Strike cruiser

The strike cruiser (proposed hull designator: CSGN) was a proposal from DARPA for a class of cruisers in the late 1970s. The proposal was for the strike cruiser to be a guided missile attack cruiser with a displacement of around 17,200 long tons (17,500 t), armed and equipped with the Aegis combat system, the SM-2, Harpoon anti-ship missile, the Tomahawk missile, and the Mk71 8-inch gun. A prototype strike cruiser was to be the refurbished USS Long Beach at a cost of roughly $800 million, considered because she already carried phased array radars in her SCANFAR system; however, this never came to pass, as the conversion would need to be extensive, stripping the ship down to its hull. Originally, eight to twelve strike cruisers were projected. The class would have been complemented by the Aegis-equipped fleet defense (DDG-47) version of the Spruance-class destroyer, under Elmo Zumwalt's "High-Low" fleet plan. Plagued with design difficulties and escalating cost, the project was canceled in the closing days of the Ford administration, with only design studies and seaworthiness experiments being finished. After the cancellation of the class, the Aegis destroyers were expanded into the Ticonderoga class (CG-47) Aegis cruiser program. An intermediate-size design based on the Virginia class was briefly considered, but also rejected. The design of the Strike Cruiser can to this day be seen on the official Aegis Combat System program office insignia, as the system was initially designed for it.