AHC/WI: California and Virginia Class Cruiser Modernizations

Delta Force

Banned
The California class and Virginia class cruisers were two similar nuclear powered cruiser designs built for the United States in the 1970s. They had the distinction of being the first series multi-unit classes of nuclear powered cruisers for the Navy, but they also had the misfortune of being the last cruisers built before the fielding of AEGIS on the Ticonderoga class cruisers. This severely reduced their combat capabilities, and so while the ships were designed with a service life of forty years or more, none continued in service to see the new millennium, especially once AEGIS was fielded on the Arleigh Burke class destroyers.

Is there anything that could have been done to modernize the cruisers? Obvious candidates would be implementing some of the proposed features of the Strike Cruiser, keeping in mind the smaller hull. The addition of AEGIS would be another option as well. Of course a third option would be having a variation of the California/Virginia class as the platform the AEGIS cruisers.
 
Mate, you've got nuclear on the brain.:D

The logic is inescapable, there is no point in having a nuclear powered ship that isn't at the cutting edge of capability. But nuclear powered escorts are vastly more expensive to build and operate than conventionally powered escorts for little tactical advantage. When you add on the vast expense of the AGEIS system to the vast expense of a Virginia class cruiser the cost is so high that even the USN could afford to buy enough units to meet its needs. So the idea was, rightly in my mind, dropped.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Mate, you've got nuclear on the brain.:D

The logic is inescapable, there is no point in having a nuclear powered ship that isn't at the cutting edge of capability. But nuclear powered escorts are vastly more expensive to build and operate than conventionally powered escorts for little tactical advantage. When you add on the vast expense of the AGEIS system to the vast expense of a Virginia class cruiser the cost is so high that even the USN could afford to buy enough units to meet its needs. So the idea was, rightly in my mind, dropped.

That's largely my thought as well. The California and Virginia classes were quite expensive for what the Navy received. They cost $675 million each to build, and for $1.3 billion or so each a larger and more useful Strike Cruiser could have been procured. However, at that price the cost of a single escort ship is approaching that of the capital ship it is supposed to be protecting.

Still, the Navy did have six almost brand new nuclear powered cruiser hulls of similar design available when AEGIS was first being fielded. They would be ideal escort ships if converted to AEGIS, or at the very least a possible surface warfare ship. Unlike the proposed and implemented conversions of World War II era ships in the 1950s and 1960s, the nuclear cruisers were useful for more than just being convenient hulls that weren't otherwise being used.
 
The California class and Virginia class cruisers were two similar nuclear powered cruiser designs built for the United States in the 1970s. They had the distinction of being the first series multi-unit classes of nuclear powered cruisers for the Navy, but they also had the misfortune of being the last cruisers built before the fielding of AEGIS on the Ticonderoga class cruisers. This severely reduced their combat capabilities, and so while the ships were designed with a service life of forty years or more, none continued in service to see the new millennium, especially once AEGIS was fielded on the Arleigh Burke class destroyers.

Is there anything that could have been done to modernize the cruisers? Obvious candidates would be implementing some of the proposed features of the Strike Cruiser, keeping in mind the smaller hull. The addition of AEGIS would be another option as well. Of course a third option would be having a variation of the California/Virginia class as the platform the AEGIS cruisers.

There were lots of things that COULD be done. However when they were coming up for their first major 'maintenance service' the U.S. was in a downsizing mode and tghe cost of the work needed, combined with the higher operational costs of a nuclear vessel doomed them to retirement. There were not enough nuclear escorts to justify the support and training costs needed to keep them operational.
 

Delta Force

Banned
How difficult would it have been to retrofit AEGIS onto the California and Virginia class cruisers? Since the Reagan Administration was carrying out a large naval expansion and ordering new nuclear powered aircraft carriers, would converting the Virginia class to AEGIS and procuring new AEGIS Virginia cruisers have been an option?
 
