Talk:USS Hawaii (CB-3)

DYK

 * ... that for a short time in the late 1940s, it was planned that USS Hawaii (CB-3) would be the U.S. Navy ' s first guided missile cruiser? &mdash; Ed 17   for President  Vote for Ed  04:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Could have been very useful Cold War :Gun Missile Platform 1950-1980
This article on USS Hawaii appears rather inchoate and worse. It advanced to 82% completion with all the main and secondary guns fitted, well past the launching point which must have been in early 1945. I assume the main 12 inch armament was removed because of the late 1940s assumption that future war would be purely fought will nuclear bombs and missiles and didn't envisage limited third world war encounters, like Korea and Vietnam.

The USS Hawaii could have commissioned in 1947 if finished rather than one of the last two Baltimores ,eg Toledo. After the death of President Roosevelt (a strong supporter of the Alaska class)it appears there was strong feeling in the USN, opposing futhur expenditure the Hawaii on the grounds of the single rudder,  and it was considered an inferior alternative,  to the better armoured Iowas.

The effort made getting Alaska and Guam into commission in mid 1944 and doing substantial work on Hawaii (CB-3) instead of the 5th Iowa ,Kentucky reflects their ultimate use as shallower draugh high power monitors,(in cf with the Iowa's) supporting the invasion of Okinawa and the perceived need for more such capability if Japan had needed to invaded by US ground forces. Stalin supported the rather similar Stalingrad's and demand they have 12 inch triple mounts, and installed the older but very powerful triple 12 inch mounts of old Tsarist battleships and similar land based triple 12s built  around Soviet  naval bases to counter what he apparently feared, bombardment by US/Nato 'light cruisers' a term used to describe Admiral Fisher's last 'battlecruiser' HMS Glorious, which also be used to describe the light battlecruisers  of the Alaska/ Hawaii class.

During the 1960's the limitation of the Cleveland class- gun missile conversions off Vietnam was exposed, with the best the half new "Galveston" no finally commissioned until 1958 with full Talos fit and two triple 6 inch mounts and three Mk 38/ twin 5 inch. Galveston was flawed with too much toe in its handling and seariding, suggesting its platform too small for as an effective gun fire support. It was also obvious in WW2 that the RN/USN 8 inch mounts were far more effective in surface and bombardment action than the twin 6 inch of the Cleveland/ Colony and the late 1920s 8 inch British county 10,000 ton class cruisers, even in their almost unarmoured form alone had the speed and hitting power to run around the German Bismark and Schnahorst and in the case of Schnarhorst and Graf Spee make the first powerful critical hits. 12 inch platforms might have been usable off Vietnam for longer than USN New Jersey as a revised smaller crew manifest, for the Hawaii with less secondary armament and less provocative 12 inches

It is usually said that the Iowa or Baltimore had the speed to run down a Sverdlov but that remains debatable and it difficult to conceive that the smaller Cleveland or RN Colony class could have caught and outfought the larger 19,000 ton Sverdlovs with a top speed of 34 Knots and designed for Northern waters. Given that the Soviet Navy believed the Sverdlovs would still have been effective in pressuring the US in 1962, if the extra Soviet cruisers scrapped by Kruschev had been built and crewed, it seems to be their still should have been a place in the operation US fleet for the Hawaii and it represents an extraorinary waste of huge investment, that it was not commissioned instead of the last Baltimore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.37.64.48 (talk) 22:17, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The Sverdlovs were about the same size and speed as the late-war US light cruisers, so no major threat to the USN. I think that you need to read more about the origins of the Alaskas as you are wrong about their intended purpose.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)