Destroyers

The US Navy had an excellent general purpose destroyer class, the FLETCHER class. What were the equivalents of these fine ships in other navies?

 

yes the destroyer did all the work and they had all the hard jobs yes i agree the fletcher was by far the best

 

A very interesting destroyer design is the British "Hunt"-class. These were, IIRC, the first DDs to be optimized for ASW work, and provided much valuable service in the Battle of the Atlantic. How would you all rate them?

 

The Hunts were not optimized for ASW. They were meant as escorts with an especially heavy AA outfit. (The 4in gun was capable of significant volume of fire.) Their official rating was "escort destroyer," but they should not be confused with American "destroyer escorts." As anti-sub platforms the Hunts suffered from unsuitability to ATW.

 

Really? I was under the impression that the Hunts were ASW ships. Are you certain of this?

 

The Hunts were, of course, anti-sub units just as the fleet destroyers were. In fact, a Hunt was supposed to be everything a fleet destroyer was except without the fleet responsibilities. Hunts participated in sinking about 21 submarines. However, that was all with guns and depth charges; no Hunt ever carried a Hedgehog or Squid system.
The frigates were the optimized ASW escorts, and they worked a lot in oceanic waters, while I think you'll find most of the Hunts in the Med or other European waters. Compare the range on these ships: 3600nm at 14 knots (Hunt II), 7200nm at 12 knots (River). When the DEs entered British service, they were rated as frigates (Evarts, 6000nm at 12 knots).

 

I see. Thank you, Tiornu.