All Wood Ships: Albany Class Guided Missile Cruisers: CA-74/CG-12 USS Columbus

The Albany Class resulted from guided missile conversions of Baltimore and Oregon City class heavy cruisers. All original superstructure and weapons were removed and replaced. This work involved removing all the guns and original upper decks plus much of the interior.

The conversion saw the erection of a new superstructure which was very high and carried an extensive array of radar antennas and other electronic gear. Launchers and magazines for the long-range Talos missiles were installed fore and aft, while a smaller launcher for the Tartar missiles was fitted on each side of the superstructure.

Anti-submarine armament included an eight tube launcher for ASROC placed amidships and four triple Mk-32 torpedo tubes were also added, two per side.

The ship's appearance and capabilities were thus completely altered. Converted as all-missile warships, the two 5-inch guns with open mounts (one per side) ) were added after the conversion was completed.

Albany Class Guided Missile Cruisers
Ship	Commissioned	Decommissioned
CA-123/CG-10 Albany	1946	1990
CA-136/CG-11 Chicago	1945	1991
CA- 74/CG-12 Columbus	1945	1975

The new class of three ships entered service in 1962 to 1964. The final two conversions - CA-124 USS Rochester and CA-130 USS Bremerton - were cancelled. The entire class was taken out of service and disposed of by the early 1990's.

Albany Class specifications
Length	674 feet
Beam	71 feet
Displacement	17,200 tons, 18,900 tons with full load
Power Plant	Four 615psi boilers driving geared turbines
Screws + SHP	4 shafts 120,000 hp total
Speed	32 knots
Complement	1,272
Aircraft	None - hover area only
Armament	2 twin Talos SAM launchers (104 missiles), 2 twin Tartar SAM launchers (84 missiles), 1 Mk-16 ASROC 8-tube launcher, 2 5-inch gun, 4 triple Mk-32 torpedo tubes

Laid down in 1943 by Bethlehem Steel Co. at its Fore River yard in Quincy, Massachusetts, USS Columbus was commissioned as a Baltimore Class heavy cruiser on June 8th, 1945.

Joining the Pacific Fleet, Columbus reached Tsingtao China, January 13th, 1946 for occupation duty. On April 1st, she helped to sink 24 Japanese submarines (prizes of war) and next day sailed for San Pedro, California. For the remainder of the year, she operated in west coast waters, then made a second Far Eastern cruise from January to June 1947.

After west coast operations and overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Columbus cleared Bremerton April 12th, 1948 to join the Atlantic Fleet, arriving at Norfolk, Virginia., May 19th. The ship made two cruises as flagship of Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean (September 1948 to December 1949 and June 1950 to October 1951) and one as flagship of Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, during parts of the NATO Operation "Main Brace" from August to September, 1952.

Mediterranean: October 1952 through January 1953 serving part of that time as flagship of the 6th Fleet.
Mediterranean: September 1954 to January 1955 flagship of Cruiser Division 6
Reassigned to Pacific Fleet: From Boston to Long Beach, California in November 1955
Yokosuka, Japan: January to July 1956
Far East: 1957 and again in 1958
Decommissioned: May 8th, 1959
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard: converted to guided missile cruiser and reclassified CG-12 September 30th, 1959
Re-commissioned: December 1st 1962. All but "Columbus" were modernized in 1970 and it was this that lead to her being the first of the class to be laid up.
Decommissioned on January 31st, 1975, she was stricken in 1976, sold for scrap the following year and broken up.
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Signal flags as per the client's request
are included in the sale of most ship models.