Tucker, Shaw and Cummings (left to right) viewed from Case en route from New Zealand, 1941. Photo courtesy Jim Kirk, USS Tucker.

HULL AND INITIAL ARMAMENTMACHINERYReferences: Reilly, Sumrall, Whitley

In 1932, the US Navy laid down keels for the first of 60 replacements for the flush-deckers. They were collectively known as “1500-tonners,” as they were constrained by the 1930 International Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament (the “London” treaty) to 1500 long tons standard displacement.
   Their initial design reflected experience gained from peacetime exercises and observation of foreign construction trends during the 1920s. It featured a new, high-pressure steam propulsion plant and dual-purpose main gun battery with fire control on a more seaworthy high-forecastle hull.
   There was much experimentation within the nominal 1500-ton limit as construction progressed (and much more debated but never implemented).
   The tables on this page track major variations among five 1500-ton classes and the derivative 1570-ton Sims class funded in fiscal years 1932–37 and designed with this limit in mind—here listed in order of increasing technical sophistication: Farragut, Mahan (including the slightly-modified Dunlap and Fanning, differentiated by some sources as the Dunlap class), Bagley, Gridley, Benham and Sims.
   The successor Benson and Gleaves classes, funded beginning in FY 1938 and built on the same hull as the Sims class but with a split powerplant, culminated the sequence of changes begun by the 1500-tonners, and set the stage for the 2100-ton Fletcher class—no longer subject to treaty constraints—to follow beginning in FY 1941.