Porter class destroyer

USS Porter in 1939
Class overview
Name:	Porter class
Builders:	New York Shipbuilding, Camden, New Jersey Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation (Fore River Shipyard)
Operators:	United States Navy
Preceded by:	Farragut class
Succeeded by:	Mahan class
Built:	1933–37
In commission:	1936–50
Completed:	8
Lost:	1
Retired:	7
General characteristics
Type:	Destroyer
Displacement:	1,850 tons standard, 2,663 tons full load
Length:	381 ft (116 m)
Beam:	36 ft 2 in (11.02 m)
Draft:	10 ft 5 in (3.18 m)
Installed power:	4 Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 2 geared steam turbines, 50,000 shaft horsepower (37,000 kW)
Propulsion:	2 shafts
Speed:	37 kn (69 km/h; 43 mph)
Range:	6,380 nautical miles (11,820 km; 7,340 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:	13 officers, 193 enlisted (peacetime) 290 (wartime)
Armament:	As Built: 8 × 5-inch/38 caliber guns (127 mm) (4 × 2) 8 × 1.1-inch/75 caliber guns (28 mm) (2 × 4) 2 × .50 caliber machine guns (12.7 mm) 8 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2 × 4), 16 torpedoes 2 × depth charge stern racks c. 1942: 8 × 5-inch/38 caliber guns (4 × 2) 2 × Bofors 40 mm guns (1 × 2) 6 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannons 8 × 21 inch torpedo tubes (2 × 4), 16 torpedoes 2 × depth charge stern racks
Notes:	Armament varied greatly from ship to ship during World War II.

The Porter-class destroyers were a class of eight 1,850-ton large destroyers in the United States Navy. Like the preceding Farragut-class, their construction was authorized by Congress on 26 April 1916, but funding was delayed considerably. They were designed based on a 1,850-ton standard displacement limit imposed by the London Naval Treaty; the treaty's tonnage limit allowed 13 ships of this size, and the similar Somers class was built later to meet the limit. The first four Porters were laid down in 1933 by New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey and the next four in 1934 at Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Quincy, Massachusetts. All were commissioned in 1936 except Winslow, which was commissioned in 1937. They were built in response to the large Fubuki-class destroyers that the Imperial Japanese Navy was building at the time, and were initially designated as flotilla leaders. They served extensively in World War II, in the Pacific War, the Atlantic, and in the Americas. Porter was the class's only loss, in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942.

The larger destroyer leader type had been under active consideration since 1921. Indeed the General Board recommended the construction of five of the type in that year. One factor in favor of leaders was the Navy's total lack of modern light cruisers, only partly alleviated by the ten Omaha-class ships built in the 1920s. Naval historian Norman Friedman believed that the great number of Wickes and Clemson-class destroyers hindered the U.S. Congress from purchasing new leaders. The General Board was very interested in equipping such a type with the new higher pressure and higher temperature steam propulsion equipment also proposed for the Farragut-class destroyers; this would extend the ships' range. The London Naval Treaty and large French destroyers (France did not sign the treaty and built ships well in excess of its limits) seem to have become the tipping points, with the 1930 recommendations beginning the cycle to actually build ships. The Geneva proposals for destroyers also seem to have influence the design, as the Destroyer Leader proposals limited themselves to 1,850 tons per the proposals; these tonnage limits were eventually included in the London treaty.

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