Ticonderoga class cruiser

Ticonderoga Class Cruiser

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Ticonderoga class cruiser

The Ticonderoga class of missile cruisers is a class of warship
Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way than cargo ship....
s in the United States Navy
United States Navy

The United States Navy is the navy of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy currently has approximately 331,682 personnel on active duty as of 31 December 2008 and 124,000 in the United States Navy Reserve....
, first ordered and authorized in FY 1978. The class uses phased-array radar
Radar

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
; the increased combat capability offered by the Aegis combat system
Aegis combat system

The Aegis combat system is an integrated weapons system used by the United States Navy. It is both an integrated single ship system and a ship-to-ship network....
and the AN/SPY-1
AN/SPY-1

The AN/SPY-1 is a United States US Navy radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The array is a passive electronically scanned array system, it is a key component of the Aegis combat system....
radar system justified the changing of the classification of and from DDG (guided missile destroyer
Destroyer

In navy terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a Naval fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-range but powerful attackers ....
) to CG (guided missile cruiser
Cruiser

A cruiser is a large type of warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. The first cruisers were intended for individual raiding and protection missions on the seas....
). Vincennes and Valley Forge may or may not have been authorized as DDGs; regardless, the DDG sequence continued with as DDG-51.

Of the twenty-seven built vessels, nineteen were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding
Ingalls Shipbuilding

Ingalls Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA, originally established in 1938, and is now part of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems....
and eight by Bath Iron Works
Bath Iron Works

Bath Iron Works is a shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine. Since its foundation in 1884 by Thomas W. Hyde, Bath Iron Works has built private, commercial and warship....
(BIW).

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Ticonderoga class cruiser'

Start a new discussion about 'Ticonderoga class cruiser'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

The Ticonderoga class of missile cruisers is a class of warship
Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way than cargo ship....
s in the United States Navy
United States Navy

The United States Navy is the navy of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy currently has approximately 331,682 personnel on active duty as of 31 December 2008 and 124,000 in the United States Navy Reserve....
, first ordered and authorized in FY 1978. The class uses phased-array radar
Radar

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
; the increased combat capability offered by the Aegis combat system
Aegis combat system

The Aegis combat system is an integrated weapons system used by the United States Navy. It is both an integrated single ship system and a ship-to-ship network....
and the AN/SPY-1
AN/SPY-1

The AN/SPY-1 is a United States US Navy radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The array is a passive electronically scanned array system, it is a key component of the Aegis combat system....
radar system justified the changing of the classification of and from DDG (guided missile destroyer
Destroyer

In navy terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a Naval fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-range but powerful attackers ....
) to CG (guided missile cruiser
Cruiser

A cruiser is a large type of warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. The first cruisers were intended for individual raiding and protection missions on the seas....
). Vincennes and Valley Forge may or may not have been authorized as DDGs; regardless, the DDG sequence continued with as DDG-51.

Of the twenty-seven built vessels, nineteen were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding
Ingalls Shipbuilding

Ingalls Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA, originally established in 1938, and is now part of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems....
and eight by Bath Iron Works
Bath Iron Works

Bath Iron Works is a shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine. Since its foundation in 1884 by Thomas W. Hyde, Bath Iron Works has built private, commercial and warship....
(BIW). At least twelve of the “Ticos”, ( , , , , , , , , , , and ), share names with World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
aircraft carriers.

Vertical Launching System
In addition to the added radar
Radar

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
capability, the Ticonderoga class built after the Thomas S. Gates are outfitted with two Vertical Launching System
Vertical Launching System

A Vertical Launching System is a type of missile-firing system used aboard the submarines and surface vessels of several navy around the world....
s (or VLS). The two VLS allow the ship to have 122 launch tubes that can carry a wide variety of missiles, including the Tomahawk
BGM-109 Tomahawk

The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile is a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile. Introduced by General Dynamics in the 1970s, it was designed as a medium- to long-range, low-altitude missile that could be launched from a submerged submarine....
cruise missile
Cruise missile

A cruise missile is a guided missile missile that carries an explosive payload and uses a lifting wing and a propulsion system, usually a jet engine, to allow sustained flight; it is essentially a flying bomb....
, the Standard
RIM-66 Standard

The RIM-66 Standard MR is a medium range surface-to-air missile originally developed for the United States Navy . The SM-1 was developed as a replacement for the RIM-2 and RIM-24 Tartar deployed in the 1950s on a variety of USN ships....
surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile

A surface to air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft. It is a type of anti-aircraft....
, the Evolved Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile

A surface to air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft. It is a type of anti-aircraft....
, and the ASROC
ASROC

ASROC is an all-weather, all sea-conditions anti-submarine missile system. Developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s, it was deployed in the 1960s, updated in the 1990s, and eventually installed on over 200 USN surface ships, specifically cruiser , destroyers, and frigates....
anti-submarine missile. More importantly, the VLS enables all missiles to be on full stand-by at any given time, shortening the ship's response time. The original five ships, including the Thomas S. Gates, had MK. 26 twin arm launchers which limited their missile capacity to a total of 88 missiles, and could not fire the Tomahawk missile. After the end of the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
, the lower capabilities of the original five ships limited them to home-waters duties. The ship's cluttered superstructure, inherited from the Spruance class destroyer
Spruance class destroyer

The Spruance-class destroyer was developed by the United States to replace a large number of World War II-built Allen M. Sumner class destroyer and Gearing class destroyer destroyers, and was the primary destroyer built for the United States Navy during the 1970s....
s , required two of the radar transceivers to be mounted on a special pallet on the portside aft corner of the superstructure, with the other two mounted on the forward starboard corner. Later Aegis ships, designed from the keel up to carry the SPY-1 radars, have them all clustered together. The high weight of the ships - 1,500 tons heavier than the "Spru-cans", resulted in a highly-stressed hull and some structural problems in early service, which were generally corrected in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Several ships had superstructure cracks which had to be repaired.

