List of Destroyer Classes of The United States Navy

List Of Destroyer Classes Of The United States Navy

The first automotive torpedo was developed in 1866, and the torpedo boat was developed soon after. In 1898, while the Spanish–American War was being fought in the Caribbean and the Pacific, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt wrote that torpedo boats were the only threat to the American navy, and pushed for the acquisition of torpedo boat destroyers. On 4 May 1898, the US Congress authorized the first sixteen torpedo boat destroyers and twelve seagoing torpedo boats for the United States Navy.

In World War I, the U.S. Navy began mass-producing destroyers, laying 273 keels of the Clemson and Wickes class destroyers. The peace time years between 1919—1941, resulted in many of these flush deck destroyers being laid up. Additionally, treaties regulated destroyer construction. During World War II, the United States began building destroyers with five-gun main batteries, but without stability problems.

The first major warship produced by the U.S. Navy after World War II (and in the Cold War) were "frigates"—the ships were actually designated destroyer leaders but later reclassified as guided missile destroyers. Other classes were produced, including the last all-gun destroyers. A special class was produced for the Shah of Iran, but due to the Iranian Revolution these ships could not be delivered and were added to the U.S. Navy.

The Arleigh Burke class, introduced in 1991, has been the U.S. Navy's only destroyer class in commission since 2005; construction is expected to continue through at least 2012. A future class, Zumwalt, is also planned. The Zumwalt class is expected to number three ships.

Read more about List Of Destroyer Classes Of The United States Navy:  Pre–World War I, World War I, Between The World Wars, World War II, Cold War and Beyond

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, destroyer, classes, united, states and/or navy:

    Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.
    Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)

    Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The supreme, the merciless, the destroyer of opposition, the exalted King, the shepherd, the protector of the quarters of the world, the King the word of whose mouth destroys mountains and seas, who by his lordly attack has forced mighty and merciless Kings from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same to acknowledge one supremacy.
    Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–59 B.C.)

    Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in every country, but in England they are national characteristics.
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)

    Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.
    Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    Colonel [John Charles] Fremont. Not a good picture, but will do to indicate my politics this year. For free States and against new slave States.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    We all know the Navy is never wrong, but in this case it was a little weak on being right.
    Wendell Mayes, U.S. screenwriter. Otto Preminger. CINCPAC II (Henry Fonda)