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I personally would like to keep 360 degrees 5in coverage. if that is not possible, I would prefer the forward mount to be kept in place, same arc as now but with lower manning. I wonder about the spq-9 aft, as forward you retain the FCS. I am also not certain what that aft FCS is guiding?
the Mk 95 platform looks a bit flimsy.

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I'm not really sure what you want 360 degree coverage for.
I'd remove the centre line 5in barbette entirely and extend the superstructure as far forward as I could without interfering with the 8" guns and use it to house command facilities. I'd then put the Phalanx on top of it. It would be half a deck higher than it is now and interfere with the helmsmans view ahead, but I see no other way to get the volume you'll need for the command staff and their facilities. Even the much roomier Iowa's needed an extension to fit them.

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

Thiel, I don't think you need to do that - not with the Des Moines-class CAs. They already had very generous and spacious flag facilities built in to them; in fact all three were fitted as fleet flagships, so, I go with ace's suggestion here, to retain the centerline 5"-gun mount forward. I can, however, support extensions across the beams. That what actually happened with the Newport News.
And, to my knowledge, the Iowas were not roomier than these cruisers, but I may be wrong...

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well, the rebuild actually proposed (page one) has the 360 degrees coverage with guns fore and aft, so I applied the same thinking here.....
it would IMO be more viable to widen the superstructure and use one forward mount, then lengthen it and use 2.

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I remember drawing the real Des Moines reactivation plan several years ago, it probably still exits on the old forums....

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http://shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Ne ... oposal.png

I gave it a once-over a while back.

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This last appeared also in a forum about an AU War Scenario in 1980's, were some guys collected photos from exercises and various designs from here or other sites and thought a WW3 scenario. For instance, below photo of Vittorio Venetto launching an Otomat in trials they wrote that this shot was against a Libyan ship, USS America was on an antisubmarine mission of Norway ( this photo was borrowed from Wikipedia etc).

Personally I thought an CAG De Moines with Mk10 GMLS but never tried it out.

I have a question. Why did they reactivate the Iowa's in the first place over the Des Moines or even the Alaskas(my fav WW2 ship, so personal bias reigns king). The Des moines and the Alaskas still had larger guns then any modern ship at that time afloat, so they still could do the NGFS or even hunt down the Kirovs. And this version even has helicopter capability along with the Tomahawks. Also, wouldn't the smaller hull be cheaper to operate? And considering the idea that the Iowas would not have been refited and the Alaska's would have been given their earlier pre-NTU upgrades, then the refit to give them the Tomahawks would have been much cheaper. So why didn't they do that? Was it politics?

The CBs were extremely expensive to operate (they were fuel hogs), required a lot of crew (2200 I believe), weren't as fast as they should have been, had a poor tactical diameter (turning radius), and most of all their 12"/50 Mark 8 guns and associated 3-gun turret was expensive to produce. I believe the turrets were the most costly turrets ever built by the USN. The BB-61 class was a "sweet spot" in terms of battleship design - combining an excellent main battery with high speed and plenty of space for crew accomm (especially after the light AA was removed) and electronics.

Frankly the CBs were a mistake to build - the USN would have been much better served with more carriers, submarines, or escorts. Instead they got two fuel-guzzling, crew-heavy, expensive over-gunned heavy cruisers that weren't very maneuverable and didn't meet expected speed requirements. There's a reason they were laid up immediately after the war ended.

Re: Des Moines, those were kept in service for quite a long time because they were relatively efficient ships - but in the post 1945 world, an all-gun cruiser or battleship isn't very useful.

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Aw, that makes me sad, I thought the Alaska's were like mini Iowas oh well, guess not. If they had all those issues guess it makes sense the Iowas were chosen. Wonder what it would've been like if the Alaska's had been in reality more like a mini Iowa and worked better.