Above: Charles F. Adams. Scroll down on this page to link to images of the other 22 Adams-class destroyers commissioned in the US Navy. The US Navy’s first class of smaller destroyers planned and completed as a guided missile platform was the Charles F. Adams class. Authorized in fiscal years 1957–1961, the Adams were built on an enlarged Forrest Sherman hull with increased freeboard forward; the first eight were initially assigned hull numbers 952–959 in sequence following the last Forrest Sherman but commissioned as DDGs 2–9.
Designed to provide anti-air missile defense for aircraft carriers, their initial armament carried over that of the Forrest Shermans with a  twin-arm (Mark 11) or single-arm (Mark 13) Tartar missile launcher replacing the earlier class’s after 5-inch gun, as first exemplified in Gyatt (DDG 1).
Twenty-three ships were commissioned by the US Navy in 1960–64. Australia and West Germany also purchased three ships each, with modified armament.SPECIFICATIONS
Dimensions for Charles F. Adams were as follows:
Length: Overall: 437 feet
Beam: 47 feet
Draft: 20 feet
Light displacement: 3,370 tons.
Later ships were as follows:
Length between perpendiculars: 420’ 0"; Overall: 440’ 3"
Extreme Beam: 44’ 11˝"
Limiting draft: 16’ 0"
Displacement:
Light: 3,527 tons;
Full Load: 4,642 tons (Cochrane, 1982) INITIAL ARMAMENT
Two 5-inch/54 cal. dual purpose guns.
One Mark 11 or Mark 13 Guided Missile Launching System (Tartar)
One ASROC Launcher.
Two 12.75" triple anti-submarine torpedo mounts. To find an image of a ship: (1) hover to identify the image; then click to view it in more detail or (2) link from the ship list below. 2 Charles F. Adams, 3 John King, 4 Lawrence, 5 Claude V. Ricketts, 6 Barney, 7 Henry B. Wilson, 8 Lynde McCormick, 9 Towers, 10 Sampson, 11 Sellers, 12 Robison, 13 Hoel, 14 Buchanan, 15 Berkeley, 16 Joseph Strauss, 17 Conyngham, 18 Semmes, 19 Tattnall, 20 Goldsborough, 21 Cochrane, 22 Benjamin Stoddert, 23 Richard E. Byrd, 24 Waddell. |
COMPLEMENT
Officers: 22
Chief Petty Officers: 21
Enlisted: 298
The Charles F. Adams class served successfully for three decades, contemporaneous with the Farragut-class DLGs, until 1989, when it was determined that further modification would not be cost-effective in light of the imminent commissioning of the advanced Arleigh Burke-class DDGs. Twenty were decommissioned between October of that year and the end of 1991; the last in April 1993, as production of the Arleigh Burkes ramped up. | 
