Eight ships of the United States Navy have borne the name Ranger.
- The first Ranger was an 18-gun ship sloop built in 1777 and commanded by John Paul Jones. It was the first US ship to be saluted and the first US ship to defeat a British Royal Navy ship, HMS Drake, during the American Revolutionary War. However she was captured by the British in 1780 and renamed HMS Halifax.
- The second Ranger was a schooner mounting a single 18-pounder gun, purchased in 1814 and sold in 1816.
- The third Ranger was a 14-gun brig also purchased in 1814 for operations on Lake Ontario, and sold in 1821.
- The fourth Ranger was an iron vessel mounting four guns, commissioned in 1876, converted to a nautical school ship in 1908, and broken up in 1940.
- The fifth Ranger was a steel yacht commissioned in 1917 and stricken 1918, subsequently serving in the Coast Guard.
- The sixth Ranger was a minesweeper built in 1882 and commissioned 11 September 1918, and used in coastal defense until returned to her owner 10 January 1919.
- The seventh Ranger (CV-4) was the first Navy ship originally designed to be an aircraft carrier, operating in the Atlantic during World War II.
- The eighth Ranger (CV-61) was also an aircraft carrier, the largest in the world when launched in 1957, decommissioned 1993 and currently mothballed, although some groups have expressed interest in making her into a museum ship. She was the first aircraft carrier built from the keel up with an angled flight deck (Forrestal and Saratoga, her older sister ships, were laid down as axial-deck ships and altered with an angled deck while under construction).
Additionally, Ranger (CC-4) was laid down in 1921, but canceled and scrapped prior to completion.
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This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists. |
