California class cruiser

The "California" class cruisers were a set of two of nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers operated by the United States Navy between 1974 and 1998. Other than their nuclear power supply and helicopter hangars, ships of the "California" class were comparable to other guided missile cruisers of their era, such as the "Belknap" class. The class was built as a follow-up to the nuclear-powered "Long Beach", "Bainbridge", and "Truxtun" classes. Like all of the nuclear cruisers which could steam for years between refuelings, the "California" class was designed in part to provide high endurance escort for the navy's nuclear aircraft carriers, which were often limited in range due to their conventionally powered escorts continuously needing to be refueled.

The USS|California|CGN-36 was the fourth nuclear powered cruiser in the U.S. Navy; the previous three were the USS|Long Beach|CGN-9, USS|Bainbridge|CGN-25 and USS|Truxtun|CGN-35. The second "California" class cruiser, USS|South Carolina|CGN-37, was the fifth nuclear-powered cruiser in the United States Navy. Other than the four ships of the Soviet Navy's "Kirov" class (which were actually built with a combination of nuclear and fossil-fuel propulsion), no other country has launched nuclear-powered cruisers.

Only two ships of the class were built, the "California" and the "South Carolina", and both were decommissioned in the autumn of 1999. These ships were followed on by the four nuclear-powered cruisers of the "Virginia" class. These cruisers were named for states because they were seen as quite large, powerful, capable, and survivable ships. Also, in the meantime, the names of cities had been given to the nuclear submarines in the very large "Los Angeles" class, which eventually expanded to 62 boats, all (but one) named for American cities.

The USS "California" and her sister ship the USS "South Carolina" were equipped with two Mk-13 launchers, fore and aft, for the Standard surface-to-air missiles, one Mk-112 launcher for ASROC missiles, and eight Mk-141 launch tubes for Harpoon missiles. They were equipped with two Mk-45 5" rapid-fire cannons, fore and aft. Two three tube 324 mm torpedo launchers were fitted for light weight anti-submarine torpedoes. Two Mk-15 Phalanx 20 mm gun systems were fitted in the 1980s.

ee also

*List of United States Navy destroyer leaders

External links

* [http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/cgn-36.htm FAS: CGN-36 California class]