The United States Navy’s first guided missile destroyer was the converted
Gearing-class destroyer
Gyatt (originally given the designation DDG-712 during her conversion, she was renumbered DDG-1 five months after recommissioning).
Gyatt rejoined the fleet in 1956 with a Mk8 twin arm Terrier launcher and a fourteen round magazine replacing her torpedoes and aft 5" mount. However, she was always something of a test platform to determine the practicality of putting missiles on destroyers and in 1962, just six years after recommissioning, the Terrier launcher was removed and
Gyatt reverted to her original destroyer designation
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| Gyatt (DDG-712) in 1956: 14x Terrier |
While
Gyatt conversion had tried to put too big a missile on too small a ship, the Navy still desired guided missile destroyers and the development of the smaller Tartar missile made it possible. The first purpose built guided missile destroyers were the
Charles F. Adams-class, the lead ship of which commissioned in 1960. With twenty three built, this was a remarkably successful design that served for thirty years in American service and was also exported to the Australian, German, and Greek navies, where they lasted until the early 2000’s. But despite the success and longevity of this class, they would be the Navy’s only purpose built guided missile destroyers until the
Arleigh Burke-class over thirty years later.
The
Charles F. Adams-class was well armed with forty two Tartar surface to air missiles in a twin arm Mk 11 launcher aft and eight ASROC antisubmarine weapons in the standard Mk112 box launcher amidships. Beginning with
Berkeley (DDG-15), the Mk11 was replaced with a forty missile single arm Mk 13 launcher. Although the new mount could only fire one missile at a time, it possessed roughly the same rate of fire and was far more reliable. The change from the Mk 11 to the Mk 13 also marked the switch to solid-state electronics, further improving performance.
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| Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) in 1960: 42x Tartar, 8x ASROC |
In the 1967, Tartar was replaced by SM-1MR. However, despite the new name, this missile was just an evolutionary improvement and the system as a whole continued to be referred to as Tartar. In the early 1980’s the ships were modernized and their Mk11 and Mk13 launchers were modified to fire Harpoon antiship missiles. Interestingly, that made them one of only two classes of American ships to fire antiship missiles from their surface to air launchers (the other being the
Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates). I suspect the reason for this was that both classes lacked the margins to accommodate the more common Mk 141 canister launchers. It was planned to further upgrade the ships of the
Charles F. Adams-class with the NTU and SM-2MR during the early 1990's, but the end of the Cold War meant that they were instead retired.
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| Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) in 1983: 34x SM-1MR, 8x ASROC, 8x Harpoon |
The
Charles F. Adams-class would be followed by two classes of destroyer conversions. The first of these were four destroyers of the
Forrest Sherman-class, beginning with
Decatur (DDG-31) in 1967. Although they carried the same missile armament as the later members of the
Charles F. Adams-class, their smaller size meant that they only had a single illuminator instead of two, which halved their effective firepower. Considering both this limitation and the fact that their gun armament was similarly reduced, it is hardly surprising that only four members of this eighteen ship class were converted. It further appears that they proved somewhat unsatisfactory as they decommissioned in 1982-1983, during the the Reagan naval build up, and after only twenty-three to twenty-seven years in service.
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| Decatur (DDG-31) in 1967: 40x SM-1MR, 8x ASROC |
The second conversion involved two of the four
Mitscher-class frigates (the other two were modified with more powerful sonar for antisubmarine warfare). Originally laid down as destroyers, these ships were commissioned as frigates (DL not FF) on account of their large size. While their size made them too expensive for their original role, it allowed them to accomodate the full weapons and sensor fit of the
Charles F. Adams-class. The
Mitscher-class rejoined the fleet as DDG-35 and DDG-36 in 1968 and 1969. However, they suffered from issues with their engines and left the fleet in 1978 after just twenty five years in service.
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| Mitscher (DDG-35) in 1968: 40x SM-1MR, 8x ASROC |
In 1975, the ten
Farragut-class guided missile frigates (DLG not FFG) were also reclassified as guided missile destroyers. However, this was done purely for organizational reasons and none of their combat systems were changed. Thus, I cover them in my post on the Navy's Cold War guided missile cruisers.
The final guided missile destroyers before the
Arleigh Burke-class (which are covered in a separate post) were the four ships of the
Kidd-class. Originally designed and built for the Imperial Iranian Navy, they were taken over by the USN after the fall of the Shah and commissioned in 1981 - an oddity that accounts for their combination of the DDG classification with hull numbers from the DD series. But despite their destroyer designation, they were powerful ships that possessed the same combat systems as the
Virginia-class cruisers, with two Mk 26 twin arm launchers for SM-1MR and ASROC (forty four missiles forward and twenty four missiles aft - the opposite of the
Virginia-class) and Mk 141 canister launchers for eight Harpoon.
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| Kidd (DDG-993) in 1981: 52x SM-1MR, 16x ASROC, 8x Harpoon |
From 1988-1990, these ships were upgraded with the NTU and SM-2MR, dramatically increasing both the range and effective rate of fire of the main battery and making them second only to the
Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruisers in firepower (some of the details of this upgrade can be found in my
post on SM-2 guidance). However, their obsolescent systems meant that they were retired in 1998-1999, after just short of thirty years of service. They were later sold to Taiwan, where they remain operational today.
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