Running, Signal & Anchor Lights, 1950 BuShips Variable Depth The last World War II surface combatant in US naval service was the USS William C. Lawe (DD-763), a Gearing FRAM I, decommissioned and stricken 1 October 1983 and expended as a target 14 July 1999. Historical Foundation, unless otherwise stated. A limitation of drones in ASW was the need to re-acquire the target at ranges beyond the effectiveness of the controlling ship's sonar. Conversions were carried out at Boston and Norfolk Navy Yards and involved replacing the forward torpedo tube mount with a tripod mast for height-finding radar and other systems. original Fletchers). With this modification, the Oerlikon cannons were rearranged and their number was standardized at seven; four amidships and three in a heart-shaped mount on the fantail. Among notable changes are a modified bridge arrangement and Group A ships also received two MK10/11 Hedgehogs fitted on each side of the bridge at the 01 level and had the MK-32 triple torpedo launchers aft of the second stack. CLASS - GEARING As Built. Among the destroyers, conversion of the Gearing and Allen M. Sumner classes took precedence over the Fletcher and Benson classes. BuShips - March 30, 1951, 1951 BuShips DD-692 Class Under the most advanced Wu Chin III upgrade program, all World War II vintage weapons were removed and replaced with four Hsiung Feng II surface-to-surface missiles, ten SM-1 (box launchers), one 8-cell ASROC, one 76mm (3in) Otobreda gun, two Bofors 40mm AA, one 20 mm Phalanx CIWS and two triple 12.75in (324mm) torpedo tubes. introduces the twin 5"/38 dual-purpose gun mount as a destroyer weapon. The Kingfisher E specification in 1946 called for a subsonic rocket-boosted heavy MK 35 torpedo, which was to be launched from surface ships. P.O. // -->. procedures! The Gearing class was a series of 98 destroyers built for the U.S. Navy during and shortly after World War II. process leading to the Allen M. Sumner (DD-692) class design. [1][2][3][4], Following World War II most of the class had their AA and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) armament upgraded. On 11 May 1962, Agerholm tested a live nuclear ASROC in the "Swordfish" test. if(MSFPhover) { MSFPnav10n=MSFPpreload("_derived/destroyer_tenders.htm_cmp_clearday110_hbtn.gif"); MSFPnav10h=MSFPpreload("_derived/destroyer_tenders.htm_cmp_clearday110_hbtn_a.gif"); } The DASH ASW drones were not acquired, but hangar facilities aboard those ships that had them were later used to accommodate ASW versions of MD 500 Defender helicopters. During this era the ASROC system had an effective range of only 5 nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi), but the DASH drone allowed the ship to deploy ASW attack to sonar contacts as far as 22 nautical miles (41 km; 25 mi) away. The FRAM II ships retained all six 5-inch guns, except the DDEs retained four 5-inch guns and a trainable Hedgehog in the No. Odd's & End's Shipyard Plans // -->