U.S. Navy Upgrades More Than a Third of Cruisers

The U.S. Navy is making progress modernizing its fleet of guided-missile cruisers, a class of warships engineered for anti-submarine warfare, surface missions and ballistic missile defense, service officials said.

The Ticonderoga-class of cruisers are engineered for Aegis ballistic missile defense, which uses a mix of computer, missile and radar technology to fire a Standard Missile-3 to knock an approaching enemy projectile out of the sky.

The 567-foot long warships are equipped with Tomahawk missiles, torpedoes, vertical launch tubes for SM-3s, SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters, 5-inch guns and Phalanx close-in-weapons-systems, among other features.

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