Yorktown-class aircraft carrier
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USS Enterprise
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| Class overview | |
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| Builders: | Newport News Shipbuilding |
| Operators: |
 United States Navy
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| Preceded by: | USS Ranger |
| Succeeded by: | |
| In commission: | 30 September 1937 – 17 February 1947 |
| Completed: | 3 |
| Lost: | 2 |
| Retired: | 1 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Aircraft carrier |
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| Speed: | 32.5 kn (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph) |
| Range: | 12,500 nmi (23,200 km) |
| Complement: | 2,217 |
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| Aircraft carried: | 90 |
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The Yorktown class was a class of three aircraft carriers built by for the United States Navy and completed shortly before World War II. They immediately followed Ranger, the first U.S. aircraft carrier built as such, and benefited in design from experience with Ranger and the earlier Lexington class which were conversions of two battle cruisers into carriers that were to be scrapped to comply with an arms limitation treaty.
These ships bore the brunt of early action in the Pacific War, and two of the three were lost: Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway, and Hornet, sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
Enterprise, the sole survivor of the class, was the most decorated ship of the U.S. Navy in the Second World War. After efforts to save her as a museum ship failed, she was scrapped in 1960.
A forerunner to modern weapons development, the Yorktown class was a result of standardized war gaming exercises using Langley and the Newport Naval War College. The Naval War College became the sole repository of American Naval expertise. The results were that islands on the carriers were highlighted and speed itself was considered very important. The 27,000 ton plan for the Yorktown class was a fall back plan from a 23,000 ton carrier that could not achieve that desired speed. The realization that larger carriers would be more survivable was a happy coincidence. Nevertheless, the war games and the Naval War College highlighted the greater flexibility presented by large air groups and fast speed. These became along with torpedo protection, the guiding principles in the Yorktown class designs. In particular, the 23,000 ton design had to sacrifice protection features and that along with the 60 aircraft limit led to the choice of the 20,000 ton design. All studies showed that the 27,000 ton designs were to be preferred however all treaty limitations made this impossible. Later it would be noted that the large carriers provided close to an all weather ability to launch aircraft. The British Royal Navy had constructed several carriers during this time and the problems of flush deck carriers were revealed. Admiral Marc Mitscher had in particular pushed for such a carrier. The American Naval Attache J.C. Hunsacker reported that HMS Furious had problems deposing of the fumes without proper smoke stacks. The aviation community continued to demand flush decked carriers. Given additional problems with controlling air groups all American carriers would be constructed with islands. In any case BuAer retracted all demands for flush decked carriers. The 1931 design show an island and the design for USS Ranger the contractor stated that gun control was impossible without a raised island. Both USS Ranger and USS Wasp further showed the limitations of sub-20,000 ton designs. USS Ranger proved to be unable to withstand rougher weather in the Pacific while lack of virtually any protective features soon relegated her to a training ship. USS Wasp's lack of torpedo protection contributed to her loss in the Pacific theater. The lessons learned from operations with the large converted battlecruiser Lexington class in comparison with the smaller purpose-built Ranger had taught the Navy that large carriers were more flexible in operational terms and were more survivable than smaller ones. As the result of this experience, the U.S. Navy built Yorktown and Enterprise, commissioned in 1937 and 1938 respectively. These were fast and versatile carriers able to carry and operate over 80 warplanes which was almost as many as the much larger Lexington' class.
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Wikipedia