Alaska Class, U.S. Large Cruisers

Naval Historical Center #97127

ONI 222

Specifications:

The Alaskas were completed in 1944 as "large cruisers", which has sometimes been characterized as a euphemism for battle cruisers. They were not true battle cruisers, and Friedman discusses their design history in his volume on cruisers rather than his volume on battleships. Their role was not to scout for the fleet, but to provide carrier escort, and they lacked the underwater protection of true battle cruisers. Their armor protection of 4720 tons constituted 16.4% of their displacement, on the high side for a heavy cruiser but much less than the 30% of a true battle cruiser like the British Hood.

The Alaskas formed the heavyweight tier of a three-tiered post-treaty cruiser family conceived in 1939. With war looming, the other two tiers were rushed into construction as the Baltimores and the Clevelands, whose designs were still influenced by treaty restrictions. It was inevitable that the Alaskas would be the largest departure from the treaty designs, since they fell into the displacement range between battleships and traditional cruisers that the treaties had specifically created. As a result, work on the Alaska design continued even as the Baltimores and Clevelands were laid down and the design of their successors (the postwar Des Moines and Worcesters) began.

The large cruiser concept was originally a response to the German pocket battleships, which were seen as "cruiser-killers" capable of catching and destroying conventional cruisers. There were also rumors that the Japanese had something similar in the works, which the Japanese were in fact planning but never built. The Alaskas became a pet project of King, then serving on the General Board, who saw them as the ideal escort for carriers making independent raids. The greatest threat to such raiding forces was assumed to be enemy heavy cruisers. King was encouraged in this by Roosevelt, who is sometimes unfairly blamed for the Alaskas.

The Alaskas must be counted as one of the few design failures by the U.S. Navy during this period.  They were an utterly unnecessary design, doing nothing that an Iowa did not do better, and doing most things much worse; and, at $75 million apiece, they were not that much cheaper than the Iowas. Among their specific flaws was atrocious maneuverability, poor subdivision, the aforementioned inadequate torpedo protection, the use of a single exhaust uptake, and poor antiaircraft direction that made the effective antiaircraft firepower little better than that of a heavy cruiser. About their only strengths were a decent main armament and beautiful lines.

They might have been much better: Though the basic concept was flawed, some of the preliminary designs would at least have led to a decent mini-battleship like the French Dunkerques or a more balanced large cruiser. The grotesque final product was probably a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, as the design process seems to have attracted an unusual amount of attention. The Navy could seemingly never really reach consensus on whether they were to be true cruisers suitable for independent operations, carrier escorts, or a fast wing of the battle line. Lack of consensus on their proper role led to such poor design choices as aircraft catapults amidships, appropriate for scouting cruisers but not for carrier escorts.

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References

DANFS

Friedman (1984)

Gogin (2010; accessed 2012-12-1)

Jane's

Whitley (1995)

Worth (2001)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2008, 2012, 2014, 2019 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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