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Concept
Alaska-class cruiser
Summary
The Alaska class were six very large cruisers ordered before World War II for the United States Navy, of which only two were completed and saw service late in the war. The US Navy designation for the ships of this class was 'large cruiser' (CB) and the majority of leading reference works consider them as such. However, various other works have alternately described these ships as battlecruisers despite the US Navy having never classified them as such. The Alaskas were all named after territories or insular areas of the United States, signifying their intermediate status between larger battleships (which were mostly named after states) and smaller heavy and light cruisers.
The idea for a large cruiser class originated in the early 1930s when the U.S. Navy sought to counter the "pocket battleships" being launched by Germany. Planning for ships that eventually evolved into the Alaska class began in the late 1930s after the deployment of Germany's s and rumors that Japan was constructing a new large cruiser class, the B-65 cruiser. To serve as "cruiser-killers" capable of seeking out and destroying these post-treaty heavy cruisers, the class was given large guns of a new and expensive design, limited armor protection against 12-inch shells, and machinery capable of speeds of about .
Of the six planned, and were the only two to be completed; a third, Hawaii, was still building at the war's end and had its construction suspended on 16 April 1947, while the remaining three were cancelled. Alaska and Guam served with the U.S. Navy for the last year of World War II as bombardment ships and fast carrier escorts. They were decommissioned in 1947 after spending only 32 and 29 months in service, respectively.
Heavy cruiser development formalized between World War I and World War II due to the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and successor treaties and conferences, where the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed to limit heavy cruisers to 10,000 tons displacement with 8-inch main armament.
Official source
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