USS Ranger (CV-61)

USS Ranger (CV-61)

USS Ranger in August 1961
History
United States
Name	Ranger
Namesake	Ranger
Ordered	1 February 1954
Builder	Newport News Shipbuilding
Cost	$182 million (1954)[1] ($2.06 billion today)
Laid down	2 August 1954
Launched	29 September 1956
Sponsored by	Miriam J. Radford (Mrs. Arthur W. Radford)
Acquired	1 August 1957
Commissioned	10 August 1957
Decommissioned	10 July 1993
Reclassified	CV-61
Stricken	8 March 2004
Identification	MMSI number: 366986000 Callsign: NHKG Hull number: CVA-61
Fate	Scrapped, 1 November 2017
Badge
General characteristics
Class and type	Forrestal-class aircraft carrier
Displacement	56,300 long tons (57,200 t) light 81,101 long tons (82,402 t) full load
Length	1,046 ft (319 m)
Beam	130 ft (40 m) waterline 249 ft 6 in (76.05 m) extreme
Draft	37 ft (11 m)
Propulsion	4 geared turbines, 4 shafts, 280,000 shaft horsepower (210 MW) 8 Babcock & Wilcox boilers
Speed	34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph)
Complement	3,826 officers and men.
Sensors and processing systems	AN/SPS-48 3D air search radar AN/SPS-43 2D air search radar AN/SPS-10 surface search radar
Electronic warfare & decoys	Mark 36 SRBOC
Armament	8 × 5"/54 caliber Mark 42 guns (127 mm) (removed) NATO Sea Sparrow Phalanx CIWS
Aircraft carried	70–90

The seventh USS Ranger (CV/CVA-61) was the third of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Although all four ships of the class were completed with angled decks, Ranger had the distinction of being the first US carrier built from the beginning as an angled-deck ship.

Commissioned in 1957, she served extensively in the Pacific, especially the Vietnam War, for which she earned 13 battle stars. Near the end of her career, she also served in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

Ranger was decommissioned in 1993, and was stored at Bremerton, Washington until March 2015. She was then moved to Brownsville for scrapping, which was completed in November 2017.