Ranger compresses a large air group into a treaty hull

USS Ranger is the clearest attempt to reconcile the Navy's desire for a large air group with cumulative treaty tonnage limits. Her roughly 14,810-ton standard displacement is small for a fleet carrier, yet the design aims at about seventy aircraft in normal service and a higher theoretical maximum. Outriggers, a wooden flight deck, and other weight-saving choices maximize aviation capacity but cannot provide the robustness of a larger hull. The Navy quickly doubts her suitability for high-intensity carrier combat. Ernest King later borrows HMS Victorious for Pacific service and keeps Ranger out of that threat environment. That choice is especially revealing because King is reluctant to seek British help and had resisted British convoy and antisubmarine advice on the American East Coast. Like Wasp, Ranger reveals the operational cost of forcing a large-carrier doctrine into the displacement left by treaty politics.