USS Alaska - why?

[Admiral John Byng]

What was the intended role for the Alaska Class ships?
Were they designed to lead a cruiser force against Japanese cruisers where their 12inch guns would provide superior firepower?

I believe they were designated cruisers by US Navy but were really battlecruisers?

Just curious

[bengtsson]

They were simply a 'hang over' from the Battle Ship mentality. They had no purpose in modern naval warfare, but were built anyways as a sort of last gasp for the Big Gun school of naval thought. The concept was good for a World War One naval war.

Bob B.

[chuck]

They were not battlecruisers. The were outsized true cruisers.

When the imminent demise the naval armament limitation regimes became apparent to everyone, several navies, including USN and IJN looked around, and saw that the treaty regime have created a large body of 8" cruisers, but left a huge gap between even the strongest cruiser and the weakest true battlecruiser. So both USN and IJN nearly simultaneously had the same spark of rather dubious inspiration - that one could create a cruiser much larger than the largest 8" cruiser hitherto allowed under naval treaties, and at one stroke threaten to sweep the other guy's large investment in 8" cruiser into the dust bin. At the same time, by building these ships to true cruiser standards, as oppose to capitalship or battlecruiser standards, these ships could be made cheaper and built in greater numbers. Thus born the Alasak class for the USN, and B-65 class for IJN.

USN called Alaska "Large cruisers", the IJN called B-65 "Super Cruisers". Both sides were pretty clear that they were not real battlecruisers.

[Gone Asiatic]

They were not battlecruisers. The were outsized true cruisers.

So both USN and IJN nearly simultaneously had the same spark of rather dubious inspiration - that one could create a cruiser much larger than the largest 8" cruiser hitherto allowed under naval treaties, and at one stroke threaten to sweep the other guy's large investment in 8" cruiser into the dust bin.

A role for which submarines and aircraft proved much more suited.

[Marco_Trigo]

And yet the adequacy of the submarine had a lot to do with the inadequacy of the Japanese anti-submarine tactics. While American submarines appear to have been a lot more adequate at destroying Japanese cruisers, Japanese cruisers faired a lot better against their American and English counterparts than their submarines.

English surface forces also proved highly efficient against Italian and German cruisers. Their submarines? Not so much.

In this sense, the Alaskas were really not bad ships, nor ineffective. They were simply overrun by the kind of war being fought at the time they were built. If Japanese naval doctrine had been different, if they had not wasted destroyers as fast transports, if their anti-submarine screens had been more effective, then in surface engagements like those of 1942, the Alaskas would have had a field day.

We should not draw such linear lessons from a single theatre of operations. The Alaskas were an excellent plan B. In evaluating the success of a single naval weapon, one should bear in mind that the effectiveness of said weapon was really not universal, and may easily be attributed not only to the idiosyncrasies of the submarine itself, but the tactics and the ships used by both sides. Across the world, around the same time a nation�s submarines were proving amazingly efficient warship killers, another nation�s once great submarine weapon was suffering a veritable holocaust.

Marco

[Dick J]

One of the ironies of the design is that one of the intended functions for the Alaska's was escorting carriers. However, it was not as an AA escort, but rather to keep the IJN 8" gunned cruisers from doing an end-run around the battle line and killing the CV's operating behind it. But because the surface battles didn't develop exactly as advertised, they ended up as AA escorts - a role in which they were only (very) marginally superior to Baltimore class CA's, which were cheaper to build and operate.

[Sean Hert]

They were not battlecruisers. The were outsized true cruisers....

Oh jeeze, I'm in complete and total agreement with Chuck. Mother warned me there'd be days like this....

[Seasick]

They were dinosaurs

[MartinJQuinn]

They were dinosaurs

Yeah, but who cares if they were useless, or if the USN would have been better served by building another Iowa or two - the Alaska's were hot looking ships!

[Timmy C]

The Alaskas were pretty hot too - they just needed some prominent bridge windows like the square-bridged Iowas.

[bengtsson]

They were dinosaurs

It just shows how incredibly rich and productive the American industrial base was in the 1940s. The fact that we could build Alaskas, with nearly zero military value, at the same time massive Carrier forces were launched and equipped and fleets of destroyers and escort ships came off the slips. It was like "Well they have no value, but what the heck. Lets build some for kicks and giggles. It would be fun to sail around in a few Alaskas"! This at a time when Japan was fully stretched to build a few escort destroyers 3 years too late! What a miss match of forces!
Just finished rereading Hara's Japanese Destroyer Captain book. You have to admire the skill of many of the Japanese surface warriors like Hara. The fact they lasted over a year in the same arena with the rapidly expanding USN says alot for the individual fighting spirit of Japanese sailors.

