The "Somers"-class destroyer was a class of five 1850-ton United States Navy destroyers based on the . They were answers to the large destroyers that the Japanese navy was building at the time, and were initially intended to be flotilla leaders. They were laid down from 1935–1936 and commissioned from 1937–1939. They were built to round-out the thirteen destroyers of 1,850 tons standard displacement allowed by the tonnage limits of the London Naval Treaty, and were originally intended to be repeat "Porter"s. However, new high-pressure, high-temperature boilers became available, allowing the use of a single stack. This combined with weight savings (including elimination of reload torpedoes) allowed an increase from two quadruple center-line torpedo tube mounts to three. However, the "Somers" class were still over-weight and top-heavy. This was the first US destroyer class to use steam superheated to , which became standard for US warships built in the late 1930s and World War II.