Cruisers - CG
Description: Large combat
vessel with multiple target response capability.
Features: Modern U. S. Navy guided missile cruisers perform primarily in a Battle Force role. These ships are multi-mission [Air Warfare (AW), Undersea Warfare (USW), and Surface Warfare (SUW)] surface combatants capable of supporting carrier battle groups, amphibious forces, or of operating independently and as flagships of surface action groups. Cruisers are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles giving them additional long range strike mission capability.
Background: Technological
advances in the Standard Missile coupled with the
AEGIS combat system in the Ticonderoga class
cruisers have increased the AAW capability of surface
combatants to pinpoint accuracy from wave-top to zenith.
The addition of Tomahawk in the CG-47 has vastly
complicated unit target planning for any potential enemy
and returned an offensive strike role to the surface
forces that seemed to have been lost to air power at
Pearl Harbor.
Cruisers General Characteristics, Ticonderoga Class
Builders:
Ingalls Shipbuilding: CG 47-50, CG 52-57, 59, 62, 65-66,
68-69, 71-73
Bath Iron Works: CG 51, 58, 60-61, 63-64, 67, 70.
Power Plant:4 General Electric LM 2500 gas turbine
engines; 2 shafts, 80,000 shaft horsepower total.
SPY-1 Radar and Combat System Integrator: Lockheed
Martin.
Length: 567 feet
Beam: 55 feet
Displacement: 9,600 tons (9,754.06 metric tons)
full load
Speed: 30 plus knots
Aircraft: Two SH-2 Seasprite (LAMPS) in CG
47-48; Two SH-60 Sea Hawk (LAMPS III)
Cost: About $1 billion each
Ships:
USS Ticonderoga Cruiser (CG 47), Pascagoula,
Miss.
USS Yorktown Cruiser (CG 48), Pascagoula, Miss.
USS Vincennes Cruiser (CG 49), Yokosuka, Japan
USS Valley Forge Cruiser (CG 50), San Diego, Calif.
USS Thomas S. Gates Cruiser (CG 51), Pascagoula, Miss.
USS Bunker Hill Cruiser (CG 52), San Diego, Calif.
USS Mobile Bay Cruiser (CG 53), San Diego, Calif.
USS Antietam Cruiser (CG 54), San Diego, Calif.
USS Leyte Gulf Cruiser (CG 55), Norfolk, Va.
USS San Jacinto Cruiser (CG 56), Norfolk, Va.
USS Lake Champlain Cruiser (CG 57), San Diego, Calif.
USS Philippine Sea Cruiser (CG 58), Mayport, Fla.
USS Princeton Cruiser (CG 59), San Diego, Calif.
USS Normandy Cruiser (CG 60), Norfolk, Va.
USS Monterey Cruiser (CG 61), Norfolk, Va.
USS Chancellorsville Cruiser (CG 62), Yokosuka, Japan
USS Cowpens Cruiser (CG 63), Yokosuka, Japan
USS Gettysburg Cruiser (CG 64), Mayport, Fla.
USS Chosin Cruiser (CG 65), Pearl Harbor, HI
USS Hue City Cruiser (CG 66), Mayport, Fla.
USS Shiloh Cruiser (CG 67), San Diego, Calif.
USS Anzio Cruiser (CG 68), Norfolk, Va.
USS Vicksburg Cruiser (CG 69), Mayport, Fla.
USS Lake ErieCruiser (CG 70), Pearl Harbor, HI
USS Cape St. George Cruiser (CG 71), Norfolk, Va.
USS Vella Gulf Cruiser (CG 72), Norfolk, Va.
USS Port Royal Cruiser (CG 73), Pearl Harbor, HI
Crew: 24 Officers, 340 Enlisted
Armament: MK26 missile launcher (CG 47 thru CG 51)
Standard Missile (MR) or MK41 vertical launching
system (CG 52 thru CG 73) Standard Missile (MR);
Vertical Launch ASROC (VLA) Missile; Tomahawk
Cruise Missile; Six MK-46 torpedoes (from two triple
mounts); Two MK 45 5-inch/54 caliber lightweight guns;
Two Phalanx close-in-weapons systems
Date Deployed: 22 January 1983 (USS Ticonderoga)
The US Navy's Cruiser Gap
Prior to the introduction of the Ticonderogas, the US Navy used odd naming conventions that left its fleet seemingly without many cruisers, although a number of their ships were cruisers in all but name. From the 1950s to the 1970s, US Navy "cruisers" were large vessels equipped with heavy offensive missiles (including the Regulus nuclear cruise missile) for wide-ranging combat against land-based and sea-based targets. All save one — USS Long Beach (CGN-9) — were converted from World War II Chicago, Baltimore and Cleveland class cruisers. "Frigates" under this scheme were almost as large as the cruisers and optimized for anti-aircraft warfare, although they were capable anti-surface warfare combatants as well. In the late 1960s, the US government perceived a "cruiser gap" — at the time, the US Navy possessed six ships designated as "cruisers", compared to 19 for the Soviet Union, even though the USN possessed at the time 21 "frigates" with equal or superior capabilities to the Soviet cruisers — because of this, in 1975 the Navy performed a massive redesignation of its forces:
* CVA/CVAN were redesignated CV/CVN (although USS Midway
(CV-41) and USS Coral Sea (CV-43) never embarked
anti-submarine squadrons).
* DLG/DLGN (Frigate/Nuclear-powered Frigate) were
redesignated CG/CGN (Guided Missile
Cruiser/Nuclear-powered Guided Missile Cruiser).
* Farragut-class guided missile frigates (DLG), being
smaller and less capable than the others, were
redesignated to DDGs (USS Coontz was the first ship of
this class to be re-numbered; because of this the class
is sometimes called the Coontz class);
* DE/DEG (Ocean Escort/Guided Missile Ocean Escort) were
redesignated to FF/FFG (Guided Missile Frigates),
bringing the US "Frigate" designation into line
with the rest of the world.
Also, a series of Patrol Frigates of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class, originally designated PFG, were redesignated into the FFG line. The cruiser-destroyer-frigate realignment and the deletion of the Ocean Escort type brought the US Navy's ship designations into line with the rest of the world's, eliminating confusion with foreign navies. In 1980, the Navy's then-building DDG-47 class destroyers were redesignated as cruisers (CG-47 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser) to emphasize the additional capability provided by the ships' Aegis combat systems.
Credit: US Navy
Historically a cruiser was not a type of ship but a warship role. Cruisers were ships—often frigates or smaller vessels—which were assigned a role largely independent from the fleet. Typically this might involve missions such as raiding enemy merchant shipping. In the late 19th century the term 'cruiser' came to mean ships designed to fulfill such a role, and from the 1890s to the 1950s a 'cruiser' was a warship larger than a destroyer but smaller than a battleship.