It was the guided missile electronics and stuff in the mast cube that doomed her. One look at the ship and most people would say, “Top heavy?” And how.
In even moderate seas she rolled so badly there would be footprints on the bulkheads from sailors having to abandon the deck momentarily to walk.
The solution to this was to pull tons of lead along her keel. This stabilized her, but made her weight so much, she could not go fast enough to fulfill her role in the fleet.
The Long Beach spent her remaining days hugging the shore.
I had a friend in the radio shack of the Long Beach who took me on a tour of her at the Norfolk NOB. She was gorgeous.
Of course she was gorgeous...she was a show boat!
I don’t know, what you said sounded like it could be true, but she did deploy quite a bit...and was the first ship to shoot down an airplane with a SAM.
They did quite a bit of renovation on her, too.
I must say, I thought she was very odd looking, but when you view her broadside, she isn’t bad looking.