USS Alaska ( CB1 ) and USS Guam ( CB2 ). USS Hawaii was never completed as far as I know, and the rest of them was cancelled. Except from looking better than most cruisers of WWII, I can't help but notice that they look a whole lot bigger too. M.J.Whitley writes that they were "battlecruisers in any other navy. To the USN, however, they were merely large cruisers". Which brings me to my questions; How did the USN classify the Alaska ? What does the 'B' in CB stand for ( if not as I first guessed, 'Battle', as in Battlecruiser ) ? And how did the Alaska compare, not only to other WWII cruisers ( of all nations ), but to many WWII battleships as well ?
Presumably she was classed as a cruiser due to her 12 inch guns rather than her heavy displacement Nice looking though Here's an interesting piccy, the Alaska next the BB Missouri which gives a good impression of their comparative sizes. I see what you mean about then being big FNG
The "B" in CB means "large." We need to remember that USN hull designators are not initials that "stand" for something. "DD" doesn't stand for "ddestroyer." Alaska was a rather poor design. Its worst flaws lay in vulnerability to torpedoes. I don't know any contemporary USN ship of more than 19,000 tons that lacked a torpedo defense system. But Alaska, at 28,000 tons, didn't have one, and I can't tell you why. At various points in the design development process, the design did have a TDS. All Alaska had was a bulkhead just inside the hull plating. To make matters worse, someone flubbed the subdivision, and calculations show that a single torpedo hit near the aft turret could have been enough to threaten the ship. Woops. The armor scheme was okay. The 12in gun was highly regarded, though the mount suffered from hasty development. Alaska also earned some criticism by carrying the same DP battery as a light cruiser. Other criticisms point to the excessive price tag and the lack of capability per crew size compared to, say, an Iowa. The excellent FC that characterized American ships in general would have allowed Alaska to be competitive against ships like Kongo and Scharnhorst.
One thing Alaska's really lacked was mission. They didn't really got anything to do. Add there the contruction cost, similar to SD and NC -class battleships and complement of nearly 2000 personnel, you get few really, really costly and useless ships. But one thing I have to admit: They look good. And being battlecruiser or large cruiser: In my opinion, they fall in the same "grey" area bethween battlecruisers, battleships and heavy cruisers like S&G, D&S and modernized Kongo's.
carrier escorts some people considered them to be almost ideal carrier escorts. they did a fair job a NGFS too
Re: carrier escorts True, but the pair are generally considered to be white elephants. Rightly so, IMHO. They simply had no place in a modern navy.
I would probably have thought that first pic was of a German ship had there been no name or class given first.
