Benson made machinery layout a form of protection

The Benson class returned to two funnels because its machinery spaces followed an alternating boiler-room and engine-room arrangement. Cross-connections could route steam from a surviving boiler room to a working turbine after damage. Rerouting steam reduced efficiency but could preserve propulsion. A single hit was less likely to remove every boiler or every turbine. Destroyers lacked the displacement for heavy armour, so continued power, pumping, and movement depended on subdivision and machinery layout. The design carried five 5-inch/38 guns, two quintuple torpedo launchers, 600 psi boilers, and about 6,500 nautical miles of range at 12 knots. Designed speed was 37.5 knots at normal load, falling to about 33 knots at full load. A run of thirty ships moved the programme from small experimental batches toward repeat production, while later units still incorporated improvements. Their survivability depended on arrangement and redundancy rather than armour thickness.