CL-145 Roanoke 1991

[TimothyC]

The Worcester class light cruisers, laid up in 1958 were sold for scrap in 1972. If they had survived however, they would have represented part of an alternative to the reactivation of the Iowa class. With three Salem and two Worcesters, the USN would have had as many as five large gun TLAM platforms in the 1980s. Seen here in her Operation Desert Shield fit, USS Roanoke and her sister served into the early 1990s before being laid back up with the end of the cold war.

In their late 1980s fit, the light cruisers mounted 32 TLAMs in eight Mk 143 boxes, eight Harpoons in Mk 141 mounts, a single Mk 29 GMLS for Sea Sparrow, and her forward battery of six 6"/47DP guns in three two-gun mounts.

[Hood]

That is a great idea! The Worcesters were good looking ships and giving them a rebuild like this would have been expensive and possibly not economically sound given their age, but they would have been potent ships.

[Colombamike]

TJ,
Do not put the forward/front missiles-canisters as close to 152mm guns.
When the 152mm firing, the blast-firing may damage the missiles (and more particularly their hyper-fragile/sensitive electronics)
and render them inoperative

[heuhen]

TJ,
Do not put the forward/front missiles-canisters as close to 152mm guns.
When the 152mm firing, the blast-firing may damage the missiles (and more particularly their hyper-fragile/sensitive electronics)
and render them inoperative

wasn't those canister armored?

[Rhade]

wasn't those canister armored?

Aye, the Mark 143 Armored Box Launcher.

[erik_t]

This is well-drawn and distinctly plausible.

Given the fact that Ticos have been soldiering around for ages with weatherproof-only Mk 141 canisters within a literal arm's reach of the muzzle of a Mk 45, I am reasonably confident the non-integral Tomahawk canisters within the armored housing of the Mk 143 would be quite resistant to 6" blast.

Probably you would not want to launch a Tomahawk through the blast of an actively firing gun, but I would not consider this to be a terrible operational limitation.

[eswube]

Probably not cost-effective at their age, but impressive!

[TimothyC]

Thank you for the compliments guys, I really do appreciate them. Also, a Thanks to Colo for the the layered file, and help understanding what was going on between the funnels were one of the 3"/50 structures were removed and room made for the boats.

That is a great idea! The Worcesters were good looking ships and giving them a rebuild like this would have been expensive and possibly not economically sound given their age, but they would have been potent ships.

Probably not cost-effective at their age, but impressive!

Some things to keep in mind: The ships in question served for about 10 years, and then were laid up. If kept post 1972, they would have been laid up for about twenty years prior to a 1980s reactivation. These numbers can be considered to be roughly analogous to the time periods for the Iowa class battleships that I'm using them to replace. Expanding from that the Iowa class ships historically had about 2700 crew in the 1950s, and 1800 in the 1980s. With the removal of fully half of the main battery on the Worcesters, I could see a crew compliment in the 1980s in the 12-1300 range, which really helps with operating costs. While they don't have explicit commonality with steam plants in the fleet (The Sacramento class AOEs each had half of an Iowa plant scavenged from the sets built for the Kentucky and the Illinois), we are not dealing with anything too out of the ordinary (620 psi boilers and ~30kshp turbines). Also, as I noted above, I really don't see the ships surviving past the end of the cold war, and the arrival of large numbers of VLS cells in refitted Spruances that allow for a distributed Tomahawk load out.

The main advantage to all of this would come from the fact that there were three Salems and two Worcesters, allowing for five platforms vs four Iowas - and the manning between the two options should come out to about the same.

[Shipright]

I really like this, congratulations on another great drawing!

If I could make a minor suggestion, the SH-60 feels wrong. They were still relatively new in 1991 and were primarily ASW platforms at this time. Without a hanger I doubt it would operate with an SH-60 varient. I would switch it to a flavor of SH-2. I think it would work better asthetically with the retro feel of the ship also.

[Colosseum]

Didn't the Iowa class battleships operate SH-60s in the 1990s? I'm not disagreeing with you, just don't know for sure