Ticonderoga class cruiser

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General Characteristics
Image:USS Lake Champlain (CG-57).JPG
Displacement:	9,800-10,100 tons full load.
Length:	567 ft (172.8 m) overall.
[[Beam (nautical)\|Beam]:	55 ft (16.8 m)
[[Draft (nautical)\|Draught]:	32 ft (9.7 m)
Propulsion:	4 × General Electric LM2500 gas turbines; 80,000 shp (60 MW); 2 x shafts.
Speed:	32.5 knots (60 km/h)
Range:	6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h); 3,300 nautical miles (6,000 km) at 30 knots (56 km/h).
Complement:	19 officers, 368 enlisted
Armament:	2 x 5 in (127 mm) 54 calibre Mark 45 dual purpose guns; 2 x 20 mm Phalanx CIWS Mark 15 guns; 2 x twin-arm Mark 26 missile launcher + 44 SM-2 Standard II missiles; CG-52 on replace these with 2 x 61-cell Mark 41 VLS each armed with a mix of ASROC, Tomahawk, SM-2 and ESSM.
Aircraft:	2 x Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk LAMPS III helicopters.
Radars:	4 x SPY-1B phased array multifunction (SPY-1A in CG 52-58), SPS-49(V)6 2-D air search, SPQ-9A search
Sonars:	SQQ-89(V)3 suite with SQS-53 LF active/passive bow mounted, SQR-19 TACTAS towed array (SQS-53A in CG 54-55, SQS-53B in CG 56-60, SQS-53C in CG 61-73) (CG 52-53: SQS-53A only)
EW:	SLQ-32(V)3 intercept/jammer, Mk36 or Mk50 SRBOC decoy RL, SLQ-25A Nixie torpedo countermeasure.

Ticonderoga class cruiser is a class of warships in the US Navy, first ordered and authorized in FY 1978. The class use phased-array radar; the increased combat capability offered by the Aegis combat system and the AN/SPY-1 radar system justified the changing of the classification of Ticonderoga and Yorktown from DDG (guided missile destroyer) to CG (guided missile cruiser). Vincennes and Valley Forge may or may not have been authorized as DDGs; regardless, the DDG sequence continued with USS Arleigh Burke as DDG-51.

In addition to the added radar capability, the Ticonderoga class built after Thomas S. Gates are outfitted with two Vertical Launching System (or VLS). The two VLS systems allow the ship to have 127 launch tubes that can carry a wide variety of missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, the Standard surface-to-air missile, and the ASROC anti-submarine missile. However, more importantly, the VLS system enables all missiles to be fully standing by at any given time, shortening the ship's reaction time. The original five ships, including Thomas S. Gates, had MK. 26 twin arm launchers and smaller magazines.

All five of the twin-arm "Ticos" have been decomissioned. The newer 22 of the 27 ships (CG-52 to CG-73) in the class will be upgraded to keep them combat-relevant, giving the ships a service life of 35 years each [1].

One ship of the class, USS Vincennes, became infamous in 1988 when she shot down Iran Air Flight 655 resulting in 290 civilian fatalities, which the captain of Vincennes had believed from misinterpreted radar returns was an Iranian Air Force F-14 Tomcat jet fighter on an attack vector. Vincennes was later decommissioned in 2005.

Of the "Ticos", at least six (Ticonderoga, Anzio,Yorktown, Valley Forge, Antietam and Princeton) share names with World War II aircraft carriers. Only one, Thomas S. Gates, is not named for a battle.

Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser
Image:USSChosinCG-65.jpg
Class Overview
Class type:	Guided missile cruiser
Class name:	Battle of Ticonderoga (1775)
Preceded by:	Virginia-class cruiser
Succeded by:	N/A - current authorized guided missile cruiser line
Ships of the line:	Antietam (CG-54), Anzio (CG-68), Bunker Hill (CG-52), Cape St. George (CG-71), Chancellorsville (CG-62), Chosin (CG-65), Cowpens (CG-63), Gettysburg (CG-64), Hué City (CG-66), Lake Champlain (CG-57), Lake Erie (CG-70), Leyte Gulf (CG-55), Mobile Bay (CG-53), Monterey (CG-61), Normandy (CG-60), Philippine Sea (CG-58), Port Royal (CG-73), Princeton (CG-59), San Jacinto (CG-56), Shiloh (CG-67), Thomas S. Gates (CG-51), Ticonderoga (CG-47), Valley Forge (CG-50), Vella Gulf (CG-72), Vicksburg (CG-69), Vincennes (CG-49), Yorktown (CG-48)