US double ended Missile Cruiser conversions

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Looking at these conversions they always looked especially unstable with that very tall superstructure. Why was it felt necessary when the Talos fire control radar sets weren't even mounted on top of it?
 
Looking at these conversions they always looked especially unstable with that very tall superstructure. Why was it felt necessary when the Talos fire control radar sets weren't even mounted on top of it?

Missile fire control electronics were in there, along with, I believe, the flag plot and staff accommodation.
 
The superstructure might be tall but also narrow so less weight as one thought. The two other tall things are the macks (mast-stacks (funnels)) which again not that heavy weight. But indeed these conversions had topweight issues due to losing ammo deep in the hull yet the missiles are mostlyabove the waterline.
 
Also the embodiment of ugliness, incdentally...

Then you yet to see the USN Zumwalt the RN Daring (Type 45) or the Swedish Visby classes
You just had to mention the Zumwalt didn't you? I was having a good day. We were all having a good day...
Long Beach?
At least Long Beach had a reason to look the way she did! The SCANFAR radar was a bitch to mount. There is literally no reason for Zumwalt to look the way she does. Yes, I know: stealth. They didn't need a damn tumblehome hull for stealth
 
At least Long Beach had a reason to look the way she did! The SCANFAR radar was a bitch to mount. There is literally no reason for Zumwalt to look the way she does. Yes, I know: stealth. They didn't need a damn tumblehome hull for stealth

The supreme, absolute shame is that tumblehome hull is reminiscent of the late 19th century French battleships... the horror, the horror.

Wait...

Cheaper, smaller combat warships ?

Seemingly build by drunken naval architects ?

With tumblehome hulls ?


OMG...

...it just dawned on me... is Zumwalt Jeune école applied to USN ? OMG... :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
At least Long Beach had a reason to look the way she did! The SCANFAR radar was a bitch to mount. There is literally no reason for Zumwalt to look the way she does. Yes, I know: stealth. They didn't need a damn tumblehome hull for stealth

The supreme, absolute shame is that tumblehome hull is reminiscent of the late 19th century French battleships... the horror, the horror.

Wait...

Cheaper, smaller combat warships ?

Seemingly build by drunken naval architects ?

With tumblehome hulls ?


OMG...

...it just dawned on me... is Zumwalt Jeune école applied to USN ? OMG... :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
No, that's the LCS. Zumwalt is many things. But cheaper and smaller ain't one of em.
 
The superstructure might be tall but also narrow so less weight as one thought. The two other tall things are the macks (mast-stacks (funnels)) which again not that heavy weight. But indeed these conversions had topweight issues due to losing ammo deep in the hull yet the missiles are mostlyabove the waterline.
With regards to topweight and Superstructure, much of the new superstructure was constructed from aluminum in order to save weight. In places, the metal was three inches thick. Areas of the structure that were to be subject to blast from rocket motors was constructed of steel. As for placement of the missiles, the Talos magazine was mostly buried in the Hull. This accounted for some of the expense of their conversion. The previous conversions (the CLGs) had their magazines on the weather deck.

Personally, I have always been fascinated by this generation of missile ships and all of the proposed conversions that never took place.
 
Personally, I have always been fascinated by this generation of missile ships and all of the proposed conversions that never took place.

Me too. It was kind of "big gun ships" last chance to shine. Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, treaty battleships, full-blown-battleships.
There were plenty of finished, unfinished and mothballed ships that never got a *second* chance - Worcesters, Baltimore, Oregon, Des Moines, Alaska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Iowas... imagine, if some kind of "silver bullet" had them all turned into guided missile ships and put back into service...

...and instead, capital ships shrunk to the tonnage of large destroyers. Try telling that to WWII USN, that destroyer / frigates would kill every single ship class larger than 10 000 tons. Except for aircraft carriers or amphibious, of course.
 
At least Long Beach had a reason to look the way she did! The SCANFAR radar was a bitch to mount. There is literally no reason for Zumwalt to look the way she does. Yes, I know: stealth. They didn't need a damn tumblehome hull for stealth

Yes, they did. It's the only reason they adopted that shape.
 
Personally, I have always been fascinated by this generation of missile ships and all of the proposed conversions that never took place.

Me too. It was kind of "big gun ships" last chance to shine. Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, treaty battleships, full-blown-battleships.
There were plenty of finished, unfinished and mothballed ships that never got a *second* chance - Worcesters, Baltimore, Oregon, Des Moines, Alaska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Iowas... imagine, if some kind of "silver bullet" had them all turned into guided missile ships and put back into service...

