The comparison corrects the impression that every exceptionally large cruiser approached battleship scale. Long Beach is given at roughly 15,500 tons, while an Iowa-class ship in late-1960s condition is placed around 61,000 tons fully loaded. That makes the nuclear cruiser only a little more than one quarter of the battleship's displacement. The figures provide a useful check on labels such as super-cruiser by anchoring them to actual mass.
Notable Point · 3:04:53-3:05:31
Why Long Beach was not battleship-sized
Long Beach was a large nuclear cruiser, but her roughly 15,500-ton displacement remained only about a quarter of a late-service Iowa-class battleship.