Omaha-class cruiser

USS Milwaukee (CL-5), an Omaha-class cruiser.
Class overview
Name:	Omaha class
Operators:	United States Navy  Soviet Navy (Loaned USS Milwaukee)
Preceded by:	Chester class
Succeeded by:	Brooklyn class
In commission:	1923–46
Planned:	10
Completed:	10
Scrapped:	10
General characteristics
Type:	Light cruiser
Displacement:	7,050 long tons (7,160 t)
Length:	556 ft 6 in (169.62 m)
Beam:	55 ft 4 in (16.87 m)
Draft:	20 ft 0 in (6.10 m)
Installed power:	90,000 shp (67,000 kW)
Propulsion:	12 Yarrow boilers (265 psi (1,830 kPa))
Speed:	35 knots (65 km/h)
Endurance:	9,000 nautical miles (17,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement:	360
Armament:	12 × 6 in (152 mm)/53 cal guns (8x1, 2x2) 4 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal guns 6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2x3)
Armor:	Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm) Belt: 3 in (76 mm)

 United States Navy

The Omaha-class cruisers were a class of light cruisers built for the United States Navy. The oldest class of cruiser still in service with the Navy at the outbreak of World War II, the Omaha class was an immediate post-World War I design.

Maneuvers conducted in January 1915 made it clear that the US Atlantic Fleet lacked the fast cruisers necessary to provide information on the enemy's position and to deny the enemy information of the fleet's own position and to screen friendly forces. Built to scout for a fleet of battleships, the Omaha class featured high speed (35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)) for cooperation with destroyers, and 6-inch (152 mm) guns to fend off any destroyers the enemy might send against them. Displacing 7,050 long tons (7,160 t), they were just over 555 feet (169 m) long.

The Omaha class was designed specifically in response to the British Centaur subclass of the C-class cruiser. Although from a modern viewpoint, a conflict between the US and Great Britain seems implausible, US Navy planners during this time and up to the mid-1930s considered Britain to be a formidable rival for power in the Atlantic, and the possibility of armed conflict between the two countries plausible enough to merit appropriate planning measures.

The Omaha class mounted four smokestacks, a look remarkably similar to the Clemson-class destroyers (a camouflage scheme was devised to enhance the resemblance). Their armament showed the slow change from casemate-mounted weapons to turret-mounted guns. They held a full twelve 6-inch/53 caliber guns, of which four were mounted in two twin turrets, one fore and one aft, and the remaining eight in casemates; four on each side. Launched in 1920, Omaha (designated C-4 and later CL-4) had a displacement of 7,050 long tons. The cruisers emerged with a distinctly old-fashioned appearance owing to their World War I-type stacked twin casemate-mount cannons and were among the last broadside cruisers designed anywhere.