How difficult would it have been to retrofit AEGIS onto the California and Virginia class cruisers? Since the Reagan Administration was carrying out a large naval expansion and ordering new nuclear powered aircraft carriers, would converting the Virginia class to AEGIS and procuring new AEGIS Virginia cruisers have been an option?

Retrofitting the Virginias or Californias were AEGIS would be a significantly cost expensive aspect, but you would have had the capability for the AEGIS Virginia however.

The CSGN-42 class was a proposed design to utilize the Aegis, a rapid fire 8" gun, and the basis of the Virginia hull to extend onwards from the Virginia-class. So you could have had the 'new' AEGIS Virginias in the form of the CSGN-42, but a PoD with that might have been more likely to be in the late 70s with the Ticonderoga-class remaining as the DDG-47s rather than the CG-47s.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Retrofitting the Virginias or Californias were AEGIS would be a significantly cost expensive aspect, but you would have had the capability for the AEGIS Virginia however.

The CSGN-42 class was a proposed design to utilize the Aegis, a rapid fire 8" gun, and the basis of the Virginia hull to extend onwards from the Virginia-class. So you could have had the 'new' AEGIS Virginias in the form of the CSGN-42, but a PoD with that might have been more likely to be in the late 70s with the Ticonderoga-class remaining as the DDG-47s rather than the CG-47s.

The Strike Cruiser would be a very expensive proposition, and it would be possible to procure four Virginia or Ticonderoga class cruisers for the price of a single one. By inference, it seems it should be possible to procure two AEGIS Virginia class ships for the price of a single Strike Cruiser.
 

Delta Force

Banned
How much would an AGEIS rebuild on a Virginia cost?

The Virginia class had nuclear propulsion but lacked AEGIS, while the Ticonderoga class has AEGIS but lacks nuclear propulsion. Both cost around $1 billion each. Hull costs probably aren't that much, so it's reasonable to assume that a new nuclear powered AEGIS ship would probably be around or under $2 billion.

The electronics and wiring for an AEGIS ship might be rather extensive, and if that's the case it might be more feasible to do something else with the older nuclear powered cruisers such as convert them to surface attack ships. New ships could then be built with AEGIS.
 

Delta Force

Banned
An AEGIS Virginia should cost around $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion based on information from Global Security.

The Navy originally planned to procure 11 ships of the Virginia (CGN-38) class. However, after four units of the Virginia class had been laid down, further orders were suspended while consideration was given to a Modified Virginia design fitted with the Aegis system.

During the late 1970s, two nuclear-powered cruiser options were considered for the new cruiser to mount the new Aegis defense system. The 17,200-ton nuclear- powered strike cruiser (CSGN) and the 12,100-ton CGN-42 [derivative of the CGN-38 class] were rejected in favor of a design that mounted the Aegis system on the smaller, conventionally powered Spruance (DD-963) class hull. The CSGN was estimated to have a unit procurement cost double the DD-963 option, while the CGN-42 was estimated to have a unit procurement cost 30% to 50% greater than the DD-963 option. It has been estimated by the Navy that a ship of this kind would cost about $1.43 billion for the lead ship and $1.23 billion for follow-on ships (fiscal year 1981 dollars). The DD-963 option became the 9,500-ton [light] Ticonderoga (CG-47) class Aegis cruiser, the first of which was procured in FY1978.

The CGN-42 was to have basically the same combat system as the CG-47. Being a substantially larger ship, however, it would have greater growth potential as well as the unlimited steaming endurance of nuclear power. The CGN-42 would thus represent a surface combatant with the best capabilities currently achievable.

A nuclear-powered warship employing the best weapons and sensors currently available, the CGN-42 would have the operational flexibility inherent to the unlimited steaming range of nuclear power. It would have the new, high-capability AEGIS AAW system, offensive cruise missiles, LAMPS III helicopters, a high-power active sonar and a towed-array passive sonar for antisubmarine warfare (ASW), a large missile capacity (122 missiles) in the new vertical launch system (VLS), and the latest in command, control, and communications equipment. All these features would give the ship excellent capabilities across a broad spectrum of naval missions.

