Alaska-class cruiser remain in service.

No.

Firstly, there was no point to them being in service in the 1940s and 1950s. They could not provide the 16” gunfire of the Iowas on the one hand nor do a substantially better job than the Baltimores and Des Moines in carrier escort on the other. They were crew sinks at a time when manpower was more and more important.

Secondly, there is no threat that demands them. This is the big one.

Thirdly, they were large cruisers with significant protection issues and design flaws. There is no reason for them to survive the culling of the early 60s. The Iowas only did so due to the vagaries of fortune; there was a reasonable chance they could have been scrapped in the early 70s.

If they survive to the 1980s, then they would be quite useful as Tomahawk barges, as were the Iowas. That window of utility slams shut once the VLS Spruances enter service.

There is no point, chance or possibility for them to turn into a nuclear powered sea denial cruiser like the Kirovs, as the USN faced a completely different threat to the Soviets. When you have carriers, there is no reason to fluff around with such ships.

Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.

Size isn't everything.

In the postwar period, an Alaska had a crew of 1800+ compared to 1100 for a Baltimore. The Alaskas carried the same amount of 5" and only two more 40mm mounts than ships half their displacement, had deficient underwater protection and a huge turning circle.

It should be kept in mind that during the planning to reactivate the Iowas in the early 80's, there was apparently some gnashing of teeth that the Alaskas had been scrapped, as they would have provided a similar/better tomahawk platform for much less crew. And if your whole point in life is to be a tomahawk thrower, your turning radius really doesn't matter all that much. Regretfully, I do not have a source on this, as it came from a naval expert of my online acquaintance who has since passed. Yes, I know that ignores the Marine clarion call for the retention of the Iowas, Naval Gunfire Support, but the cold hard truth is that there is EXTREMELY little in the way of beach or near beach defenses that a 12 inch cannon can't destroy but a 16 inch cannon can. Remember, the 12 inch guns on the Alaska class were specifically developed for that class of ship. Brand new, had similar ranges (22 miles Alaska class, 24 miles Iowa class) and were also (as I understand it) equipped with a superheavy version of the AP shell.

In my own little world, I would prefer that each ship named after a state/territory/city would have been donated to said state/territory/city as a memorial. I totally understand it wasn't feasible at the time the ships were scrapped for every one, nor would it have been feasible to continue paying upkeep for the ships, nor would you be able to get some of the ships to the locations in question. And finally, I'm aware that there was no interest in preservation for the vast majority of them at the time. But it warms my heart to think that they could have finished the Kentucky and then towed her up the mississippi and ohio rivers to permanently dock her somewhere in Kentucky. Just like it would have been great for the Alaska to be in Juneau somewhere, along with the Juneau.

I envision a person with Bezos level wealth in 1959 or so going to the navy and telling them "Hey, I want to preserve the battleships, cruisers and carriers named after specific places. I've this pile of money, can you work with me?" maybe get the Army corps of engineers involved. Buy land, dig a drydock kind of thing, line it with concrete and tow the ship in. Build a roof over it and call it a museum.

Belushi TD

The late, great Dick Landgraff once lamented that Alaska and Guam (and Hawaii, I guess) were not kept around to be turned into "Tomahawk shooters"

Preserved on webarchive

web.archive.org/web/20000620042306/http://www.warships1.com/W-Iowas/index3_BB2_pst9.htm

Dick's biography on Warships1/NavWeaps

www.navweaps.com/index_tech/default2_bioRL.php

Regards,

I remember the Alaska Tomahawk comments as well over the years, from Stuart Slade and others.

However, they went and went early. They were stricken and scrapped in 1960. Washington also went that year, with South Dakota and Indiana going in 1962 and 1963. The first tranche of battleships went in 1959 in the form of the Big 5, with everything earlier going in 1947 or Crossroads.

Why did the wave of strikings and scrappings happen then? I'd say a variety of reasons, such as Korea finishing up and not turning out to be the prelude to WW3; the emergence of new weapons systems removing the impetus to keep a reserve BB force just in case; and the New Look kicking in. I'm sure there is something on it in Friedman, but my entire technical library is boxed up in storage and I'm unlikely to see it again in this lifetime. Suffice it to say that once the shift in doctrine and decision happened, it happened rather quickly.

In such circumstances, there is absolutely no reason to keep the two Alaskas around. They add an extra calibre, are manpower sinks at a time when new missile ships were the way of the future and are inferior in firepower to the SoDaks.

The wonder isn't that the Alaskas were not saved, but that the Iowas were not scrapped. That came down to the odd circumstances of Vietnam and New Jersey's deployment there; even then, the requirements weren't specifically calling for a BB, but rather 1 BB or 2 auto CA. If we elide that war from the historical record, then we can easily see three of the Iowas scrapped in the late 1960s/early 1970s, down to a dip in some of the general nostalgia levels perhaps.