Destroyers without treaty limits

What destroyers might have followed the Clemson class without treaty restrictions?

They could have become larger and more heavily armed, with a gradual move toward five-inch guns and much heavier torpedo armament.

The four-stack Clemson class offers a capable starting point rather than an obsolete baseline. Its successors could grow from roughly 1,300 tons toward 1,600 tons in the 1920s and perhaps 2,000 tons by the early 1930s. The four-inch gun could remain attractive as a high-rate dual-purpose weapon until a five-inch replacement offered a decisive improvement. Removing treaty displacement pressure also makes British 24-inch torpedoes practical in destroyers and could create a torpedo race parallel to the capital-ship gun race. Japanese inability to match American hull production would encourage even larger torpedoes and other qualitative advantages, while destroyer gun choices would still diverge according to anti-ship or air-defence priorities.