Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Destroyers - Concept and Development (1860-1914)" video.

  1. It took the USN until 1912 to start constructing 300+ foot, 1,000+ ton, 29.5 knots destroyers with the Cassin class. They had the general outline of the hundreds of four pipers in succeeding classes. Since the US only had a few scout cruisers, the "Thousand Tonners" had to serve in that role, and had a fairly long range of about 4,000 nm, all on oil fuel. The armament was four of the new and very effective 4"/50 gun, standard destroyer gun until the first Farragut class vessels of 1932, armed with four or five of the new and even more effective 5"/38 DP guns. From the Cassin class to the Farragut class, the basic layout and armament underwent very few changes for about 20 years, surely a record for major fleet classes of vessels.
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  2. Good morning to the usual suspects. Excellent topic! Destroyers and their development is not a common topic. Those little guys just don't have the appeal of battleships or aircraft carriers for most people but they have quite story to tell.
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  3.  @novatopaz9880  That would be true if the Treaty limited the construction of destroyers, but it didn't. The reason why no new classes were built was the US had hundreds of perfectly serviceable destroyers after WWI and didn't need new ones until some of the older classes became obsolescent by 1932.
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  4.  @bskorupk  The only real difference between an unprotected cruiser and a destroyer before WWI was the cruiser was designed more for overseas colonial service while destroyer was designed for fleet protection. By the time the destroyer had grown to the size of small light cruisers, the term "unprotected cruiser" had fallen out of favor, and large destroyers started to be called sloops, frigates, and leaders. The USN recognized the crossover had really occurred in 1943 when the French Destroyer " Le Fantastique" at 434 feet, 3,500 tons, and five 5.4" guns was large enough to earn the light cruiser designation when it was refitted 1943 with eight 40mm Bofors and ten 20mm guns before being added to USN fleet.
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  5.  @treeshakertucker5840  Morning indeed. I have no idea why I'm still up at 0445, but that won't last much longer.
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