USS Long Beach (CGN-9)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "USS Long Beach" CGN-9 – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

USS Long Beach on 9 May 1973
Class overview
Builders	Bethlehem Steel Co., Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts
Preceded by	Providence-class cruiser
Succeeded by	Albany-class cruiser
Built	1957–1961
In commission	1961–1995
Completed	1
Retired	1
History
United States
Name	Long Beach
Namesake	Long Beach
Ordered	15 October 1956
Laid down	2 December 1957
Launched	14 July 1959
Sponsored by	Mrs. Marian Swanson-Hosmer
Acquired	1 September 1961
Commissioned	9 September 1961
Decommissioned	1 May 1995 (deactivated on 2 July 1994)
Reclassified	As CGN-9 1 July 1958
Stricken	1 May 1995
Motto	Strike Hard, Strike Home
Fate	A 423 foot section of the hull (propulsion block) remain at PSNS as of May 2018.
General characteristics
Class and type	Long Beach-class cruiser
Displacement	15,540 tons
Length	721 ft 3 in (219.84 m)
Beam	71 ft 6 in (21.79 m)
Draft	30 ft 7 in (9.32 m)
Propulsion	2 C1W nuclear reactors; 2 General Electric turbines; 80,000 shp (60 MW); 2 propellers
Speed	30 knots (56 km/h)
Range	Unlimited (nuclear)
Complement	1,160 officers and men
Sensors and processing systems	1 AN/SPS-10 surface search radar[1] AN/SPS-12 search radar[1] AN/SPS-32 bearing and range radar[1] AN/SPS-33 target tracking radar[1] AN/SPS-48 3D air search radar AN/SPS-49 2D air search radar 2 × AN/SPG-49 Talos fire control radar[1][2] 4 × AN/SPG-55 Terrier fire control radar[1][2] AN/SQS-23 SONAR[1]
Electronic warfare & decoys	AN/SLQ-32 SRBOC
Armament	2 × twin Mk-10 launchers with Terrier SAMs (later replaced with Standard ER SAMs) 1 × twin Mk-12 launcher with Talos SAMs (later removed) 1 × 8-cell ASROC launcher 2 × 5 in (127 mm) guns 2 × Mk-15 Vulcan-Phalanx 20mm CIWS 2 × triple 12.75 inch ASW torpedo tubes for Mk 44 or Mk 46 ASW torpedoes Launchers for 8 Harpoon missiles added later 2 Armored Box Launchers for a total of eight Tomahawk cruise missiles replaced the Talos launcher
Aviation facilities	landing pad available for one helicopter

USS Long Beach (CLGN-160/CGN-160/CGN-9) was a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser in the United States Navy and the world's first nuclear-powered surface combatant.^[3] She was the third Navy ship named after the city of Long Beach, California.

She was the sole member of the Long Beach-class, and the last cruiser built for the United States Navy to a cruiser design; all subsequent cruiser classes were built on scaled-up destroyer hulls (and originally classified as destroyer leaders) or, in the case of the Albany-class, converted from already existing cruisers.^{[citation needed]}

Long Beach was laid down 2 December 1957, launched 14 July 1959 and commissioned 9 September 1961 under the command of then-Captain Eugene Parks Wilkinson, who previously served as the first commanding officer of the world's first nuclear-powered vessel, the submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571). She was deployed to Vietnam during the Vietnam War and served numerous times in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. But by the 1990s, nuclear power was deemed too expensive to use on surface ships smaller than an aircraft carrier in view of defense budget cutbacks after the end of the Cold War. Long Beach was decommissioned on 1 May 1995 instead of receiving her third nuclear refueling and proposed upgrade. After removal of the nuclear fuel, superstructure, and sections of the bow and stern, the hull segment containing the reactor and machinery spaces was moored at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and sold for scrap.