Wombat my friend,
The Alaska class large or battle cruisers were completed before the end of WWII. Alaska and Guam saw combat (Okinawa, Iwo Jima). They mounted 9-12" guns , were not as heavily armored as the Iowas and just as fast.
Here is the data:
CLASS - ALASKA
Displacement 27,000 Tons, Dimensions, 808' 6" (oa) x 90' 9" x 31' 9" (Max)
Armament 9 x 12"/50 12 x 5/38AA, 56 x 40mm 34 x 20mm, 4 AC
Armor, 9" Belt, 12 4/5" Turrets, 1 2/5" +4" +5/8" Decks, 10 3/5" Conning Tower.
Machinery, 150,000 SHP; G.E. Geared Turbines, 4 screws
Speed, 33 Knots, Crew 1517.
Operational and Building Data
Layed down by New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, NJ 17 DEC 1941
Launched 15 AUG 1943
Commissioned 17 JUN 1944
Decommissioned 17 FEB 1947
Stricken 01 JUN 1960
Fate: Sold for scrap to Lipsett Division of Luria Brothers, NY, NY on 30 JUN 1960
They were the American equivalent of the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau with the role of commerce raider being one of their intended primary missions. They were considered impractical and unwieldy. The German ships were better protected, suceeded as raiders, but were overmatched versus conventional battleships.
The Montanas were the ultimate US superdreadnoughts. Similar in appearance to the Iowa but much larger and heavily armored. 900 ft long , 127 ft wide, 75,000 tons with 16-19" armor belt. Originally designed to have 18" guns but changed to carry 12 - 16" 50 cal rifles as the Iowas main armament proved very sucessful. Machinery would have similar to Iowa using oil fired boilers and geared turbines producing 270,000 hp and 27-31 knots. It is a shame that we did not build at least two of these monsters (6 in the original build)as they could have been bombarding Iraq during Desert Storm.
The Kirov would actually be a good design to begin with for a heavy surface combatant today.
Yeah, someone else already corrected me..My bad...The Alaskas were designed to be "super-heavy" cruisers.
The Montanas, though, would have been awesome ships.