The Gearing class was a group of 98 destroyers built for the US Navy during and shortly after World War II. The Gearing design was a minor modification of the immediately preceding Allen M. Sumner class. The hull was lengthened 14 ft (4.3 m) amidships, creating more storage space for fuel, thus giving the ships a larger range than the Sumners.
The first Gearings were not ready for service until mid-1945, so they saw relatively little wartime service. They continued serving, with a series of upgrades, until the 1970s. At that time many were sold to other nations, where they served many more years.
Three Gearing-class ships still exist, as museum ships: USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850) in Fall River, MA, and USS Orleck (DD-886) in Lake Charles, LA and the Turkish ship TCG Gayret (D-352) formerly USS Eversole (DD-789) in Izmit, Turkey.
In the late 1950s forty-four of the Gearing-class destroyers underwent extensive modernization overhauls, known as FRAM I, which were designed to convert them from an AA destroyer to an anti-submarine warfare platform.
The FRAM MK I program was designed primarily for the Gearing-class destroyers. This upgrade included rebuilding the ship's superstructure, engines, electronic systems, radar, sonar, and weapons. The second twin 5" gun mount was removed. Upgraded systems include SQS-23 sonar, SPS-10 surface search radar, 2 × triple Mk 32 torpedo launchers, 8-cell ASROC box launcher, and QH-50C DASH ASW drone helicopter, with its own landing pad and hangar.
The Gyrodyne QH-50C DASH was an unmanned anti-submarine helicopter, controlled remotely from the ship. The drone could carry 2 × MK.44 homing ASW torpedoes. During this era the ASROC system had an effective range of only 5 nautical miles (9 km), but the DASH drone allowed the ship to deploy ASW attack to sonar contacts as far as 22 nautical miles (41 km) away.
An upgraded version of DASH, QH-50D, remained in use by the US Army until May, 2006.The FRAM MK II program was designed primarily for the Sumner-class destroyers, but were used to upgrade the Gearing class as well. This upgrade program includes life-extension refurbishment, a new radar system, Mk. 32 torpedo, DASH ASW drone, and most importantly, a new variable depth sonar (VDS).
| Gearing class destroyer | |
|---|---|
| Type: | Destroyer |
| Displacement: | 2,616 tons standard; 3,460 tons full load |
| Length: | 390.5 ft (119.0 m) |
| Beam: | 40.9 ft (12.5 m) |
| Draft: | 14.3 ft (4.4 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 shaft; General Electric steam turbines; 4 boilers; 60,000 shp |
| Speed: | 36.8 knots (68.2 km/h) |
| Range: | 4,500 nmi at 20 knots (8,300 km at 37 km/h) |
| Armament: |
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