Albany Class Cruiser

[Grey Havoc]

This is just a quick question in relation to a thread on another forum. A reference book I own seems to claim that the Albany Class was a nuclear powered conversion of the Baltimore Class hull (3 in class) with a conventional backup powerplant. Other sources insist that they were strictly conventional.

Now what I'm wondering is if there was a misprint in the entry and what it should have said was that the Albany class was originally intended to be converted nuclear powered guided missile cruisers?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sferrin]

The Albany class was not nuclear powered. It likely carried nuclear warhead versions of Talos but that's it.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Was the plan at one stage to make the class a nuclear conversion?

 

[Yellow Palace]

Was the plan at one stage to make the class a nuclear conversion?

I seriously doubt that it was - the demands of a nuclear plant are completely different from a steam plant, so almost the entire ship would be replaced. It would amount to lifting up the ship's bell and inserting a new ship underneath. Not that the US Navy hasn't done that before.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Thanks. While we're on the subject of naval reactors, what would have been the most compact USN reactor design successfully developed but not necessarily deployed?

 

[funkychinaman]

Given the ship's age and cost of conversion, you'd think it'd just be cheaper and easier to build a new nuclear powered ship from the keel up.

And the NR-1 is nuclear powered, and it's a research ship, so I don't know if I'd call it "deployed."

 

[Grey Havoc]

What may be a possible explanation:

In October 1957 there was an SCB request for a new Missile Cruiser for FY60 incorporating the missile battery of an Albany in a Long Beach hull. The battery would only fit if either the Regulus or Tartar battery was deleted. To accommodate the full battery the hull would have to be lengthened to 720ft and Displacement increased to 16,700 tons. The new ship was not built due to the increasing cost of both converted and new-build missile ships, and the further added cost of the Polaris program

 

[Christopher Wang]

During the early design studies for what would become the Albany class guided-missile cruiser conversions, one of the options explored was for a Mark 10 Terrier GMLS at the fore and a Mark 12 Talos GMLS at the aft:

SOURCE: Friedman, Norman. "The '3-T' Programme." Warship, edited by John Arthur Roberts, Volume VI, Conway Maritime Press, 1982. Retrieved from https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...missile-cruiser-conversions.34375/post-618829

As shown in the above image, the design did not include the pair of Mark 9 Tartar GMLS to the port and starboard of the main superstructure which were included in the final design of the Albany class CGs. Ultimately, the Albany class CGs were equipped with twin Mark 12 Talos GMLS at the fore and aft.

By 1976, the Mark 12 Talos GMLS were deactivated and removed from the Albany class CGs, leaving them with the Tartar as the only SAM system operational. According to John Moore in Jane's American Fighting Ships of the 20th Century (1991), in late 1979 the USS Albany (CG-10) and USS Chicago (CG-11) were scheduled to be updated with the Standard MR replacing the Tartar. In the end, the funding for this modernization was diverted to other warships and the Albany class CGs were decommissioned in 1980.

If the Albany class CGs had been armed with the Mark 10 Terrier GMLS at the fore as originally planned, presumably the Terrier would have been replaced with the booster-staged Standard ER.

It can also be assumed that the aft Mark 12 Talos GMLS would have been replaced with a pair of Mark 143 Armored Box Launchers for a total of eight Tomahawk cruise missiles as was done with the USS Long Beach (CGN-9):