USS Long Beach

[Daltron]

WELCOME TO HELL, SON.

 

Ok, not really, but this ship was exceptionally awesome, serving up mecha-insane 9001 buttkickings for almost thirty years.

 

This ship was built to capitalize on the new idea of 'lol guise we ccan mount missls on our ships' and the alternate idea of 'lol guise we can put nuclur rectors on our ships'.

 

At first the ship was supposed to be only missiles, but she mounted two 5'' guns at the request of someone high-up on the food chain. Do you know who?

 

That's right, Lt. Commander JOHN F. FOR FREAKING KENNEDY.

 

Also, she was the last ship built on a cruiser-style not-wide-but-really-long hull design. The ship was originally intended to be a frigate, but they kept up-scaling her until she appeared the way she did.

 

 

She had two reactors, one for each shaft, and her bridge (which resembled ship-cancer) was used as a testbed for several new radars (including the precursor to AEGIS), which is partly why she was a one-off ship. Personally, I think the bridge tumor makes it look like the slightest breeze would roll this ship over but it never did so oh well.

 

From commissioning until her first refueling in 1966, she served in the Atlantic, and afterwards she served in the Pacific. In 1964, she joined Enterprise and Bainbridge in a globetrotting 'screw you all we're America' voyage, meant to prove that these nuclear powered ships could go anywhere at any time so don't screw with us. This was reminiscent of the Great White Fleet of Teddy Roosevelt's days.

 

 

The ship was stationed off Vietnam so that any returning air attacks by the US weren't hampered by enemy fighters, and so no enemies could sneak in with the strike squadron and kill lots of people.

 

 

​She was stationed around the Indian ocean and western pacific, and helped some boat people refugees from Vietnam out. Then she went back to port and got the TOMAHAWK CRUISE MISSILES INSTALLED!!!!1!!11!!!!!one!!!

 

Budget constraints made the government decommission all the nuclear ships that weren't carriers, and since Long Beaches fuel was about to run out, they decommissioned her in 1994.

 

And then let her sit there like a chump, with no bridge structure or innards, for eighteen years.   I mean holy crap, just scrap her already, put her out of her misery.

 

Which they did last year.

 

Wiki stats:

 

Class & 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: 1 AN/SPS-10 surface search radar[1]

AN/SPS-12 search radar[1]

AN/SPS-32 bearing and range radar[1]

AN/SPS-33 target tracking radar[1]

AN/SPS-48 3D air search radar

AN/SPS-49 2D air search radar

2 AN/SPG-49 Talos fire control radar[1][2]

4 AN/SPG-55 Terrier fire control radar[1][2]

AN/SQS-23 SONAR[1]

Electronic warfare & decoys: AN/SLQ-32

Armament: Two twin Terrier guided-missile launchers

One twin Talos missile launcher (later removed)

One 8-cell ASROC launcher

Two 5 inch guns

Two triple 12.75 inch ASW torpedo tubes

launchers for 8 Harpoon missiles added later

two Armored Box Launchers for a total of eight Tomahawk cruise missiles replaced the Talos launcher

Aircraft carried: None. landing pad available for one helicopter

Motto: "Strike Hard, Strike Home"

[Krieg]

That ship was one beautiful ugly duckling. Funny though, I would have always thought that nuclear engines, in the long term, would be cheaper to run than standard ones.

[Eyeless_Camper]

Soo, where is USS Short Beach?  :Smile-_tongue:

[Daltron]

Eyeless_Camper, on 03 February 2013 - 10:09 PM, said:

Soo, where is USS Short Beach?  :Smile-_tongue:

In my pants.

It's a short [edited] joke get over it.

[Sampsonite]

Looks to me like the designers had an extra house from a carrier and said "Just slap it on there, it'll fit" and made one of the ugliest cruisers I think I've ever seen.(Note that the bridge structure is almost a copy of the Enterprises)

[Daltron]

Sampsonite, on 04 February 2013 - 01:10 PM, said:

Looks to me like the designers had an extra house from a carrier and said "Just slap it on there, it'll fit" and made one of the ugliest cruisers I think I've ever seen.(Note that the bridge structure is almost a copy of the Enterprises)

Records show that she had the highest bridge short of an aircraft carrier in the US Fleet, and for some reason I'm thinking the world, too. But definitely the US Fleet.

[CaptnAndy]

I spent 6 months, in 1965, doing some major ECM/ECCM modifications to the AN/SPG 49B radars. I was told, and could see that she was designed to maintain watertight integrity, in the event that either or both reactors ran away and melted through the bottom of the hull. Also heard that the Long Beach and the Enterprise had a drag race off Norfolk, in the early days.

[Jracule]

USS Long Beach was also the last ship to use a purpose built traditional cruiser Hull as well as the Last US Naval ship to have teak decks.

[anonym_s4TCbLNuhWyC]

Damn that Bridge Looks heavy O.o

[anonym_s4TCbLNuhWyC]

Just saw the E=MC2 So LOl o.o