Re: [GZG] Battlecruisers

["Richard Bell" <rlbell.nsuid@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/26/06, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Most of the modern warships (Spruance, Arleigh Burke, Ticonoderoga)
> are more or less the same size as each other regardless of designation
> as frigate, destroyer, or cruiser, and all are about the size of the
> WWII cruisers.  Or so it seemed to me.

This was actually a political thing.  The reason that the Spruances
are destroyers and the Tico's are cruisers is that the law that
mandated all USN vessels, cruisers and up, be nuclear powered was
still in force for the Spruances, but had been repealed when the
Ticonderoga was on the slip.  Had the law still been in effect, the
Spruances would have been ASW DD's, and the Tico's would have been AAW
DD's.  Without the law, they might both have been cruisers.

As cruisers once werewere vessels capable of independent action, in an
age of powerful air and submarine threat, the Kirov CGN's may be the
last/only cruisers.
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