 The ships were built by four private American shipyards — Bath Iron Works , Fore River Shipbuilding Company , New York Shipbuilding Corporation , and William Cramp and Sons — and were laid down between February and November 1914 ; launched between April and July 1915 ; and commissioned into the U.S. Navy between July 1915 and May 1916 . The ships had a median displacement of 1 @,@ 060 long tons ( 1 @,@ 080 t ) , were just over 315 feet ( 96 m ) in length , and had a beam of about 30 feet ( 9 @.@ 1 m ) . Most of the ships had two direct @-@ drive steam turbines and a single geared cruising turbine ; Wadsworth was equipped with two geared steam turbines only and , as the first U.S. destroyer so equipped , greatly influenced later U.S. Navy destroyer designs . All of the ships were designed for a maximum speed of 29 @.@ 5 knots ( 54 @.@ 6 km / h ) and a range of 2 @,@ 500 nautical miles ( 4 @,@ 600 km ) at more economical speeds . As built , they were armed with four 4 @-@ inch ( 10 cm ) guns and had four twin 21 @-@ inch ( 530 mm ) torpedo tubes with a load of eight torpedoes , but all were later equipped with depth charges . 
