Why Doesn't the Navy Have Battle Cruisers?

WEST BETHESDA, Md. — If the battle cruiser has all the best elements of a battleship and a cruiser, why doesn't the Navy have a fleet of them?

James Harrison, division director for the Expeditionary Warfare Ships Division at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA 05D3), set out to explain why some ships just didn't make it in to the Navy fleet, during his history presentation May 9 at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division in West Bethesda, Maryland.

"Not Even Once!" was about ships or ship programs that were initially supported by Navy leadership, but were ultimately cancelled before being built or launched, and the battle cruiser was in that line-up.

"Battle cruisers have the fighting power of a battleship with the speed of a cruiser," Harrison said in his eighth talk at Carderock.

The Navy did make an attempt to build its own battle cruiser in response to the Soviet nuclear battle cruiser of the 1970s. Harrison said the Soviet battle cruiser was considered a ship killer, and the U.S. Navy had nothing like it. So, the Navy initiated a model test program of a nuclear-powered strike cruiser in 1976. By 1977, Congress didn't authorize the Navy's request for funding for this strike cruiser and instead funded the new version of the Virginia-class nuclear guided-missile cruiser, CGN 42, which ironically, also didn't get built.

"You can't just build cool stuff. You have to build military equipment that supports your overall national strategy," said Capt. Mark Vandroff, Carderock's commanding officer. It was Vandroff who invited Harrison more than a year ago to give these somewhat humorous historical presentations at Carderock.

USS Virginia (CGN 38) was built, and there were four of that class of ship built with state-of-the-art combat systems. However, newer combat systems were quickly changing what "state-of-the-art" was, specifically the AEGIS weapon system and vertical launching systems. According to Harrison, the also-planned DDG 47, or what was at the time to be the Spruance-class destroyers, was cheaper and more modular, meaning it could retrofit newer systems as they became available, unlike the cruiser.

The 20 new CGN 42-classes of cruisers were scrapped to make way for 27 new DDG 47-class of destroyers, which also didn't get built. Well, they were built, but not as destroyers. Harrison said Congress was concerned because cancelling the CGN 42 meant the Navy would have no cruisers being built at all.

"So, a simple solution was found for that. They took DDG 47 and rebranded it as CG 47, and voila, you don't have 27 new destroyers, you have 27 new cruisers," Harrison said.

While the CGN 42 program was halted in the late 1970s in favor of the Ticonderoga-class cruiser (CG 47), it was brought back in the 1980s in support of the buildup of the 600-ship Navy, but again halted before one was built.

Back to battle cruisers. The Navy's first attempt at a battle cruiser was actually in 1920. USS Lexington (CC-1) didn't have quite the fighting power of a battleship at the time, but was going to be a lot faster at 34 knots. The Navy's plan was to build six of them at the same time in four different shipyards. Keels were laid in 1920 and by March 1922, all work stopped, very short of completion, as a result of the Washington Naval Treaty.

"After World War I, there was a lot of angst in the U.S. about all the money being spent to build the fleet," Harrison said. "The world powers got together in 1922 and decided to place limits on the size of their navies and stopped building further battleships."

But Lexington and Saratoga (CC-3) did survive in a different form. The battle cruisers were redesigned to be aircraft carriers on the same keel. So, USS Lexington became CV 2 and USS Saratoga became CV 3.

Ultimately, aircraft carriers really became the U.S. Navy's answer to the battle cruiser.

"Since WWII, the Navy has not used ships to kill capital ships," Harrison said, defining capital ships as key assets of any navy. "We use carriers, we use aircraft, which fly out hundreds of miles and kill your capital ships way out there, not letting you get close enough where you can shoot at our key asset."

But the Navy almost lost even its ability to build carriers. At the end of World War II, the Navy wanted to build USS United States (CV 58), which was a carrier designed with the mission of delivering nuclear-armed bombers. The design had no island to make room for these bombers, as well as fighters. A model was even built and tested for seakeeping at Carderock's David Taylor Model Basin in 1947.

"The idea was the fighters would protect the carrier to get in close enough to launch the bombers that were thought to be needed to carry the heavy nuclear weapons to deliver a nuclear strike against your adversary," Harrison said.

The Navy was pretty serious about building it, even laying the keel April 18, 1949, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. Then, on April 23, 1949, the secretary of defense cancelled the program, sparking the secretary of the Navy to resign. Harrison said the secretary of defense's actions against the U.S. Navy at the time ultimately led to what's called the "Revolt of the Admirals."

President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson decided on a defense strategy that basically eliminated the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps, believing that all wars of the future would be solved with nuclear weapons, which the Air Force's bombers could deliver. The secretary of the Navy and several other admirals went behind Johnson's back to Congress to ask for funding and this led to the CNO's resignation.

"In 1949 the ship gets cancelled," Harrison said. "Then in 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea."

When Truman wanted to blockade North Korea, the Navy said they didn't have the ships and the naval forces necessary to conduct a blockade of a nation so large as North Korea. Also in 1950, the Navy demonstrated it could use smaller aircraft to deliver nuclear weapons using a Midway-class carrier.

"There was a sea change and a realization that not every war was going to be nuclear exchange, that we were going to need forces across the full range of options," Harrison said. "So, in 1951, USS Forrestal, CV 49, the first of our super carriers, was ordered and delivered in 1959."

