USS United States (CVA-58)

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Career (US)
Artist's depiction of USS United States. The aircraft depicted are the McDonnell FH Phantom fighter and the North American AJ Savage nuclear bomber.
Ordered:	29 July 1948
Builder:	Northrop Grumman Newport News
Laid down:	18 April 1949
Launched:	Never launched
Status:	Cancelled 23 April 1949
General Characteristics
Displacement:	83,350 tons full, 68,000 tons standard
Length:	1085 ft (331 m) overall, 980 ft (299 m) waterline, 1088 ft (332 m) flight deck
Beam:	125 ft (38 m), 198 ft (60 m) flight deck
Draught:	37 feet (11.3 m)
Propulsion:	Eight 1200 psi (8.3 MPa) Foster-Wheeler boilers, four Westinghouse steam turbines totalling 280,000 hp (209 MW) driving four 20.5 ft (6.2 m) diameter screws
Speed:	33 knots (61 km/h)
Complement:	2958 officers and men in the crew; 2000 officers and men in the air wing
Armament:	8 × 5 in (127 mm) / 54 caliber guns in single mounts, 16 × 76 mm / 70 caliber guns in eight twin mounts, 20 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
Aircraft carried:	12 to 18 (nuclear-capable) attack aircraft with twin radial piston engines augmented by one turbojet engine and 54 jet engined fighter aircraft

USS United States (CVA-58), the third ship of the US Navy named for the nation, was to be the lead ship of a radical new design of aircraft carrier. On 29 July 1948 President of the United States Harry Truman approved construction of five "supercarriers", for which funds had been provided in the Naval Appropriations Act of 1949. The keel of the first of those five postwar carriers was laid down on 18 April 1949 at Newport News Shipbuilding.

Early design discussions included debate on the aircraft carrier's mission. It could be built only for nuclear attack against Soviet naval bases using heavy bombers with a small hangar deck for a limited fighter escort and a small magazine for a small number of heavy nuclear weapons, or it could be built with conventional attack capability with a large hangar deck for a large air wing and a large magazine. The nuclear attack supporters won in the initial design stage, but the design was modified to carry more fighters. The flush-deck United States was designed to launch and recover the 100,000 pound (45 t) aircraft required to carry early-model nuclear weapons, which weighed as much as five tons. The ship would have no island (Command tower structure) and be equipped with four aircraft elevators located at the deck edges, and four catapults, two at the bow with the outer ones at the deck edges staggered back. The construction cost of the new ship alone was estimated at US$190 million. The additional thirty-nine ships required to complete the accompanying task force raised the total cost to US$1.265 billion.

United States was also designed to provide air support for amphibious forces and to conduct sea control operations, but its primary mission was long-range nuclear bombardment. That mission put the ship in harm's way long before construction began. The United States Air Force viewed United States as a challenge to their monopoly on strategic nuclear weapons delivery. Swayed by limited funds and bitter opposition from the United States Army and Air Force, Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson announced on 23 April 1949 — five days after the ship's keel was laid down — the cancellation of construction of United States. Secretary of the Navy John Sullivan immediately resigned, and the subsequent "Revolt of the Admirals" cost Admiral Louis Denfeld his position as Chief of Naval Operations, but atomic bombs went to sea on the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1950.