Somers-class destroyer

The Somers-class destroyers were a class of five 1,850-ton destroyers of the United States Navy based on the Porter class, answering the large destroyers then being built by the Japanese navy and at first intended as flotilla leaders. They were laid down in 1935 and 1936 and commissioned from 1937 to 1939, built to round out the 13 destroyers of 1,850 tons standard displacement that the London Naval Treaty allowed. New high-pressure, high-temperature boilers allowed a single stack and a third bank of torpedo tubes, but the ships were still overweight and top-heavy, and in 1942 topside weight was cut. They were the first United States destroyers to use steam at 600 psi superheated to 850 degrees Fahrenheit, which became standard for American warships of the period. All served in the Second World War and were scrapped by 1947 except Warrington, lost in a hurricane in 1944. Bath Iron Works in Maine built three of them, Sampson, Davis and Jouett.