Thank You, I appreciate that. It hasn’t been easy to manufacture domestically for the last 30 years, it’s been a real grind, often without much return. I’ve got about another ten years in me, and the 5th generation has already been in 15 years, and hopefully keep it going.

....……….I think your exactly right. I also think the reason we will never hear the truth about the McCain and Fitzgerald is that both incidents were, in some way, shape or form, directly or indirectly, tied to women being on board. The outcry from the left would be horrendous if the Navy told the truth.

A woman is a distraction in a group of men. Anyone that thinks a “rule” can just erase that reality is an idiot. Men that have been at sea for weeks are hornier than hell. Even a halfway cute gal in the midst of a group of young guys will get their attention off what it should be on! I do know. I’ve been on many US Warships (proudly) at sea for long periods. Thankfully I did not have to deal with any women on board. I was wound tight enough as it was.

Post-missile era: obsolete.

HMS Ulysses was Alistair MacLean’s first novel. He was a torpedoman on a British Battlecruiser in WWII, so he wrote a tale about one.

During the battle of the Philippine Sea, Willis Lee’s fast battleships and heavy cruisers provided a primary anti-aircraft screen for the carriers operating behind him. There was certainly a whole lot of American aircraft involved but their role was to hunt the Japanese rather than to protect Lee’s ships.

ntelligence had informed Spruance that the Japanese would not reach the area where the Americans were until June 19th. During the time that this took, Spruance organised his force so that it was 180 west of Tinian. Seven battleships were taken from task groups 58-1 and 58-4 to form a battleship force supported by four heavy cruisers and thirteen destroyers. The primary task of this awesome force was to stop the Japanese getting near the American aircraft carriers. The planes from task group 58-4 were used to give the battleship group air cover.

Now, is that protection from the Japanese surface forces or aircraft?

You sailors know far more then I do about life on the ocean/sea. I can state even being in our basecamp about two days out of seven when I had a company of Rhade yards and great SF NCO’s was what is was. We had no damn room for any female. Hell, Martha Raye came bye between Christmas and New Years Day 68-69. I was west of Duc Lap SF camp with 32 yards both dates. We had a recon team in deep trouble on New Year’s Eve. I am damn glad they crossed the river into our RON position. I would be lost trying to accommodate women in SF.

” Now, is that protection from the Japanese surface forces or aircraft?”

It was for aircraft protection. Lee’s battleships and cruisers had been supplied with the top secret VT proximity shell. These shells had miniature radars and would explode when they simply got near their targets. ‘Close’ counts in horseshoes and proximity shells. This shell was a secret guarded like that of the atom bomb.

Lee’s fleet also would defend against any surface attack that Ozawa launched but it was set up to be a massive anti-aircraft gun line to engage anything that got past the combat air patrol fighters.

I agree 100% as walking the jungle, mountains, swamps etc. with your mind on surprising the enemy before he does you is tough enough without any damn distraction. We’d go in swamp areas and have to burn leeches off, and; the jungle was full of wait a minute vines, not to mention bamboo vipers and vine snakes. We’d have centipedes and scorpions in rocky areas ,and; at might I could not imagine figuring out how any woman could take a leak without making noise by going into the bush. I spoke to SF guys from Fort Campbell,KY and they told me those women being hyped by the military in Afghan were sorry as hell. They needed male Infantry or SF types to provide protection. This PC MC BS has ruined our regular units.

.………..and, any wonder why the Army, in order to retain any hope of having a force it could send into a battle, now, in effect, has a PC brigade or two to justify all the money it spends and the rest of the Army is Green Beret’s, Delta Force, Rangers and units we have never heard of.

Why? Well the PC Congress women and balless men have only been able to get women in special forces front lines once with dubious effect. Physical requirements keep em out and always will.

Opponents could make armor penetrating missiles much faster than we could build, or restore to service, armored battleships.

Missiles? Hardly. It takes a long time to develop a new missile, particularly a large one that would have enough warhead - with heavy, armored case - to penetrate heavy armor. We are still using missiles developed 40 years ago (Harpoon, Tomahawk) and so are others (Exocet, Silkworm).

Could it be done? Eventually. Then they would face the problem of developing, building, stockpiling, deploying (in large quantities and great density to have a chance to do enough damage), maintaining, and training with multi-million dollar missiles that are only effective against a few specialized ships.

I never advocated building more battleships. Restoring to service our existing ones would not take that long (see the 80's when they did it). And if potential adversaries spent the resources to develop effective, armor-piercing, heavy missiles (Musashi took 17 hits by heavy armor-piercing bombs, but it was the 13 torpedo hits that sunk her, so it would take a lot of missiles), then we could laugh all the way to the bank when we just retired the battleships again. Economic warfare at its most effective.

The same was true of Ranger school until Obama told the CG of the Infantry School at Benning that he’s be attending the graduation ceremony of two women. The women were marched slowly by the General. What a damn joke this PC MC BS is as is lowering physical standards for women. I know there is no way in hell any woman could hump those rucks plus the 50 mile forced marches. I doubt any would complete the map reading/compass course in that swamp/wet area. Hell, that land navigation course in the tight area was tough in 67.

ya id boil it down to accuracy in modern guidance systems. but then again, modern tanks can do figure 8s and stay locked onto a target... so, can they get a 16 inch barrel to lock onto a target 10 miles away in rolling seas and keep it under budget?? have to see it to believe it!

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