Cruiser Roles and Missions - Public Release

At the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) Annual Meeting, June 19, 2006, Mr. Philip Sims presented a paper entitled, "A summary of Cruiser Roles and Missions." This paper was a summary of a previous effort by the Navy’s Ship and Force Architecture Concepts (SFAC) Division (NAVSEA 05D1). It is this previous effort, Report SFAC-9030-C1, written in 2005 by a group of several authors with Mr. Sean Walsh of Alion Science and Technology being the general editor and Mr. Sims the Navy sponsor, which is presented here. The most eminent of the authors is certainly Mr. William Garzke, well known for his books on battleships published by the U.S. Naval Institute starting in 1976. In the shorter, more recent Sims paper, the subject is tied into recent analysis work aimed at a future "CG(X)" cruiser for the U.S. Navy, work that is still ongoing at this writing (March 2007). However, the authors of the longer paper focused more on the history of cruisers in the US Navy from the point of view of design, technology, and function. We thank Mr. Sims and his colleague Michael Bosworth for getting the paper approved for public release.

Historical Review of Cruiser Characteristics, Roles and Missions is available as a web page here and in PDF format here. [Note: the pdf file contains 120 pages and will open in a new window.]

Please note that the paper is long, and contains many images. It will therefore take a little time to load. If there is sufficient demand, we may divide it into smaller parts at a later date.

This paper has been made available by A. Steven Toby, Naval Architect, Hull Form & Performance, Alion Science & Technology Corporation, JJMA Maritime Sector - Alexandria. Steven Toby participated in the research and writing of the paper. The impetus to publish it here was inspired by participation in the International Marine History List at Queen's University, courtesy of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes, Kingston, Ontario.