US cruisers after 1991

[uk 75]

The US Navy in the 1980s deployed an impressive range of non-AEGIS cruisers.

Long Beach was the largest and oldest of the nuclear ships and the only one to start life as a cruiser.
The remainder started as frigates then became DLGNs. Bainbridge and Truxtun were one-offs followed in the 70s by 2 California and 4 Virginia.
In addition some 18 (?) Leahy and Belknap conventional ships were built in the early 1960s.
With the end of the Cold War planned refits for these ships were cancelled and they left service.
Although the US Navy by 1991 had built its Spruance based AEGIS ships and was deploying AEGIS equipped Burke class, if the Cold War had continued in the 90s it would have wanted to keep its non-AEGIS ships.
All had received Harpoon and Phalanx and some had Tomahawk box launchers (the nuclear ships). Their Standard missiles could be used with the AEGIS ships in a Task Group. Not sure what else could have been added. RAM perhaps?

 

[Rule of cool]

I think there were 2 things at play here.

With the conventionally powered cruisers it was age, the youngest and first decommissioned Leahy was 29 years old with most of the others serving 31 years. Belknaps were similar, the shortest serving 26 years and the longest 30. Maybe the belknaps have another refit in them but i doubt that the leahys did.

With the nuclear cruisers it was the refuelling cost, they were used until their fuel run out and not refuelled. This meant the Texas was decommissioned in 1993 after less than 17 years service while the older California lasted until 1998 serving more than 24 years. IIUC the Virginia class had a design life of 38 years, so they certainly would have been retained if the cold war had lasted longer.

FWIW surface combatants are the least obvious class of warships to benefit from nuclear propulsion. Submarines are a no-brainer, and carriers are well established now after a couple of false starts. But the Strike Cruiser and Virginia classes show how marginal nuclear surface ships are, despite being cool.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Long-term plans in the 1980s called for retention of the California and Virginia-class nuclear cruisers to at least 2010, and retirement of the old Terrier cruisers as soon as sufficient numbers of Burkes were available. Beyond the fact that, as Rule of cool notes, they were just plain old, they were also very expensive to run with their old steam plants and large crews, especially Long Beach (a Burke only required 303 crew; a Leahy required 377, a Belknap 388, Bainbridge 459, Truxtun 490, and Long Beach a whopping 1107).

Worse for the ships, their tactical niche was vanishing. They were kept around for their ability to fire SM-2ER, but once the Block IV variant arrives in the late 90s that role is gone, and so is any reason to keep the ships instead of just building more Burkes.

 

[uk 75]

Excellent details. Thank you both.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The US Navy in the 1980s deployed an impressive range of non-AEGIS cruisers.

Long Beach was the largest and oldest of the nuclear ships and the only one to start life as a cruiser.
The remainder started as frigates then became DLGNs. Bainbridge and Truxtun were one-offs followed in the 70s by 2 California and 4 Virginia.
In addition some 18 (?) Leahy and Belknap conventional ships were built in the early 1960s.

Point of order, the DLGNs were always classed as that, the Navy was just trying to bring back the old definition of "Frigate" as "the largest ship that isn't a ship of the line" from the age of sail. Just like how the hull type "CV" is spoken "carrier", the hull type "DLG" was to be spoken "frigate" and hull type "DE" was to be spoken "Ocean Escort."

But that greatly confused the politicians, who started complaining that the US didn't have anywhere near as many "cruisers" as the Soviets did. Nevermind that the US "frigates" were nearly 10x the displacement of the Soviet "frigates". So the Navy sighed, and did a major realignment of hull types and names to make all the big DLGs "cruisers" in 1975. It's even why the Ticonderoga class are CGs, not DDGs, even though they're built on the Spruance DD hull.

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As to what happened to all the non-aegis cruisers:
They were getting old, and the nuclear powered cruisers were coming up on a refueling overhaul. A very expensive refueling overhaul because of how much of the ship would have to be dismantled to get to the reactors.

So I suspect that the Navy built a couple more Ticos in the early 1990s and offloaded much of the Aegis work onto the Burkes. The major operational difference between a Tico and a Burke isn't so much the 3/4 missile load, it's the lack of flag space on the Burkes. There's 8 Ticos still in service past 2024, the way things are set up now each carrier needs a Tico as anti air command space. Any convoy or Amphib Group would also need a Tico for that job as well.

The USN screwed up bad, there should be a "cruiser" (ie, a ship with AAW flag space) in production right now to replace the Ticos.