Upgrade
Originally, the Navy had intended to replace its fleet of Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers with cruisers produced as part of the CG(X) missile cruiser program
CG(X)

The CG is a US Navy program to replace its 22 Ticonderoga class cruiser cruisers after 2017. Original plans were for 18-19 ships, based on the 14,500 ton Zumwalt class destroyer destroyer but providing ballistic missile defense and area air defense for a carrier group....
; however, severe budget cuts from the 21st century surface combatant program
SC21 (United States)

SC-21 was a program started in 1994 to design land attack ships for the United States Navy. A wide variety of designs were examined, including an Arsenal Ship with 500 cruise missiles, but eventually a "tumblehome" design of around 16,000 tons with two long-range guns and 128 missile tubes was selected as the DD-21, the Destro...
coupled with the increasing cost of the guided missile destroyer
Guided missile destroyer

A guided missile destroyer is a destroyer designed to launch guided missiles. Many are also equipped to carry out Anti-submarine warfare, Anti-aircraft warfare, and ASUW Modern Naval tactics....
program have led to wide spread rumors that the CG(X) program was cancelled. If this is in fact correct, then the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers do not yet have an intended replacement.

All five of the twin-arm (Mk-26) cruisers have been decommissioned. The newer 22 of the 27 ships (CG-52 to CG-73) in the class will be upgraded to keep them combat-relevant, giving the ships a service life of 35 years each. In the years leading up to their decommissioning, the five twin-arm ships had been assigned primarily home-waters duties, acting as command ships for destroyer squadrons assigned to the eastern Pacific and western Atlantic areas.

Iran Air Flight 655 Shot Down
One ship of the class, the , became infamous in 1988 when she shot down Iran Air Flight 655
Iran Air Flight 655

Iran Air Flight 655, also known as IR655, was a civilian airliner shot down by United States Surface to air missile on Sunday 3 July 1988, over the Strait of Hormuz, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War....
, resulting in 290 civilian fatalities, which the captain of the Vincennes, William C. Rogers III
William C. Rogers III

Captain William C. Rogers III, commonly known as Will C. Rogers III, was an officer in the United States Navy and is most notable as the captain of USS Vincennes , a Ticonderoga class cruiser with the Aegis combat system....
, had believed from reports of (misinterpreted) radar returns to be an Iranian Air Force
Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

The 'Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force' is the air force of the Iranian armed forces....
F-14 Tomcat
F-14 Tomcat

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing aircraft. The F-14 was the United States Navy's primary maritime air superiority fighter, fleet defense Interceptor aircraft and tactical reconnaissance platform from 1974 to 2006....
jet fighter on an attack vector. The USS Vincennes was decommissioned in 2005.

Interception of United States satellite USA-193

On February 14, 2008, the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the Military of the United States....
announced that the Lake Erie and two other ships would attempt to hit the dead satellite USA 193
USA 193

USA 193, also known as NRO launch 21 , was an United States military spy satellite launched on December 14, 2006. It was the first launch conducted by the United Launch Alliance....
in the north Pacific just prior to burn up during a period after February 20 using a modified SM-3 missile. On February 21, 2008, at approximately 3:30 UTC, the missile was fired and later confirmed to have struck the satellite. The military intended that the kinetic energy of the missile would rupture the hydrazine
Hydrazine

Hydrazine is a chemical compound with the chemical formula N2H4. It is a colourless liquid with an ammonia-like odor and is derived from the same industrial chemistry processes that manufacture ammonia....
fuel tank allowing the toxic fuel to be consumed during re-entry. On February 24, the Department of Defense confirmed that the fuel tank had been directly hit by the missile.

Units

Ship Name Hull No. Builder Commission–
Decommission Disposition Link
CG-47 Ingalls 1983–2004 Stricken, available for donation as a museum and memorial
CG-48 Ingalls 1984–2004 Stricken, to be disposed of
CG-49 Ingalls 1985–2005 Stricken, to be disposed of
CG-50 Ingalls 1986–2004 Disposed of in support of Fleet training exercise
CG-51 BIW 1987–2005 Stricken, to be disposed of
CG-52 Ingalls 1986–
CG-53 Ingalls 1987–
CG-54 Ingalls 1987–
CG-55 Ingalls 1987–
CG-56 Ingalls 1988–
CG-57 Ingalls 1988–
CG-58 BIW 1989–
CG-59 Ingalls 1989–
CG-60 BIW 1989-
CG-61 BIW 1990–
CG-62 Ingalls 1989–
CG-63 BIW 1991–
CG-64 BIW 1991–
CG-65 Ingalls 1991–
CG-66 Ingalls 1991–
CG-67 BIW 1992–
CG-68 Ingalls 1992–
CG-69 Ingalls 1992–
CG-70 BIW 1993–
CG-71 Ingalls 1993–
CG-72 Ingalls 1993–
CG-73 Ingalls 1994–

External links