Here's finally a big hole in the SB US carrier-fleet bein filled in, that being the USS Ranger CV-4, the first purpose-built carrier made in the US. Designed to save as much weight as possible, she ended up too small, too slow and too flawed to make her as successful as the earlier Lexington, and later Yorktown and Essex class carriers. She starting off without an island, then having one hastily designed on too late for her exhaust uptakes to be added into said island. She would serve her entire career with six funnels that would pivot outwards to clear the deck of smoke. As built she could carry upwards of 76 planes, compared to the 78 of the Lexington, but this proved impractical and she usually carried 65 aircraft, with an increasingly smaller group as the planes got bigger. Unlike the other carriers, and much like the later Wasp no provisions were made to store and arm torpedo bombers, another weight-saving measure. She spent her war-time career in the Atlantic-theater supporting various operations such as Torch, and bombing shipping off of the Norwegian coast. She would serve out her days as a training carrier in the Pacific.
USS Ranger before being redesigned:
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/qmoTXaq.png)
USS Ranger as completed in 1934:
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/GGb6w4T.png)
USS Ranger as she appeared in 1935:
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/HXM7GGd.png)