The CGN-42 would be an expensive ship, with an acquisition cost of about $1.34 billion [1981 dollars], including nuclear fuel equivalent to about 3 million barrels of oil.

Although sympathetic to the need for more ships, the advocates of CGN-42 were skeptical of claims that capability compromises in the interest of cost reduction yield more overall fleet effectiveness. The advocate of CGN-42 believed that quality must govern, despite the fact that more ships could be bought at any given level of investment if some less expensive ships were procured. This option would produce sufficient ships, a total of 20 CGN-42s authorized between 1986 through 1995, to form six well protected two-carrier battle groups. There would not be enough ships, however, to form any surface action groups or to provide the number of escorts for amphibious groups, replenishment groups, and convoys recommended by the Navy in its 1980 testimony.

Nuclear-powered surface combatants were intended to be part of all nuclear-powered task forces, but this goal never materialized. In 1974, nuclear power seemed so promising that the Congress, in title VIII of the DOD Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1975, stated that as a matter of policy all future U.S. warships intended to serve with the strike forces should be nuclear-powered. Exceptions would require a presidential finding that providing nuclear power was not in the national interest.

On February 13, 1976, the President formally made a finding that constructing all nuclear surface combatants for the strike forces was not in the national interest. It was the Secretary of Defense's assessment that "the military value of an all nuclear-powered Aegis ship program does not warrant the increased costs or, alternatively, the reduced force levels." Further, he proposed a mixed propulsion program to provide nuclear-powered surface combatants, which could undertake crisis response and other operations in areas far from supply bases, and conventionally powered Aegis ships to supplement the nuclear-powered surface combatants in protection of high-value forces (including carriers) under conditions of sustained conflict. However, no more nuclear-powered surface combatants were acquired.

The fiscal year 1978 budget provided $180 million for advance procurement of nuclear components and engineering for the CGN-42, but no further work was authorized. The construction of the Modified Virginia cruisers was cancelled in January 1979, and the proposal was resurrected in March 1981 only to be cancelled once again (for the final time) in February 1983. All of these projects were abandoned in favor of the conventionally powered Ticonderoga (CG-47) class and for several decades thereafter there were no further plans for any further nuclear powered cruisers to be built.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Yes, too expensive for what it was, an AA escort with long endurance.

The air defense escort is the most important escort to have with long endurance.

The Virginia class had a larger hull too, so it probably could have featured the 8" more easily if that had been desired. Another important feature the AEGIS Virginia proposal had that the first five Ticonderoga class ships did not is the vertical missile launch cells.

A better comparison isn't the 1970s cost comparisons, but one that has the cost of AEGIS explicitly determined, or one that has the cost of the Virginia class AEGIS proposal and the early and later Ticonderoga class warships.
 
The ageis Virginia cost two billion dollars in the early 80s, which would be waaaay more now. Surely that's not good value for money? Surely those billions of dollars spent on nuclear rather than conventionally power cruisers could have been used to bring some other project to fruition, like the A12 or Tomcat 21?
 

Delta Force

Banned
The ageis Virginia cost two billion dollars in the early 80s, which would be waaaay more now. Surely that's not good value for money? Surely those billions of dollars spent on nuclear rather than conventionally power cruisers could have been used to bring some other project to fruition, like the A12 or Tomcat 21?

It's closer to $1.3 to $1.5 billion for an AEGIS Virginia class. The desired class of 20 would be achievable for the same procurement cost as the Ticonderoga fleet, although annual fleet costs might be higher (nuclear ships have higher maintenance costs).

It's seems this would be budget neutral relative to what was historically funded, provided there are no gas turbine powered AEGIS cruisers.
 
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