Wichita is presented as a bridge between the New Orleans, Brooklyn, and later Baltimore approaches. Her wartime service ranges from Torch and Casablanca to the Arctic and Pacific, but the main attraction here is design coherence. A Brooklyn-derived hull and machinery were combined with New Orleans-style heavy armament using elements the US Navy already understood. The discussion treats her as the point at which decades of US cruiser experimentation produced a convincing balanced heavy cruiser.
Chapter · 0:26-6:23
Why USS Wichita is the favourite cruiser
USS Wichita, rather than a more famous class, is the favourite cruiser here because she brings several US cruiser-design lines together in one balanced ship.