Destroyer leader

By the end of World War I the destroyers intended to screen formations of battleships had evolved to a displacement of approximately 1,100 tons armed with four 4-inch (10 cm) guns and six or more torpedoes.

Japan launched the minimum light cruiser Yūbari followed by the Fubuki-class special type destroyers 特型 (Tokugata) with endurance to escort the Kido Butai mobile force of aircraft carriers over the wide reaches of the Pacific.

[6] As the United States Navy thinned its wartime fleet following World War II, the smaller destroyers were discarded until only those over 2,000 tons remained in active service.

With large inventories of destroyers and cruisers, new surface warship designs explored placing high-efficiency boilers in hulls of intermediate size.

[1] She served entirely in the Atlantic except for a single deployment to the Indian Ocean and cruise around the world in 1968 shortly before she was retired from active service.

After experimental flight operations with the Bell HUL-1 and Kaman HTK-1 aboard Mitscher in 1957, helicopter decks and hangars for the Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH were installed where the aft 3-inch guns had been.

DL-2 and DL-3 underwent major overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard beginning in 1966 including new Foster Wheeler boilers, AN/SQS-23 sonar, AN/SPS-37 air search radar, AN/SPS-48 height finding radar, and the Tartar Guided Missile Fire Control System for RIM-24 Tartar missiles.

ASROC and sonar gave the guided missile frigates an anti-submarine capability that most of the World War II cruiser conversions lacked.