Q&A · 1:27:38-1:30:24

Assembling the worst interwar destroyer

A deliberately bad destroyer combines oversized German guns, unreliable machinery and torpedoes, weak anti-aircraft weapons, and an undertrained crew.

Question

What combination of the worst destroyer features between the First World War and 1949 would make an exceptionally bad ship?

Short answer

The proposed combination uses German guns and radar, Russian-built Italian machinery, a Japanese hull, American torpedoes, Soviet and Japanese AA, Italian depth charges, and a Spanish crew short of training after the civil war.

Notes

The deliberately bad destroyer combines German 5.9-inch guns and radar with a Japanese hull design and American torpedoes. Machinery suggestions settle on Russian-built Italian-designed engines and very high-pressure boilers. Soviet 45 mm anti-aircraft guns, backed by Japanese 25 mm weapons, supply the weak AA outfit, and Italian depth charges are added to the list. The panel rejects Soviet destroyer crews as inherently poor, citing Gorshkov as a counterexample. For a crew short of training and sea time in 1939, it instead proposes Spain while its navy is still recovering from the civil war. British destroyers' lower stated speeds receive a qualification: they were intended to sustain speed in worse weather.