Super Destroyers: From the Torpedo Boat Era to the Dominant Surface Warship of Today

From the very beginnings of torpedo craft, all naval powers have seen the occasional need for larger, more powerful or in other respects special designs that stand outside the contemporary norms for flotilla craft. The driving forces were often different from country to country and varied over time, but all the resulting ships may be conveniently defined as ’super destroyers’. Super Destroyers is a history of these out-of-the-ordinary vessels, the specific conditions that produced them, and their impact on naval warfare, especially during the two world wars. Notable highlights of this story include the introduction of ’destroyer leaders’ during the Great War, the Japanese ’Special type’ of the late 1920s, the British ’Tribal’ class, German ’Narviks’, and the interwar Franco-Italian rivalry that produced some of the fastest of all super destroyers.

By the end of the World War II only the largest designs seemed adequate, so although built in quantity the U.S. Gearing class were effectively super destroyers by the standards of the day and pointed the way to the future. A final chapter explores the way that after 1945 the big destroyer slowly evolved into the contemporary all-purpose warship-whether described as cruiser, destroyer or frigate-that has become the dominant surface combatant in the world’s navies. Although it concentrates on exceptional designs, in broader terms the book provides a valuable overview of the milestones of destroyer development as a whole so will be of interest to any warship enthusiast and historian.

Robert C. Stern has published around thirty titles on military and naval subjects. His previous books include Destroyer Battles published in 2008, Fire from the Sky in 2010 and The U.S. Navy and the War in Europe (2012), Big Gun Battles (2015), The Battleship Holiday (2017), The Modern Cruiser (2020), and Knife’s Edge (2023).