Destroyers divide into leaders, fleet ships, and escorts

Destroyer leaders, general-purpose fleet destroyers, and lighter escort destroyers answer different design problems. Fleet destroyers are the 80-percent solution: they carry torpedoes and combine anti-submarine work, air defence, reconnaissance, and task-group screening. Lighter escort destroyers may give up torpedoes to add anti-submarine and anti-aircraft numbers inside frontline formations, distinguishing them from slower convoy escorts. With treaty tonnage restrictions gone, all three branches can grow, but the mass torpedo attack remains relevant because navies historically kept building torpedo-centred destroyers into the 1950s. The removal of individual and cumulative treaty limits is expected to bring ships comparable to the Daring and Halland classes into service rapidly.