[buwaya]

These were special, as by the time they were completed the Alaska class had no mission.

They were built according to a pre-WWI concept, as “commerce protection” cruisers. The Germans tried to use an already obsolete concept, the “commerce raider” strategy in early WW2, with things like these -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland-class_cruiser
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship

But they were gone or irrelevant by 1941.

[kabar]

Perfectly understandable that we would decommission or mothball ships as part of the demobilization of the military after WWII. We brought back some battleships for Vietnam for shore bombardment, a mission they were designed for.

Retrofitting ships is another matter. The costs may not be worth it.