General Description
Full size destroyers must be able to keep up with and exceed the speed of fast capital ships, typically needing better than 25-35 knot speeds (dependent upon the era and navy) and carrying torpedoes and a smaller caliber of cannon to use against enemy ships, as well as anti-submarine detection equipment and weapons.
A destroyer escort only needed to be able to maneuver relative to a slow convoy (which in WW II would travel at 10 to 12 knots), defend against aircraft, detect, pursue and attack submarines. These lower requirements greatly reduce the size, cost, and crew required for the destroyer escort. While fleet destroyers were more effective for anti-submarine warfare, the destroyer escort outweighed this by being able to be built faster and cheaper. Destroyer escorts were also considerably more seaworthy than corvettes.
Destroyer escorts were also useful for coastal anti-submarine and radar picket ship duty.
Some 95 destroyer escorts were converted to APDs (High Speed Transports). This involved adding an extra deck which allowed space for about 10 officers and 150 men. Two large davits were also installed, one on either side of the ship from which landing craft (LCVP) could be launched. The modern Littoral Combat Ship also adds transport and boat launching capabilities to a ship smaller than a destroyer.
As an alternative to steam turbine propulsion, many US DEs of the WW2 period had diesel-electric or turbo-electric drive, in which the engine rooms functioned as power stations supplying current to electric motors sited close to the propellers. Electric drive was selected because it does not need gearboxes (which were heavily in demand for the fast fleet destroyers) to adjust engine speed to the much lower optimum speed for the propellers. The current from the engine room can be used equally well for other purposes, and post-WW2 many DEs were recycled as floating power stations for coastal cities in Latin America under programs funded by the World Bank.
Read more about this topic: Destroyer Escort
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