The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
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|Tonnage||1637 tons standard|
|Dimensions||340'9" by 35'6" by 12'10"
103.86m by 10.82m by 3.91m
|Maximum speed||38.5 knots|
4 0.50 machine guns
4x4 21" torpedo tubes
2 depth charge tracks
4 depth charge throwers
||2-shaft Westinghouse geared
turbine (50,000 shp)
3 Babcock & Wilcox boilers
|Bunkerage||484 tons fuel oil|
|Range||6500 nautical miles (12,000 km) at 12 knots
1941: All but Benham and Ellet landed 2x4 torpedo
tubes in return for more depth charges and two more machine guns.
Sterett and Lang landed all torpedo tubes and added kamikaze refit of 4x2 40mm Bofors and 4x2 20mm Oerlikon.
The Benhams were completed during 1938-1940, making them among the most modern destroyers with which the U.S. Fleet started the war. They were heavily armed, had great hull strength, and were extremely fast.
At the time their design was under development, in 1935, the Navy had become so concerned with the increasing difficulty of fitting the desired firepower on a treaty-limited 1500-ton displacement that serious consideration was given to abandoning the heavy dual-purpose gun mounts. However, the Fleet insisted on the dual-purpose armament, and the design chosen was essentially an improved Gridley. The ships used three higher-pressure boilers in place of the four boilers of the earlier class, as well as more powerful machinery, and their displacement ended up being well over the 1500-ton limit. This no longer mattered much, as the 1936 London Treaty substituted restrictions on total destroyer tonnage for restrictions on individual ship tonnage.
They were expensive for destroyers, costing nearly $5 million dollars at the time.
|Benham||Task Force 8 (Enterprise)||Lost 1942-11-15 at Naval Battle of Guadalcanal|
|Ellet||Task Force 8 (Enterprise)
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2009, 2012 by Kent G. Budge. Index
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