Bob B.

[chuck]

They were dinosaurs

According to Conway, extremely large cruisers like the Alaska were widely considered to be inevitable once treaty limitation expires, and the construction of the Alaska class enjoyed almost universal support amongst US navy's officer corp in 1940. It was only after the war that the officer corp began to develop a more self-serving version of events, and rumors started that Alaska class was somehow imposed upon a more far sighted officer corp.

I would go further and add that, had the Soviet Union possessed better and more heavy cruisers in 1945, Alaska class could actually not have been seen as so useless. Instead it would have been seen as the economic solution to Soviet cruiser threat compared to the wild extravagance of using the Iowa class. It was only the fact that Soviet Navy had nothing that couldn't have been dealt with by a Baltimore class CA that put the Alaska class so swiftly out of favor. The designers of Alaska, of course, could not have been faulted for having failed to predict this exact chain of events back in 1940.

[Admiral John Byng]

I think that these ships must have been overtaken by events.
If they were designed in 1940 then there clearly was a need for them as the loss of the Houston, Quincy, Canberra, Exeter etc. shows that the Japanese were experts in the use of cruisers at the beginning of the war and could use them to great effect.

By the time they were complete they had become a footnote to WWII.

Lovely looking ships.

[JWintjes]

I would go further and add that, had the Soviet Union possessed better and more heavy cruisers in 1945, Alaska class could actually not have been seen as so useless. Instead it would have been seen as the economic solution to Soviet cruiser threat compared to the wild extravagance of using the Iowa class. It was only the fact that Soviet Navy had nothing that couldn't have been dealt with by a Baltimore class CA that put the Alaska class so swiftly out of favor. The designers of Alaska, of course, could not have been faulted for having failed to predict this exact chain of events back in 1940.

Now that is a most interesting line of argument - and one I find (most shockingly! ) very convincing. I always thought that the Alaskas were all that the Baltimores were not - big cruisers able to take on every other cruiser and big enough to have lots of upgrade capability built into them.

Of course, the only really important thing is looks - and in that they are really hard to beat; normally I'm not a big fan of US warship architecture, but the Alaskas are beauties, plain and simple.

Jorit

[Marco_Trigo]

I agree with Chuck too. It makes perfect sense and the Alaskas would have been looked at differently if war and post-war would not have gone the way it did, no prejudice to which weapons were or weren't more valuable.

If the Battle Of Sammar hadn't turned into one of the IJN's greatest blunders, I have the feeling never again would a carrier-based force be left without cruiser or battleship support and the Alaskas would have been great escorts for such situations. As it turned out, the carriers and destroyers were perfectly capable of standing up for themselves.

Marco

[Robin]

I always wondered why the USN didn't look at them for conversion to CLGs like the the Baltimore and Cleveland class. With their size much more room to hold more missiles and greater room for FLag Staff (Staff always bitched about having more space to use). Naval bombment during Viet would have been better with the 12" guns vs the 8" guns. Materialize they were in great shape for a longer service life. Just a thought.

[chuck]

I always wondered why the USN didn't look at them for conversion to CLGs like the the Baltimore and Cleveland class. With their size much more room to hold more missiles and greater room for FLag Staff (Staff always bitched about having more space to use). Naval bombment during Viet would have been better with the 12" guns vs the 8" guns. Materialize they were in great shape for a longer service life. Just a thought.

Because they cost much more to run than Baltimore or Cleveland. Having a lot more missiles than, say, Albany, is not necessarily an advantage. If you envision a protracted engagement where the Soviets drip attack planes in one at a time, then Okay. But against massed raids, the key would be how many missile engagements can you effectively control at the same time. In this case, unless you can control many more missiles from large ships, having big ships with lots of missiles merely increases the chances that ships will be disabled or blown up with a lot of unfired missiles still onboard.

[Dick J]

Actually, the USN did look at them for that. In fact, the incomplete Hawaii had her armament stripped for that purpose. (And was then switched to the command ship program, another proposed conversion that was cancelled.) However, it was determined that Baltimore and Cleveland conversions were, as Chuck said, much more economical to operate. In addition, if the Baltimore/Cleveland program was successful, there were more hulls available for future emergency mobilization requirements, making the design work there even more cost effective than anything for the three Alaska hulls.

[Robin]

I always wondered why the USN didn't look at them for conversion to CLGs like the the Baltimore and Cleveland class. With their size much more room to hold more missiles and greater room for FLag Staff (Staff always bitched about having more space to use). Naval bombment during Viet would have been better with the 12" guns vs the 8" guns. Materialize they were in great shape for a longer service life. Just a thought.

