Ticonderoga-class cruiser

The Ticonderoga-class of guided-missile cruisers is a class of warships in the United States Navy, first ordered and authorized in the 1978 fiscal year. The class uses phased-array radar and was originally planned as a class of destroyers. However, the increased combat capability offered by the Aegis combat system and the AN/SPY-1 radar system was used to justify the change of the classification from DDG (guided missile destroyer) to CG (guided-missile cruiser) shortly before the keels were laid down for the USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) and the USS Yorktown (CG-48).

Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers are multirole warships. Their Mk. 41 VLS can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike strategic or tactical targets, or fire long-range antiaircraft Standard Missiles for defense against aircraft or antiship missiles. Their LAMPS III helicopters and sonar systems allow them to perform antisubmarine missions. Ticonderoga-class ships are designed to be elements of carrier battle groups, amphibious assault groups, as well as performing missions such as interdiction or escort.

Of the 27 completed vessels, 19 were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding and eight by Bath Iron Works (BIW). All but one (USS Thomas S. Gates (CG-51)) of the ships in the class are named for noteworthy events in U.S. military history, and at least twelve; USS Ticonderoga (CG-47), USS Cowpens (CG-63), USS Anzio (CG-68), USS Yorktown (CG-48), USS Valley Forge (CG-50), USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), USS Antietam (CG-54), USS San Jacinto (CG-56), USS Lake Champlain (CG-57), USS Philippine Sea (CG-58), USS Princeton (CG-59), USS Monterey (CG-61), and USS Vella Gulf (CG-72); share their names with World War II aircraft carriers.

Shoot down of Iran Air Flight 655
One ship of the class, the USS Vincennes (CG-49), became infamous in 1988 when she shot down Iran Air Flight 655, resulting in 290 civilian deaths. The commanding officer of the USS Vincennes, William C. Rogers III, had believed the airliner was an Iranian Air Force F-14 Tomcat fighter jet on an attack vector, based on reports of radar returns, revealed to be misinterpreted. The investigation report recommended that the AEGIS large screen display be changed to allow the display of altitude information on plots, and that stress factors on personnel using AEGIS be studied.

Interception of United States satellite USA-193
On 14 February 2008, the United States Department of Defense announced that the USS Shiloh (CG-67) and USS Lake Erie (CG-70) would attempt to hit the dead satellite USA-193 over the North Pacific Ocean just before it would burn up on reentry. On 20 February 2008, at approximately 22:30 EST (21 Feb, 03:30 UTC), an SM-3 missile was fired from the Lake Erie and struck the satellite. The military intended that the missile's kinetic energy would rupture the hydrazine fuel tank allowing the toxic fuel to be consumed during re-entry. The Department of Defense confirmed that the fuel tank had been directly hit by the missile.

Possible early retirement
Due to Budget Control Act of 2011 requirements to cut the Defense Budget for FY2013 and subsequent years, plans are being considered to decommission some of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers. For the U.S. Defense 2013 Budget Proposal, the U.S. Navy is to decommission seven cruisers early in fiscal years 2013 and 2014.

Because of these retirements, the U.S. Navy is expected to fall short of its requirement for 94 missile defense cruisers and destroyers beginning in FY 2025 and continuing past the end of the 30-year planning period. While this is a new requirement as of 2011, and the U.S. Navy has historically never had so many large missile-armed surface combatants, the relative success of the AEGIS ballistic missile defense system has shifted this national security requirement onto the U.S. Navy. Critics have charged that the early retirement of these cruisers will leave the Navy's ship fleet too small for the nation's defense tasks as the U.S. enacts a policy of "pivot" to the Western Pacific, a predominantly maritime theater. The U.S. House has passed a budget bill to require that these cruisers instead be refitted to handle the missile defense role.

By October 2012, the U.S. Navy had decided not to retire four of the cruisers early in order to maintain the size of the fleet. Four Ticonderoga-class cruisers, plus 21 Arleigh Burke–class destroyers, are scheduled to be equipped to be capable of antiballistic missile and antisatellite operations.

Design


The Ticonderoga-class cruiser's design was based on that of the Spruance-class destroyer. The Ticonderoga–class introduced a new generation of guided missile warships based on the AEGIS phased array radar that is capable of simultaneously scanning for threats, tracking targets, and guiding missiles to interception. When they were designed, they had the most powerful electronic warfare equipment in the U.S. Navy, as well as the most advanced underwater surveillance system. These ships were one of the first classes of warships to be built in modules, rather than being assembled from the bottom up.

Operations research was used to study manpower requirements on the Ticonderoga class. It was found that four officers and 44 enlisted sailors could be removed from the ship's complement by removing traditional posts that had been made obsolete.

Vertical Launching System


In addition to the added radar capability, the Ticonderoga-class ships subsequently built after the USS Thomas S. Gates included two Mark 41 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS). The two VLS allow the ship to have 122 missile storage and launching tubes that can carry a wide variety of missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, Standard surface-to-air missile, Evolved Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile, and ASROC antisubmarine warfare (ASW) guided rockets. More importantly, the VLS enables all missiles to be on full stand-by at any given time, shortening the warship's response time before firing. The original five ships (Ticonderoga, Yorktown, Vincennes, Valley Forge, and Thomas S. Gates) had Mark 26 twin-arm launchers that limited their missile capacity to a total of 88 missiles, and that could not fire the Tomahawk missile. After the end of the Cold War, the lower capabilities of the original five warships limited them to duties close to the home waters of the United States. These ship's cluttered superstructure, inherited from the Spruance-class destroyers, required two of their external radar units 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. The later AEGIS warships, designed from-the-keel-up to carry the SPY-1 radars, have them all clustered together.

The high weight of these warships - about 1,500 tons heavier than the Spruance-class, 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.

Upgrades
Originally, the U.S. 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; however, severe budget cuts from the 21st century surface combatant program coupled with the increasing cost of the Zumwalt-class destroyer guided missile destroyer program resulted in the CG(X) program being canceled. The Ticonderoga-class cruisers will instead be replaced by Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers.

All five of the twin-arm (Mk-26) cruisers have been decommissioned. In 2003, the newer 22 of the 27 ships (CG-52 to CG-73) in the class were 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.

As of July 2013, 12 cruisers have completed hull, mechanical, and electrical (HM&E) upgrades. 8 cruisers have had combat systems upgrades. These include an upgrade of the AEGIS computing infrastructure with the SPQ-9B radar system, incorporating computing technology, fiber optics, and software upgrades, and modifications to the vertical launch system to fire the RIM-162 ESSM. Another upgrade is improving the SQQ-89A(V)15 sonar with a multi-function towed array. Hull, sonar, radar, electrical, computer, and weapons systems upgrades can cost up to $250 million per ship.