 The " thousand tonners " were the 26 United States Navy destroyers of five classes — Cassin , Aylwin , O 'Brien , Tucker , and Sampson — so named because they were the first U.S. Navy destroyers to have displacements greater than 1 @,@ 000 long tons . The Cassin class , the first of the thousand tonners , displaced about a third more than the preceding <unk> class . The introduction of the thousand tonners led to the <unk> and other older , smaller displacement destroyers of previous classes to be <unk> called " <unk> " , a nickname also commonly applied to the Ford Model T. 
