:: USS ENTERPRISE ::
The USS Enterprise was the immediate successor of the Forrestal class of aircraft carriers and she represents another milestone in the History of modern warships. The USS Enterprise was different in that she had missiles instead of cannons as defensive armament, in that she had her superstructure in a more backward position and in that she had her larboard elevator reallocated astern to allow aircraft to take off from the larboard catapults without impediment anytime. The larboard elevator unfortunately placed at the fore end of the landing strip had been quickly acknowledged as the most obvious shortcoming in the design of the Forrestal class.

When the USS Enterprise entered service in 1962 she was the second surface warship in the world fitted with nuclear propulsion, being the first one the revolutionary missile cruiser USS Long Beach. In some way, these two ships seemed to be made the one for the other. Both were single on their classes, therefore being unique specimens, and shared a common aesthetic style on their superstructures, for these concealed the SCANFAR system, the first generation of phased-array radars designed to improve the tracking of multiple airborne targets. This system, which was the predecessor of the current and successful AEGIS system, used static planar antennas instead of those of rotating type.

Both ships seem married the one with the other when looking at the photos taken in 1964 during Operation Sea Orbit, in which it is present as well the missile cruiser USS Bainbridge. This one along with the USS Enterprise and the USS Long Beach, all of them nuclear-powered and unique in their classes, formed the all-nuclear-powered Task Force 1, which in 1964 travelled around the world without refueling its nuclear propulsion plants.

USS Enterprise aircraft carrier
USS Enterprise aircraft carrier
And yes, it should not sound odd to say "married", since in spite of the English tradition of referring to ships in feminine terms, it is hardly conceivable to think of a warship such as the USS Enterprise as a feminine entity. Now let us take a look at some important characteristics of this naval colossus.

Her standard displacement reached 76,900 tonnes, which surpassed in almost 17,000 tonnes that of the Forrestal class, reaching a full-load displacement of 91,000 tonnes. However, the dimensions were very similar to those of the Forrestal class. The length in the waterline was 317 meters, reaching the overall length 335.9 meters; the beam on the waterline was 40.5 meters, reaching a maximum of 76.8 meters on the flight deck; and the draft was 10.8 meters, which despite the increased displacement, was similar to that of the Forrestal class.

The USS Enterprise was powered by eight Westinghouse AW2 nuclear reactors, pressurized and cooled by water. These worked in pairs to produce the necessary energy to rotate four Westinghouse steam turbines and the four associated shafts. This propulsion plant could deliver a total output of 280,000 shaft horsepower, allowing to reach a maximum speed of 35 knots, which was excellent for such a heavy and wide ship, whose hull was marginally wider than that of the Yamato class of "superbattleships" and seven meters wider than that of the Iowa class.

The operational range of the USS Enterprise, as in any nuclear-powered ship, could be referred as theoretically unlimited, as the duration of nuclear resources should be progressively increased by technical progress. When her reactors were resupplied for the first time the USS Enterprise had travelled almost 216,000 nautical miles (400,000 kilometers), which equals to almost ten times the circumference of the Earth. Compare this with the 6,750 nautical miles (12,500 kilometers) that the conventional boilers installed in the Forrestal class allowed to cover. In the 1970s the USS Enterprise could travel twenty times around the Earth before depleting her nuclear fuel and when she was decommissioned in 2012 she could spend 25 years without refueling. Many warships do not even last that number of years in service.

Now let us see some key design features of the USS Enterprise, in which some improvements involving the flight deck and the isle were introduced. To start, the elevators no longer were of a rectangular shape like those found on the Forrestal class and previous aircraft carriers; they were given a new shape with an angle on one side, to allow to operate longer aircraft on them. The elevator which on the Forrestal class had been so unfortunately placed in the fore end of the angled deck was reallocated backwards, where it would not interfere with flight operations. The isle - which was now smaller because of the absence of a funnel in a ship which used nuclear propulsion instead of conventional boilers - was reallocated backwards as well, which left two elevators before the isle instead of only one and thus decreased any nuissance that the isle could pose for aircraft operations.

Regarding the defensive armament there is not much to say. The designers omitted any artillery mounting from scratch and only included two octuple launchers for surface-to-air missiles Sea Sparrow, which had a maximum range of 19.3 kilometers. However, in more recent times, two Vulcan Phalanx CIWS mountings - fitted with one 20-millimeter cannon each - were installed in addition to the missile launchers. There was a time when military experts thought that missiles would render unnecessary any artillery piece, but over time the critical limitations of missiles became obvious, particularly the minimum altitudes and ranges required by them to operate. With its high rate of fire, the Vulcan Phalanx system can cover the blind spots that missiles may leave while being able of hitting the target with incomparable precision.

USS Enterprise aircraft carrier
The USS Enterprise transported from 80 to 100 aircraft, an equivalent to seven aviation squadrons, and we can imagine the huge load of weapons and fuel that all of these aircraft require. This modest but wisely selected air force possesses all of the resources necessary to perform any offensive or defensive task, be it air superiority, tactical ground attack, strategic bombing or antisubmarine warfare, being more powerful than most national air forces in the world. Around 1800 crewmen were dedicated to fly and maintain this air wing. The photograph immediately above, which was taken in an early time in the service life of the USS Enterprise, clearly shows the flight deck occupied by a good number of aircraft, including the A-4 Skyhawk ground-attack aircraft, the F-4 Phantom air-superiority fighter, the A-3 Skywarrior bomber aircraft, the A-5 Vigilante bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, and the E-1B Tracer early-warning aircraft.

The complement was around 5500 people, who daily consumed around twelve tonnes of food. The facilities onboard included a small hospital, diverse recreation rooms, such as a library with thousands of volumes, and a television station. At the same time, many radars were dedicated to scan the air, sea or terrain hundreds of miles far away, while hundreds of antennas connected the USS Enterprise with any of the main military command centers of United States.

Note: photorealistic blueprints of the USS Enterprise are available in the Illustration Gallery.

~ Return to Military Ships ~