cover at Gold Beach on 6 June 1944; her sisters served as convoy escorts. All three survived the war, two being sunk as targets and one scrapped, postwar. Armament The armament repeated that of the preceding Sampson-class of "thousand tonners", and would be retained in the subsequent mass production "flush deckers". While the gun armament was typical for destroyers of this period, the torpedo armament of twelve torpedo tubes was larger than usual, in accordance with American practice at the time. A factor in the size of the torpedo armament was the General Board's decision to use broadside rather than centerline torpedo tubes. This was due to the desire to have some torpedoes remaining after firing a broadside, and problems experienced with centerline mounts on previous classes with torpedoes striking the gunwales of the firing ship. The Mark 8 torpedo was equipped. The "bandstand" location of the waist 4-inch guns kept the mounts dry, but restricted the firing arc. These ships carried a 23 caliber anti-aircraft (AA) gun, typically just aft of the bow 4-inch gun. The original design called for two 1-pounder AA guns, but these were in short supply and the 3-inch gun was more effective. Anti-submarine (ASW) armament was added during World War I, or included in the initial design with DD-70 and DD-71. Typically, a single depth charge rack was provided aft, along with a Y-gun depth charge projector forward of the aft deckhouse. Engineering As a somewhat experimental class, the Caldwells differed in their engineering. Conner and Stockton, built by Cramp, followed the class's original design, with three-shaft direct drive steam turbines. A high-pressure turbine on the center shaft exhausted to low-pressure turbines on the outboard shafts. A geared cruising turbine was provided on the center shaft for fuel economy at low and moderate speeds. The remaining ships had two shafts with geared turbines and no cruising turbines. This arrangement saw an increase from and the ships' speed from . With a further increase in horsepower, this geared turbine arrangement was adopted for the mass-production classes. Caldwell had an experimental "electric speed reducing gear" connecting the cruising turbines to the main turbines, a forerunner of the turbo-electric drive that would be used on several US battleships and aircraft carriers built from World War I through the 1920s. Ships in class References Bibliography Gardiner, Robert, Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921, London: Conway Maritime Press,