USS Longbeach CGN9

A Warship Born of the Atomic Age  

I was on the USS Longbeach from July 76 to July 79.

 

The nuclear powered guided missile cruiser USS Long Beach (CGN-9) under construction at the Fore River Shipyard at Quincy, Massachusetts on 2 July 1959.

Longbeach was notable for being the last cruiser of the USN to use a traditional cruiser style hull based on those used during World War II. Following cruisers would be built on Frigate or Destroyer hulls.

An artist's impression of USS Long Beach (CGN-9) in her AEGIS cruiser configuration.

The United States Navy hoped to refit all of its nuclear cruisers and convert them into AEGIS equipped warships. USS Long Beach would have received a radical new appearance, losing her entire superstructure for a newer, more compact type.

Her weaponry was never sorted out as several different proposals were considered. She would have likely carried a heavy battery of harpoon anti-ship missiles. Proposals show either Mark 26 missile launchers (As seen in the photo) or potentially VLS for the anti-air missiles. For guns, the refitted Long Beach was depicted in both single and doubled ended configurations. More than likely two 5"/54 guns would have been carried, but a few proposals saw as many as two 8"/55 Mark 71 guns being carried.

Unfortunately, budget cuts in the early 1990s as well as a shift away from nuclear powered cruisers saw the proposals canned with Long Beach being decommissioned soon after.

 

 

The scrapping of USS Long Beach (CGN-9) marked the end of a remarkable chapter in naval history — the era of nuclear-powered surface combatants.

 

Commissioned in 1961, Long Beach was the first nuclear-powered surface warship ever built. She represented the optimism and technological ambition of the Cold War, when the U.S. Navy believed nuclear propulsion could give cruisers unlimited range, sustained high speed, and freedom from traditional fuel logistics. With her distinctive box-shaped superstructure and missile-focused design, Long Beach looked like a ship from the future when she first put to sea.

 

Over time, however, the Navy learned that nuclear propulsion made more sense for submarines and aircraft carriers than for cruisers. The cost of maintaining and refueling nuclear reactors in surface ships proved too high compared to newer gas-turbine vessels. Long Beach was decommissioned in 1995, closing the operational life of a ship that had served through the height of the Cold War and the Vietnam War.

 

Dismantling a nuclear-powered warship is far more complex than scrapping a conventional ship. The process began with the careful removal of nuclear fuel from the ship’s two reactors. Once defueled, and transfered to WA workers cut out the entire reactor compartment section of the hull, sealed it for containment, and scheduled it for transport by barge to the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State, where U.S. Navy reactor compartments are safely stored in engineered disposal sites. (See Update) Only after the reactor section was removed could the rest of the ship be dismantled and recycled like a conventional vessel.

 

The end of USS Long Beach was not just the loss of a single ship — it was the closing of a bold experiment in naval engineering. She stood at the crossroads of the atomic age, the missile revolution, and the evolution of modern naval warfare. Today, Long Beach remains a reminder of a time when nuclear power was seen as the future of nearly every kind of warship.

 

Some ships represent victory. Others represent innovation. USS Long Beach represents both — and the lessons learned when technology meets reality at sea.

 

UPDATE: the reactor room section of the hull still exists today, painted, maintained and still floating in WA as apparently it’s too big to recycle and dispose of.