...and instead, capital ships shrunk to the tonnage of large destroyers. Try telling that to WWII USN, that destroyer / frigates would kill every single ship class larger than 10 000 tons. Except for aircraft carriers or amphibious, of course.
The problem with converting the big ships is that, given the fire control technology of the day, they couldn't guide any more missiles than the smaller cheaper cruisers. And given you could operate two Albany class with the same manpower as Kentucky, it makes more sense to guide twice as many missiles with two ships than convert a battleship.
 
Personally, I have always been fascinated by this generation of missile ships and all of the proposed conversions that never took place.

Me too. It was kind of "big gun ships" last chance to shine. Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, treaty battleships, full-blown-battleships.
There were plenty of finished, unfinished and mothballed ships that never got a *second* chance - Worcesters, Baltimore, Oregon, Des Moines, Alaska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Iowas... imagine, if some kind of "silver bullet" had them all turned into guided missile ships and put back into service...

...and instead, capital ships shrunk to the tonnage of large destroyers. Try telling that to WWII USN, that destroyer / frigates would kill every single ship class larger than 10 000 tons. Except for aircraft carriers or amphibious, of course.

Yes.. though nowadays only a handful of ships armoured and those armour were only for vital spaces. Try to sink a Baltimore with standard SAM! I know Harpoons but Standard outrange them by many times!
That is why I prefer the soviet anti ship missiles, now THOSE have range!
 
Personally, I have always been fascinated by this generation of missile ships and all of the proposed conversions that never took place.

Me too. It was kind of "big gun ships" last chance to shine. Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, treaty battleships, full-blown-battleships.
There were plenty of finished, unfinished and mothballed ships that never got a *second* chance - Worcesters, Baltimore, Oregon, Des Moines, Alaska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Iowas... imagine, if some kind of "silver bullet" had them all turned into guided missile ships and put back into service...

...and instead, capital ships shrunk to the tonnage of large destroyers. Try telling that to WWII USN, that destroyer / frigates would kill every single ship class larger than 10 000 tons. Except for aircraft carriers or amphibious, of course.
The problem with converting the big ships is that, given the fire control technology of the day, they couldn't guide any more missiles than the smaller cheaper cruisers. And given you could operate two Albany class with the same manpower as Kentucky, it makes more sense to guide twice as many missiles with two ships than convert a battleship.

That's why we needed a successfull "proto AEGIS" Typhoon system. Of course late 50's state-of-the-art would not allow it (just like the Arrow and Skylancer Sparrow II "proto AMRAAM".

Where is the "Moore law" when you need it ?
 
As of USS Albany:
566bfd2e2c6f3d87d173e07f6cf934da.jpg
 
Also the embodiment of ugliness, incdentally...

Then you yet to see the USN Zumwalt the RN Daring (Type 45) or the Swedish Visby classes
This reminds me of people who think the 5th gen aircraft are ugly because they don't look like F-104s or Mirages. I'll take "more effective" over "looks pretty" all day long.
 
Also the embodiment of ugliness, incdentally...

Then you yet to see the USN Zumwalt the RN Daring (Type 45) or the Swedish Visby classes
This reminds me of people who think the 5th gen aircraft are ugly because they don't look like F-104s or Mirages. I'll take "more effective" over "looks pretty" all day long.
Honestly, I think the F-22 looks damn good. Sexy even. The F-35 OTOH...
 
Yes, F-14, F-15, F-16, F-22 are all great looking ones, F-35 is like a one engined chubby F-22.
F-18 is so-so, good plane, effective but retired my favourite carrier plane the F-14.
Gripen, EF-2000, MiG-29, Su-27,35,37,47 PAK-FA are all great looking planes
 
I'd say that the Viggen is a pretty good looking plane too
 
As of USS Albany:
566bfd2e2c6f3d87d173e07f6cf934da.jpg
I think these ships just looked impressive and futuristic with their huge TALOS systems and the Macks and massive bridges. Elegant, no. Svelt, no. Pretty, no. The RN Countys (even with the Seaslug scaffold launcher) were elegant.
 
Also the embodiment of ugliness, incdentally...

Then you yet to see the USN Zumwalt the RN Daring (Type 45) or the Swedish Visby classes
This reminds me of people who think the 5th gen aircraft are ugly because they don't look like F-104s or Mirages. I'll take "more effective" over "looks pretty" all day long.
Honestly, I think the F-22 looks damn good. Sexy even. The F-35 OTOH...

5TEHgqR.jpg
 
Also the embodiment of ugliness, incdentally...

