Ticonderoga-Class Cruiser

The Ticonderoga class is a class of American guided-missile cruisers, the lead ship USS Ticonderoga commissioned in 1983, built around the Aegis Combat System, an integrated radar and fire-control system able to track and engage large numbers of aircraft and missiles simultaneously, giving the class a central role in defending American carrier strike groups against air and missile attack. Later ships of the class replaced the earlier twin-arm missile launchers of the first several vessels with the Mark 41 vertical launching system, allowing a much larger and more flexible mix of surface-to-air, land-attack and anti-submarine missiles to be carried and launched in rapid succession. Twenty-seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers were built, and though the United States Navy has progressively retired the oldest hulls, the remaining ships continued to serve as the Navy's primary air-defense cruisers into the 2020s while a planned successor class remained under development.