In a famous Proceedings article in January 1949, Frank Uhlig dismissed the performance of the class in 1944–1945 and concluded the battlecruiser had no place in the postwar USN.

The ship was powered by four General Electric geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller and eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers rated at 150,000 shaft horsepower (110,000 kW) and a top speed of 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph).

[5] The ship was armed with a main battery of nine 12 inch (305 mm) L/50 Mark 8 guns in three triple-gun turrets, two in a superfiring pair forward and one aft of the superstructure.

This freed materials and facilities so that they could be used to build additional ships which could be completed faster and were needed in the war zones, like anti-submarine escorts.

[7] The turrets for the main battery had been fitted and the superstructure was mostly finished,[8] although the former were removed when the ship was moved into the reserve fleet at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

[11] The ship would have also been able to launch the JB-2 "Loon" cruise missile from a hydraulic catapult installed on her forward flight deck.

However, the conversion was canceled in 1949, along with any other plans for surface ships equipped with ballistic missiles, due to the volatility of the rocket fuels and the shortcomings with guidance systems that were available.

[12] Similar to the unfinished battleship Kentucky,[A 6] Hawaii was considered for a conversion to be a test platform for the development of guided missiles in September 1946.

After lowering the ambitious goals to more realistic levels in 1955, a fully operational version was expected by 1965, but with tests for the SSM-N-9/RGM-15 Regulus II planned for that year and the up-and-coming UGM-27 Polaris submarine-launched cruise missile, the project was terminated in 1957.

[13] One source has a variation of this scheme, with the developmental XPM (Experimental Prototype Missile) from Operation Bumblebee replacing the Triton launchers.

[11] In addition, an SC-2 was to be mounted on top of a short tower aft of the stack (though forward of the SPS-8); this would have been used for "tropospheric scatter communications".

[10] Money to begin the project was included in the 1952 budget,[15] but the only work done on the ship was the removal of the 12" turrets,[11] as it was intended that experience from Northampton should be analyzed before a full conversion.

[18] On 9 June 1958, Hawaii was struck from the Naval Vessel Register[8][10][19] and the ship was sold to the Boston Metals Company of Baltimore on 15 April 1959.