Like all of the nuclear cruisers, which could steam for years between refuelings, the California class was designed in part to provide high endurance escort for the navy's nuclear aircraft carriers, which were often limited in range due to their conventionally powered escorts continuously needing to be refueled.

Other than the four ships of the Soviet Navy's Kirov class, which were built with a combination of nuclear and fossil-fuel propulsion, no other country has launched nuclear-powered cruisers.

[citation needed] The ships were originally designed to carry and launch the Mark 48 torpedo from a large space beneath the flight deck aft.

[citation needed] Both ships underwent a mid-life refueling and overhaul in the early 1990s to give them a further 18 years of active service.

This modernization upgraded their two 150 MW D2G reactor plants with new 165 MW D2W reactor cores, installed the New Threat Upgrade (NTU) to improve their anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) capability, and removed their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability, which involved disabling their SQS-26 sonar and removing their ASROC anti-submarine weapons.