A Long Beach hull for the Aegis cruiser

USS Long Beach is compared at 219.84 meters long and 21.79 meters wide with a Ticonderoga at 173 by 16.8 meters, while displacing roughly 15,500 tons fully loaded. Her quoted 9.32-meter draft is also shallower than the Ticonderoga's 10.2 meters. Replacing her original missile launchers with two large Mark 41 arrays could yield 186 usable cells with the period reloading cranes, or 192 after those cranes were removed. That gives the proposed ship about fifty percent more missile depth than a Ticonderoga while retaining two 5-inch guns, anti-submarine weapons, Harpoon, and a helicopter hangar. The larger hull also offers more room for command facilities and a layout that does not place operators across the full beam as the ship rolls. Panels mounted about ten meters higher could extend the radar horizon and provide more warning time. Gas turbines could avoid nuclear cost while fuel capacity and hull volume support carrier-group endurance. The sketch turns the cruiser into a magazine, sensor, and command backstop rather than a slightly enlarged destroyer.