Yorktown-class aircraft carrier

After the commissioning of the two 33,000 [long] ton (33,530-tonne) Lexington class ships in 1927-28 there was a strong sentiment within the Navy that the remaining 69,000 tons (70,107 tonnes) of carriers allowed under the Washington Naval Treaties should be built as quickly as possible. The idea that the additional tonnage should come in the form of multiple ships built to a single design was also widely accepted, but different factions advocated for three different packages--either five ships, displacing 13,800 tons (14,021 tonnes) each; or four ships, displacing 17,250 tons (17,527 tonnes) each; or three ships, displacing 23,000 tons (23,369 tonnes) each. The consensus as of the late 1920s was that the largest number of decks would offer the greatest total aircraft capacity, and a decision was therefore made to order the five small carriers. For once government parsimony proved beneficial: Congress, on 13 February 1929, authorized construction of only one of the 13,800-ton carriers, which became Ranger. Years would pass before funding for additional carriers was approved, and by the time it was, experience with Lexington and Saratoga had demonstrated the pronounced advantages of larger carriers, to such a degree that, even before Ranger was commissioned, the selection of such a small, slow, and poorly protected design was widely considered to have been unwise. The desirability of larger size having been settled on, in the early 1930s the question of exactly how to use up the tonnage remaining under Washington Treaty limits arose once again, leading to the development of a new series of schemes. Factoring in Ranger, designers now had approximately 55,200 tons (56,086) tonnes left to work with. Again, one faction argued for the creation of a uniform class, now to consist of three 18,400-ton (18,695-tonne) carriers, to fill the quota, but a strong opposing faction wanted to incorporate more of the features found on the much larger Lexingtons (high speed, torpedo protection, and an armored belt, any one of which would have been difficult to accommodate on an 18,400-ton displacement) into at least some ships. These catapults were intended as substitutes for the lower-level flying-off decks that had been adopted by the British and Japanese in the 1920s, which allowed aircraft to be launched straight forward off both the upper flight deck and the deck below it at the same time, allowing the launch of more aircraft quickly in a scramble situation. Statements that the transverse catapults were intended to be used primarily for the launching of scout planes appear to be unfounded; all readily available photos of these catapults in use depict the launching of fighter aircraft, rather than scouts. In practice the U. S. commanders rarely used the hangar-deck catapults because of the difficulties inherent in controlling a plane launched across a heavy cross-wind, which would inevitably be faced when the ship was moving forward at high speed to allow aircraft to be flown off the axial flight deck at the same time. The hangar-deck catapults were removed from Enterprise and Hornet in late June 1942. All three ships of the Yorktown class were built at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, Newport News, Virginia. ==Ships in class==