USS Spence (DD-512) Specifications

Navy Dept. History DANFS History

Spence, ordered 28 June 1940, was fitted with the original high, round bridge carried over from the Sims class. Like other 2,100-ton Fletcher-class destroyers completed at Bath Iron Works in late 1942, specifications for hull 201, Spence, were the same as sister Strong:

DATA

Name: United States Ship Spence
Type: Destroyer
Namesake: Captain Robert Traill Spence, USN
Navy Classification: DD 512
Class: DD 445, Fletcher
Builder: Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine
Keel laid: 18 May 1942
Launched: 27 October 1942
Commissioned: 8 January 1943
Disposition: Lost, 18 December 1944.

Length Overall:

Extreme Beam:

Normal Displacement:

Draft:

Designed Complement:

Designed Shaft Horsepower:

Designed Speed:

Screws:

Rudder:

Stacks:

Tactical diameter:

Endurance:

Spence’s initial armament was that of a typical high-bridge Fletcher-class destroyer from 1942–3: five 5-inch guns in single mounts, four 40mm guns in two twin mounts (one between the 53 and 54 mounts; the other on the fantail) and ten 21-inch torpedo tubes in quintuple mounts plus 20mm guns (including one on an elevated platform forward of the bridge) and depth charges.

Primary:

Long-range anti-aircraft:

Short-range anti-aircraft:

Torpedo Tubes:

ASW:

Her electronics were also typical:

Radar:

Sonar:

Spence’s first modification was to replace the fantail 40mm—a location that had proved too wet for a director-controlled mount—with three single 20mm. Two twin 40mm guns were also installed in elevated gun tubs in way of the after stack, bringing her 40mm total to six, the typical mid-1943 armament:

Primary:

Long-range anti-aircraft:

Short-range anti-aircraft:

Torpedo Tubes:

ASW:

Spence was again modified at San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point, 18 August–5 October 1944 to carry two more 40mm twin mounts forward of the bridge—replacing the 20mm single mounts there—the typical 1943–4 armament carried by 157 of 166 then-active Fletchers:

Primary:

Long-range anti-aircraft:

Short-range anti-aircraft:

Torpedo Tubes:

ASW:

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