Then you yet to see the USN Zumwalt the RN Daring (Type 45) or the Swedish Visby classes
This reminds me of people who think the 5th gen aircraft are ugly because they don't look like F-104s or Mirages. I'll take "more effective" over "looks pretty" all day long.
Honestly, I think the F-22 looks damn good. Sexy even. The F-35 OTOH...

View attachment 637893
Ok, the X-32 just looks happy to see me
 
Looking at these conversions they always looked especially unstable with that very tall superstructure. Why was it felt necessary when the Talos fire control radar sets weren't even mounted on top of it?
I think the problem is the distribution of weight in the hills of these ships were designed for the considerable top weight of armored turrets above the hull. Once these were removed, the hull would have too much weight low down and would become far too stable, which is actually a very bad thing, because it cause the ship to experience very quick and sharp rolls.

so the high superstructure is required to reduce the the stability to the desired range.
 
Looking at these conversions they always looked especially unstable with that very tall superstructure. Why was it felt necessary when the Talos fire control radar sets weren't even mounted on top of it?
I think the problem is the distribution of weight in the hills of these ships were designed for the considerable top weight of armored turrets above the hull. Once these were removed, the hull would have too much weight low down and would become far too stable, which is actually a very bad thing, because it cause the ship to experience very quick and sharp rolls.

so the high superstructure is required to reduce the the stability to the desired range.
I suspect that is partly the case but Talos and Terrier systems were pretty heavy and the Tartar wasn't exactly light either; and all the conversions were known to "hog" or "calve" to some degree.
 
Personally, I have always been fascinated by this generation of missile ships and all of the proposed conversions that never took place.

Me too. It was kind of "big gun ships" last chance to shine. Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, treaty battleships, full-blown-battleships.
There were plenty of finished, unfinished and mothballed ships that never got a *second* chance - Worcesters, Baltimore, Oregon, Des Moines, Alaska, South Dakota, North Carolina, Iowas... imagine, if some kind of "silver bullet" had them all turned into guided missile ships and put back into service...

...and instead, capital ships shrunk to the tonnage of large destroyers. Try telling that to WWII USN, that destroyer / frigates would kill every single ship class larger than 10 000 tons. Except for aircraft carriers or amphibious, of course.
The problem with converting the big ships is that, given the fire control technology of the day, they couldn't guide any more missiles than the smaller cheaper cruisers. And given you could operate two Albany class with the same manpower as Kentucky, it makes more sense to guide twice as many missiles with two ships than convert a battleship.
Not all the conversions were similar. Albany & the other 2 had iirc 4 guidance radars just for Talos. Oklahoma City had 2.
 
Looking at these conversions they always looked especially unstable with that very tall superstructure. Why was it felt necessary when the Talos fire control radar sets weren't even mounted on top of it?
I think the problem is the distribution of weight in the hills of these ships were designed for the considerable top weight of armored turrets above the hull. Once these were removed, the hull would have too much weight low down and would become far too stable, which is actually a very bad thing, because it cause the ship to experience very quick and sharp rolls.

so the high superstructure is required to reduce the the stability to the desired range.
I suspect that is partly the case but Talos and Terrier systems were pretty heavy and the Tartar wasn't exactly light either; and all the conversions were known to "hog" or "calve" to some degree.
The actual reason for the high Bridge is simple.

VISUAL Clearance.

Basically the missile directors needed to be in. a certain spot, well in distance of launcher, for it to work.

That distance Basically block the bridge veiw.

So thet made the bridge taller to see over them.
 
Looking at these conversions they always looked especially unstable with that very tall superstructure. Why was it felt necessary when the Talos fire control radar sets weren't even mounted on top of it?
I think the problem is the distribution of weight in the hills of these ships were designed for the considerable top weight of armored turrets above the hull. Once these were removed, the hull would have too much weight low down and would become far too stable, which is actually a very bad thing, because it cause the ship to experience very quick and sharp rolls.

so the high superstructure is required to reduce the the stability to the desired range.
I suspect that is partly the case but Talos and Terrier systems were pretty heavy and the Tartar wasn't exactly light either; and all the conversions were known to "hog" or "calve" to some degree.
The actual reason for the high Bridge is simple.

VISUAL Clearance.

Basically the missile directors needed to be in. a certain spot, well in distance of launcher, for it to work.

That distance Basically block the bridge veiw.

So thet made the bridge taller to see over them.
don't doubt that either. Like I said all of them tending to bend oddly in the middle, some the keel would bend down and others it would bend up because the weights were off.. think there may be reference to stress cracks forming at certain frames in one or two of the ships histories online.
 
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