 

[CV12Hornet]

But that greatly confused the politicians, who started complaining that the US didn't have anywhere near as many "cruisers" as the Soviets did. Nevermind that the US "frigates" were nearly 10x the displacement of the Soviet "frigates". So the Navy sighed, and did a major realignment of hull types and names to make all the big DLGs "cruisers" in 1975. It's even why the Ticonderoga class are CGs, not DDGs, even though they're built on the Spruance DD hull.

And never mind the Soviets didn't even call them cruisers, it was Western intelligence and defense media calling them that...

So I suspect that the Navy built a couple more Ticos in the early 1990s and offloaded much of the Aegis work onto the Burkes. The major operational difference between a Tico and a Burke isn't so much the 3/4 missile load, it's the lack of flag space on the Burkes. There's 8 Ticos still in service past 2024, the way things are set up now each carrier needs a Tico as anti air command space. Any convoy or Amphib Group would also need a Tico for that job as well.

The USN screwed up bad, there should be a "cruiser" (ie, a ship with AAW flag space) in production right now to replace the Ticos.

The way I've heard it, the lack of flag space isn't an issue for carrier escort since the anti-air command space has been moved onto the carrier anyway. It's mostly an issue for forming surface action groups.

 

[Rule of cool]

I personally don't have a problem with calling DLGs, including the RN's County and Bristol, cruisers if that keeps the pollies happy. In fact the USN calling such big ships frigates when the rest of NATO was calling small ASW ships frigates is what seems strange to me.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The way I've heard it, the lack of flag space isn't an issue for carrier escort since the anti-air command space has been moved onto the carrier anyway. It's mostly an issue for forming surface action groups.

Huh, hadn't heard they'd move the AAW Flag to the carrier.

But yes, the lack of "ships with AAW Flag Space" really screws over the other part of the Navy, not the carriers.

I personally don't have a problem with calling DLGs, including the RN's County and Bristol, cruisers if that keeps the pollies happy. In fact the USN calling such big ships frigates when the rest of NATO was calling small ASW ships frigates is what seems strange to me.

I have no idea what the USN was smoking at the time, but they needed to share that with NATO at the very least.

Yes, the old classes could arguably change. Modern Destroyers are over 5x the displacement of WW1 destroyers, and have a completely different role in general. No more torpedo attacks on other ships, though we may say "we replaced torpedoes with guided missiles". Modern DDGs are fast carrier escorts, replacing cruisers and battleships in that role!

 

[Winchester]

The US Navy in the 1980s deployed an impressive range of non-AEGIS cruisers.

Long Beach was the largest and oldest of the nuclear ships and the only one to start life as a cruiser.
The remainder started as frigates then became DLGNs. Bainbridge and Truxtun were one-offs followed in the 70s by 2 California and 4 Virginia.
In addition some 18 (?) Leahy and Belknap conventional ships were built in the early 1960s.
With the end of the Cold War planned refits for these ships were cancelled and they left service.
Although the US Navy by 1991 had built its Spruance based AEGIS ships and was deploying AEGIS equipped Burke class, if the Cold War had continued in the 90s it would have wanted to keep its non-AEGIS ships.
All had received Harpoon and Phalanx and some had Tomahawk box launchers (the nuclear ships). Their Standard missiles could be used with the AEGIS ships in a Task Group. Not sure what else could have been added. RAM perhaps?

NTU and eventually updated communications gear would be the only upgrades I can think of. There's no room for VLS, and RAM was not considered a must-have for surface combatants until recently, it's an expensive carrier/large amphib toy until the late 2000s in the US navy.

It's possible that the NTU versions of SM-2MR and SM-2ER would benefit from developement in rocket motor technology? Somehow the quoted range for modern SM-2MR is twice as much as the old versions, and the same goes for SM-2ER. (Or the source for those numbers is full of that stuff the pig farmer sells to the other farmers in particularly nasty-smelling bags...)

They'd still be replaced with Burkes (or whatever came after Burke Flight II) eventually, but there's at least thirty or so ships in more urgent need of replacement before then, so it's likely to take a bit longer than 1999 to get to that point if the cold war doesn't end.

Another consideration is helicopters - only the Belknaps have hangars, but they're sized for SH-2s, not SH-60s. Not ditching the Belknaps, Knoxes or short-hull Perries means that the USN is likely to buy more than just the 24 SH-2Gs they did IRL.