Long Beach class cruiser
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USS Long Beach
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | Long Beach |
| Namesake: | Long Beach, California |
| Ordered: | 15 October 1956 |
| Builder: | Bethlehem Steel Co., Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts |
| Laid down: | 2 December 1957 |
| Launched: | 14 July 1959 |
| Sponsored by: | Mrs. Marian Swanson-Hosmer |
| Acquired: | 1 September 1961 |
| Commissioned: | 9 September 1961 |
| Decommissioned: |
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| Reclassified: | As CGN-9 1 July 1958 |
| Struck: | 1 May 1995 |
| Motto: | "Strike Hard, Strike Home" |
| Fate: |
Superstructure and nuclear reactor recycled at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard 25 September 2002. Hull auctioned for scrap to Tacoma Metals on 12 July 2012 for around $900,000 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Long Beach-class cruiser |
| Displacement: | 15,540 tons |
| Length: | 721 ft 3 in (219.84 m) |
| Beam: | 71 ft 6 in (21.79 m) |
| Draft: | 30 ft 7 in (9.32 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 C1W nuclear reactors; 2 General Electric turbines; 80,000 shp (60 MW); 2 propellers |
| Speed: | 30 knots (56 km/h) |
| Range: | Nuclear |
| Complement: | 1160 officers and men |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
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| Electronic warfare & decoys: |
SRBOC |
| Armament: |
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| Aviation facilities: | landing pad available for one helicopter |
Superstructure and nuclear reactor recycled at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard 25 September 2002.
USS Long Beach (CLGN-160/CGN-160/CGN-9) was a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser in the United States Navy and the world's first nuclear-powered surface combatant. She was the third Navy ship named after the city of Long Beach, California.
She was the sole member of the Long Beach class, and the last cruiser built for the United States Navy to a cruiser design; all subsequent cruiser classes were built on scaled-up destroyer hulls or, in the case of the Albany class, converted from already existing cruisers.
Long Beach was laid down 2 December 1957, launched 14 July 1959 and commissioned 9 September 1961 under the command of Eugene Parks Wilkinson, who previously served as the first commanding officer of the world's first nuclear-powered vessel, the submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571). She deployed to Vietnam during the war and served numerous times in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. By the 1990s, nuclear power was deemed too expensive to use on surface ships smaller than an aircraft carrier, while there were defense budget cutbacks after the end of the Cold War. Long Beach was decommissioned on 1 May 1995 instead of receiving her third nuclear refueling and proposed upgrade. What remained of the hull, after the superstructure had been removed and the ship defueled, was sold for scrap in 2012 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
Long Beach was first laid out to be a smaller frigate, but then she was slated for the mounting Regulus nuclear cruise missile or, later, 4 launching tubes for the Polaris missile which would occupy the space taken up by the 5"/38 caliber gun mounts and the ASROC system. Consequently, she was redesigned and expanded to a cruiser hull, allowing for an open space just aft of the bridge "box" to accommodate the Regulus/Polaris missiles.Long Beach was also the last cruiser built with a World War II era cruiser hull style; later new-build cruisers were actually converted frigates (DLG/CG USS Leahy (DLG-16), USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25), USS Belknap (DLG-26), USS Truxtun (DLGN-35), and the California and Virginia classes) or uprated destroyers (the DDG/CG Ticonderoga class was built on a Spruance class destroyer hull).
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Wikipedia