List of Destroyer Classes of The United States Navy - World War I

World War I

Prior to entering World War I in 1917, the United States began producing destroyers to a new design with a continuous sheer strake, collectively referred to as "flush deckers." Six prototypes of the Caldwell class were dissimilar: three had three stacks; two of these also had three screws. The others of this and the 267 ships of the mass-production Wickes and Clemson classes that followed all had two screws. As built, they also had four stacks, which gave rise to the nicknames "four stackers" or "four pipers". Eleven shipyards participated in their construction, which peaked in 1917 and 1918. By the time of the armistice, November 11, 1918, keels for 177 ships had been laid and 41 had joined the fleet. Though the remaining ships were not needed in peacetime, the building program continued and by the end of May 1921, all but four of the 273 flush-deckers had been placed in commission. The final two did not follow until August 1922.

While the flush-deckers' freeboard fore and aft were designed to match preceding classes, the new ships differed in other respects. The waist guns were moved to a platform amidships, the galley beneath them; and a bulwark between the galley and the bridge.

The standard displacement of the flush deck destroyers was 1,200 ± 90 long tons (1,200 ± 91 t), the length approximately 314 feet (96 m), the beam measured approximately 31 feet (9.4 m), and the draft approximately 116 inches (2.9 m). A typical flush deck destroyer had a normal crew of 105 officers and men, and was armed with four 4-inch deck guns, one 3-inch anti-aircraft gun, 12 21-inch torpedo tubes, two stern-mounted depth charge racks, along with 50 caliber machine guns and small arms. The mass-produced classes also had four boilers providing steam to a pair of turbines, each of which drove a 9-foot-diameter (2.7 m) screw at a combined 27,000 shaft horsepower (20 MW) for a top speed of about 33 knots (17 m/s).