The main difference between Ticonderoga and arleigh Burke has more to do with evolving view of how many hulls the USN needed to conduct aggressive forward deployment coming into vogue in late 1970s, and what it can afford to put into each hull, then the role Individual ship would play.
Both designs were meant to be cheaper, less capable ships that could be would form the low end of a all Aegis hi-Lo mix. Neither vessels were intended to take on distinctly different roles from the other,
In both cases, the vessels that was intended to form the high end of the mix proved unaffordable, or did not provide a sufficient margin of superiority in its primary mission over the low end of the mix to justify the added cost, so were cancelled while low end of the mix, seen as cheaper and therefore politically more palatable, were proceeded with.
I don't think so. While there was a "high end" counterpart to DDG-47, after the cancelation of the Strike Cruiser program the DDG-47 evolved into the CG-47 program, i.e. the Ticonderoga class, so the Ticonderoga design itself is NOT the actual low end of the Strike Cruiser/DDG-47 combo. Also, I know of no high end counterpart to the Arleigh Burke program per your claim. Please provide the name of this alleged program.
So both classes ended up being the sole design in production. AB really are the successors to the Ticos, not an low end to Tico’s high end. In so far as AB seems even lower cost than the Ticos, that is a reflection of the realization that even the Ticod can not be afforded in sufficient numbers to meet the demands anticipated in the 1990s had the cold war not ended unexpectedly.
Burkes are the successors to the Ticos in production only, not in role. If they were they would have also been designed with separate AAW C&C facilities, which they do not have. It's not a matter of better or worse computing power, it's a matter of physical space for a flag officer and his staff to occupy and run the fleet from.
Ticos are in some ways better equipped than the AB. So it is possible to arbitrarily draw a line of demarcation right between them so as to justify why one should be a cruiser and the other destroyer. But that would be purely arbitrary line making a distinction without any substantive difference.
No, it is not just a matter of more missile tubes. There is a significant difference in fleet command capabilities that the Tico provides which the Burke does not.
Incidentally, the intended high end to ticonderoga's low end - strike cruiser - would have been a true cruiser designed from the onset to be able to take on independent cruising missions without escort in low to medium threat environment. It would have been equipped for substantively different roles from Tico. The ticos would have formed parts of the screen around these strike cruiser in high threat areas like WWII destroyers screening cruisers. That would have meaningfully made the strike cruiser a different class of vessels from the Ticos.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that only a cruiser can undertake "independent cruising missions without escort in low to medium threat environment", or that it would even do so alone in the first place. Any threat level that is not safe enough to be covered by a corvette, frigate, or a squadron of them, is also not safe enough to be covered by a single cruiser. Why would you even send a single cruiser out on patrol in the first place? This serves what purpose besides wasting the use of a high end warship? If you send a cruiser out, it's going to be with a bunch of other ships, all intending to do some severe damage to something or someone. It's not to go cruising out on the high seas by itself staring at the seagulls and shooting the breeze. That is the job of lesser ships.
A main advantage of IEP is structural flexibility it affords the designers. On a conventional gas turbine powered vessel, turbines have to align with the shaft, which limit options for turbine and engine room placement. On a IEP ship, that requirement is removed. Turbine and generator are attached to drive motor by flexible wires, so the turbine and generator set can be located anywhere in the ship subject to space availability and weight and stability concerns. GTs don’t weigh much. It is indeed possible to locate the gas turbines in an IEP ship in the superstructure to reduce space occupied by intake and exhaust ductwork.
To fully take advantage of the structural flexibility afforded by IEP, the designer should not leave the gas turbines in the same location as on a conventional gas turbine powered ship. Instead the designer have the opportunity to optimize hull structural efficiency, space utilization, and eliminate single large athwart ship open spaces in the hull, as well as cater to other design specific considerations in engine placement
So while it is possible to fit an IEP using a conventional shaft and propeller arrangement into a hull that was designed was designed for pure gas turbine propulsion, that would sacrifice much of the potential structural benefit resulting from not having to Aline the GTs with drive shafts.
To fully benefit from IEP, one should start with a clean slate hull design.
This "main advantage" of IEP is overhyped and overstated. There is no reason that a ship design which can accept IEP should not do so just because it wasn't designed from the ground up to incorporate IEP. On a ship especially the size of the 055 there should be significant room for redesign in order to optimize efficiency gains from IEP. In addition, there are other limiting factors in engine placement, the most important of which being the topside placement of the uptakes and downtakes, which themselves are already constrained by other topside considerations such as radar and VLS placement. This means that engine placement in the setting of IEP isn't some kind of willy nilly let's-just-put-this-here-for-kicks kind of affair, and is going to be in similar if not identical locations in both an IEP and non-IEP ship. What is more flexible is actually the placement of the induction motor, the part that drives the propeller shaft. In a non-IEP ship the analogous part is the transmission, which much be located immediately next to the GT engine itself. The induction motor is not constrained by venting requirements or by physical connection to the GT and can be placed much further back towards the stern, shortening the length of the propeller shaft, which in turn saves weight and space and reduces risk of battle damage knocking out the shaft. The induction motor's placement could be much more easily accommodated by a redesigned 055 rather than having to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start over from scratch.