Because they cost much more to run than Baltimore or Cleveland. Having a lot more missiles than, say, Albany, is not necessarily an advantage. If you envision a protracted engagement where the Soviets drip attack planes in one at a time, then Okay. But against massed raids, the key would be how many missile engagements can you effectively control at the same time. In this case, unless you can control many more missiles from large ships, having big ships with lots of missiles merely increases the chances that ships will be disabled or blown up with a lot of unfired missiles still onboard.

Chuck,

You have to understand its called Depth in Defense. Soviets were going to come by mass raid. So it starts by having CAP first then the long range missiles followed by mid-range then short range (simple theory) followed by CAP again then guns. Thush the development of the Three Ts Talos, Terrier and Tarter. Also it would have been massed wave after massed wave so the need for more missiles storage. Thats what was taught to me as a young sailor in the 70s. Being a Operation Spelistist I was taught ideas of defense layering for the battle group and why certain formations were used. Granted the officers were taught more, but working in CIC I had to know the thoeries too and what types of missiles were used againist certain aircraft. I understand the economical aspect of the Baltimore and Cleveland, but during the Viet war 8" guns had problems with shore bombment. Thats why the Navy used the New Jersay again for the big bang. So, maybe the Navy out thought its self or gov't restrictions on money. I believe the push for Nuc ships may have a part in it too. Not trying to start anything, but I do understand the need for more missile storage and flag staff room. Ships of that size had more room for comms too which plays a big part. During the First Gulf War a Spurance can was more valuable with a VLS mag than the BBs because of holding more Tomahawks. For mission planning the missile cap of a ship was always taken in to thought. Think it comes down to all kinds of reasons of why the Alaska was discarded so quickly. Too bad I think they were good ships to have.

[Filipe Ramires]

Greetings,

While American submarines appear to have been a lot more adequate at destroying Japanese cruisers, Japanese cruisers faired a lot better against their American and English counterparts than their submarines.

Basically what made the IJN cruisers apparently so successful early in the Pacific War was that they were fighting against a numerical inferior force and with little to no organization or doctrine...it was the ABDA Force. In Guadalcanal what played the most important role it was the Long-Lance torpedoes that were carried by most of the IJN cruisers and destroyers...that's as far as I can tell their only advantage against their adversaries. Also Guadalcanal was still an early campaign where the Allies were still learning (sometimes in the bad way) how to conduct operations and skilfully trained and experienced IJN Officers like Mikawa, Tanaka and Hara had their chances of victory. I believe that the success attributed to the IJN heavy cruisers gets a lot of boost when we speak of the First Battle of Savo but never before or after they were able to do a similar action with such results. The following Solomons Campaign, with a more seasoned Allied surface forces and with improved radars, etc made the IJN cruisers much less effective.

English surface forces also proved highly efficient against Italian and German cruisers. Their submarines? Not so much.

If I recall correctly no German cruiser was ever sunk by British surface forces during WWII, however RN submarines bagged one light cruiser and damaged a lot of the DKM capital ships sometimes more then once. In the Mediterranean Italian cruisers were also lost to submarine attacks but the RN submarines were far more keen and instructed to attack and sink the supply convoys to North Africa on which they did a lot of damage.

Just finished rereading Hara's Japanese Destroyer Captain book. You have to admire the skill of many of the Japanese surface warriors like Hara. The fact they lasted over a year in the same arena with the rapidly expanding USN says alot for the individual fighting spirit of Japanese sailors.

Finished that book a couple of months ago as well. I must confess it was one of the best readings I've read in the last few years. The Guadalcanal and Solomons Campaign pretty much shows how narrow minded the IJN minds could be sometimes.

As it turned out, the carriers and destroyers were perfectly capable of standing up for themselves.

They managed that because Kurita decided to withdraw. It's not that simple. The IJN Force present at the day was far superior in numbers however it was under air attack for several days therefore their crews tired from constant readiness alerts and attacks. The strategy used by Kurita could have been more successful and possibly to turn out in a small victory to the IJN if they had proper intelligence of the whereabouts of the other USN surface forces; if Kurita had committed or able to do so his destroyers properly (torpedoes were fired at great ranges and none found its mark); etc etc etc...the list is long. Properly used that IJN force and in proper conditions that Taffy force wasn't supposed to survive regardless of brave acts of the USN escorts...half a dozen of destroyers plus unshielded "pants down" CVE's wouldn't have been no matches for a determined and organised force as Kurita's one could have been.