As promised, I'm working on the Galveston-class guided missile cruisers (CLG:s) I'm using, as explained in my previous thread, a classification that allows all the fleet-flagship conversions of the Clevelands, to merge into the same class: the Little Rock-class, while the two remaining cruisers, the Galveston (CLG-3) and Topeka (CLG-8) are put together in one separate class, being the non-fleet-flagship conversions.
So, here's my personal favorite, the rather abused and sadly short-lived USS Topeka (CLG-8) as she appeared after her modernization, in 1967. Here she was ready to be deployed from the Pacific, where, among other duties, she had performed shore bombardment against Viet-Minh targets in South Viet-Nam.
My version captures, I believe, the handsome lines of this unique cruiser. Of the six converted original Clevelands, the Topeka was alone in shipping a prominent tripod foremast. No official (or inofficial!) reason was ever given for that odd choice. Her bridge also warrants a comment: it almost resembled a bridge structure on the much later USSR rocket cruisers of the Kara-class, with its pronounced forward tilt and compactness. It certainly added grace to an already handsome vessel! She carries a new SPS-52 on her aft mast, an SPS-30 height finder on her amidships mast and the prominent mesh of an SPS-37-A on her forward tripod, together with an early version of the LAN-66 navigation radar. Since she is a Terrier-armed ship, she carries three prominent masts, equally spaced and tapering in height towards the stern. The corresponding Talos ships always carried a tall fore lattice mast, an even taller main lattice mast and then a much lower platform on their aft superstructure.
It was always fairly easy to differentiate a Terrier ship from a Talos: the radar suit on a Terrier would always be stern to bow: 3D radar; heightfinder or empty mast; air-search radar on fore. The Talos always carried their height finder aerialss on the aft platform; the 3D on their main mast (if carried!) and then the airsearch radar on the foremast.
I have depicted the Topeka as she looked like as flagship of TG 60.2 with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, 1967-68. Noticeable is the two supernumerary personnel boats she is carrying; in fact she had three, the third one is here obscured by the aftermost superstructure. There must have been a high degree of latitude allowed for the individual admiral to have his 'barge' painted in various, non-navy regulation colors. It should be noted that the brightly painted 40 footer on top of the missile house is a motor boat of pre-WW2 design!
![[ img ]](http://i752.photobucket.com/albums/xx161/Bezobrazov/CLG8Topeka1967-4.png)
![[ img ]](http://newnation.sg/wp-content/uploads/mother-of-god.jpg)
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![[ img ]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/63276563/clg%20help.png)
