New tooling!!
USS Long Beach (CGN 9) is a unique ship, principally
because it was the only vessel in her class. And
what US Navy class was she in?
The Long Beach was a nuclear-powered guided missile
cruiser commissioned on 9 September 1961. It also
had the distinction of being the USA’s first all-new
cruiser design since WWII,
and since then have generally been based simply on
up-scaled destroyer hulls, her crew aptly described
her as “The Only Real Cruiser.”
USS Long Beach had a pair of 5-inch 38-calibre guns
mounted amidships,
and at the time of her decommissioning in July 1994,
the upgraded cruiser had two Standard Missile
launchers,
two Tomahawk cruise missile launchers, two Phalanx
CIWS and Harpoon missile launchers.
The cruiser’s service was concentrated in the
Atlantic Fleet from 1961-66, before transferring to
the Californian coast.
It saw combat in the Gulf of Tonkin during the
Vietnam War, and also endured long enough to provide
support during the 1991 Gulf War.
USS Long Beach,
this unique naval vessel, served for 33 years before
settling into its current resting place in Puget
Sound, Washington.
Cyber Hobby has produced a superb 1/700 scale kit of
this nuclear-powered cruiser. The market has proved
exceptionally responsive to Cyber Hobby’s line of
1/700 warships,
owing to their high quality and unique subject
matter when compared to other products available on
the market. Item No. 7091 will be no exception. It
is a fine model,
and except for the two mid-ship gun turrets,
the ship is a completely
new tooling. Parts are cleverly engineered to
fit together accurately and without fuss, plus the
detail held
by the plastic is exemplary. The original USS Long
Beach was a one-of-a-kind ship,
and this 1/700 model of it is equally special.
Modelers can now add this novel nuclear-powered
guided missile cruiser, a “real cruiser”, to their
collections!
