[1] The Omaha class was designed specifically in response to the British Centaur subclass of the C-class cruiser.

The Omaha class mounted four smokestacks, a look remarkably similar to the Clemson-class destroyers (a camouflage scheme was devised to enhance the resemblance).

They carried twelve 6 in (150 mm)/53 caliber guns, of which four were mounted in two twin turrets, one fore and one aft, and the remaining eight in casemates; four on each side, at the corners of the superstructure.

Sacrifices in weight savings in the name of increased speed led to severe compromise in the habitability of the ship.

While described as a good ship in a seaway, the low freeboard led to frequent water ingestion over the bow and in the torpedo compartments and lower aft casemates.

The lightly built hulls leaked, so that sustained high-speed steaming contaminated the oil tanks with sea water.

On 8 September 1926, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Edward W. Eberle, along with the Commanders in Chief of the United States Fleet and Battle Fleet, and their subordinate commanding officers, the Secretary of the Navy, Curtis D. Wilbur, ordered that all mines and the tracks for laying the mines be removed from all of the Omaha-class cruisers, as the working conditions had been found to be very "wet".

[6] The lower torpedo tube mounts, which had also proved to be very wet, were removed and the openings plated over before the start of World War II.

The ships of the Omaha class spent most of the war deployed to secondary theaters and in less vital tasks than those assigned to more recently built cruisers.

These secondary destinations included patrols off the east and west coasts of South America, convoy escort in the South Pacific far from the front lines of battle, patrols and shore bombardment along the distant and frigid Aleutians and Kuril Islands chains, and bombardment duty in the invasion of Southern France when naval resistance was expected to be minimal.