Alaska-class cruiser

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The Alaska-class were six large cruisers ordered before World War II for the United States Navy (USN), of which only two were completed and saw service late in the war. The USN designation for ships of the class was "large cruiser" (assigned the hull symbol of "CB"), a designation unique to the Alaska-class, and the majority of leading reference works refer to them as such. However, various other works have alternately described these ships as battlecruisers despite the USN having never classified them as such, and having actively discouraged the use of the term in describing the class. Ships of the class are also sometimes referred to as "super cruisers". 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 (which were named after cities). The idea for a large cruiser class originated in the early 1930s when the USN sought...

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