Somers class destroyer
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The Somers-class destroyer was a class of 1850-ton United States Navy destroyer based on the Porter-class. They were answers to the large destroyers that the Japanese navy was building at the time, and were initially intended to be leaders for destroyer flotillas. This class featured controversial (for the time) high-temperature air-encased boilers derived from the ones installed in the modernized New Mexico (BB-40). Despite the added weight, it permitted use of only a single smoke stack for the engines, allowing for a third centerline torpedo tube mount. Even so, they were still over-weight and top heavy.
The first two ships were laid down at Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Kearny, New Jersey in 1935, the following three in 1936 by Bath Iron Works Corporation of Bath, Maine.
The ships were commissioned between 1937 and 1939 and served during World War II. Warrington foundered in a hurricane in the Caribbean in 1944. The others survived the war to be scrapped in 1946.
[edit] General characteristics
- Displacement: 2,905 tons (full)
- Length: 381 feet
- Beam: 36 feet 11 inches
- Draft: 14 feet
- Range: 6500 nmi. (12,000 km) @ 12 kt (22.2 km/h)
- Complement: 294
- Armament:
- 4 x 2 5"/38 caliber SP guns
- 4 x .50 cal AA machine guns (1938-1942)
- 1 x 40 mm twin AA mount (1945-)
- 6 x 20 mm single AA mount (1942-)
- 9 or 12 x 21" quadruple torpedo tubes (4x3 or 3x3)
- weapon configuration varied greatly during the war, and from ship to ship
- Speed: 39.0 knots
- Power: 52,000 shp
- Drive: 2 screws; geared turbine
[edit] External links
| Somers-class destroyer |
| Somers | Warrington | Sampson | Davis | Jouett |
List of destroyers of the United States Navy List of destroyer classes of the United States Navy |
