Description: These fast warships help safeguard larger ships in a fleet
or battle group.
Destroyers - DD, DDG
Description: These fast warships help safeguard larger ships in a fleet
or battle group.
Features: Destroyers and guided missile destroyers operate in support of carrier battle groups, surface action groups, amphibious groups and replenishment groups. Destroyers primarily perform anti-submarine warfare duty while guided missile destroyers are multi-mission (ASW, anti-air and anti-surface warfare) surface combatants. The addition of the Mk-41 Vertical Launch System or
Armored Box Launchers (ABLs) to many Spruance-class destroyers has greatly expanded the role of the destroyer in strike warfare.
Background: Technological advances have improved the capability of
modern destroyers culminating in the Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) class. Named
for the Navy's most famous destroyer squadron combat commander and three-time
Chief of Naval Operations, the Arleigh Burke was commissioned July 4,
1991 and was the most powerful surface combatant ever put to sea. Like the
larger Ticonderoga class cruisers, DDG 51's combat systems center around
the Aegis combat system and the SPY-lD, multi-function phased
array radar. The combination of Aegis, the Vertical Launching System, an
advanced anti-submarine warfare system, advanced anti-aircraft missiles and Tomahawk
ASM/LAM, the Burke class continues the revolution at sea.
Designed for survivability, DDG 51 incorporates all-steel construction and
many damage control features resulting from lessons learned during the Falkland
Islands War and from the accidental attack on USS Stark. Like most modern
U.S. surface combatants, DDG 51 utilizes gas turbine propulsion. These ships
replaced the older Charles F. Adams and Farragut-class guided
missile destroyers.
The Spruance class destroyers, the first large U.S. Navy warships to
employ gas turbine engines as their main propulsion system, are undergoing
extensive modernizing. The upgrade program includes addition of vertical
launchers for advanced missiles on 24 ships of this class, in addition to an
advanced ASW system and upgrading of its helicopter capability. Spruance
class destroyers are expected to remain a major part of the Navy's surface
combatant force into the 21st century.