The Alaska class may have been called large cruisers but, in reality, they were BCs, built in reply to Scharnhorst class. They were useful only because of high speed and heavy AA armament. The US's first treaty cruisers, Pensacola class, were designed and built with torpedo tubes, which were later removed. I believe the theory on that was that the 8 inch guns and high speed of the cruisers negated any capability of torpedoes. Later in the war with the efficient use of radar controlled gunfire, that may have been true. Originally, the Pensacolas were not called heavy cruisers but were labeled as scout cruisers. As far as triple A on US cruisers is concerned, the prewar ships rapidly gained more and more AAA capability along with the equipment and personnel to operate them which made them top heavy and overcrowded. One of my uncles was a CGM(chief gunner's mate) on Salt Lake City(CA25) from 1941-43. In 1943, (I think) they were in Pearl Harbor for an overhaul. The ship carried 4 scout planes and they prevailed upon the shipyard to install two twin mount 40 mms amidships, just aft of the catapults and offloaded two of the scout planes. All of this without official permission from Buships.