deck was strengthened to accommodate the new catapult, and the radar was upgraded.

Arresting equipment was installed to give her the opportunity to train a night fighter interceptor.

On July 11, 1944, the Ranger left Norfolk for San Diego, arriving on July 25. She received personnel and aircraft from Night Combat Squadron 102 and a thousand U.S. Marines. The Ranger spent the next three months conducting night transport training operations in Hawaiian waters. On October 18, the Rangers left Pearl Harbor for San Diego to train air groups and squadrons off the coast of California until the end of the war.

On September 30, 1945, she sailed to New Orleans for Navy Day, scheduled for October 19, before heading to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for an overhaul on November 18. She was decommissioned at Norfolk Naval Yard on October 18, 1946, written off from the Naval Register on October 29, 1946, and sold to Sun Shipbuilding of Chester, Pennsylvania, January 28, 1947 & Dry Dock Company.