Charles F. Adams-class (DDG-2)

The Charles F. Adams class comprised 29 guided-missile destroyers built between 1958 and 1967, of which 23 went to the United States Navy, three to the Royal Australian Navy and three to the West German Bundesmarine. The design, designated project SCB 155, derived from the Forrest Sherman-class destroyers, with 19 feet (5.8 m) inserted amidships to accommodate the ASROC launcher. The Charles F. Adams class was the first American destroyer class designed from the outset as guided-missile destroyers.

Armament centred on the Tartar surface-to-air missile system, fired from either a Mk 11 twin-arm or Mk 13 single-arm launcher depending on the ship, with ASROC providing the anti-submarine weapon. The destroyers were the last steam turbine-powered destroyers built for the U.S. Navy; from the following Spruance class onward, American destroyers used gas turbines.

The West German ships formed the Lütjens class — Lütjens (D185), Mölders (D186) and Rommel (D187) — differing from the American units in crew accommodation layout, the position of the bow sonar, the addition of a second large aerial mast and revised funnels. The three Australian ships, built to Royal Australian Navy specifications as the Perth class, comprised HMAS Perth (D 38), HMAS Hobart (D 39) and HMAS Brisbane (D 41); they carried the Ikara anti-submarine missile system in place of ASROC.

American units of the class took part in the blockade of Cuba in 1962 and in the Vietnam War. The Perth-class destroyers served off Vietnam and later in the Gulf War.

By the mid-1970s the U.S. Navy assessed the class as inadequate against contemporary aircraft and anti-ship missiles, and initiated the New Threat Upgrade (NTU) programme of sensor, weapons and communications modifications. The upgrade added the AN/SLQ-32(V)2 electronic warfare suite, the Mk 86 gun fire control system with AN/SPQ-9 radar, the Hughes AN/SPS-52C three-dimensional radar, digital AN/SPG-51C fire control radars and the Naval Tactical Data System. Harpoon anti-ship missiles were to be fired from the existing Mk 11 and Mk 13 launchers. During the 1980s the Reagan administration accelerated construction of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with the Aegis Combat System, and only Tattnall, Goldsborough and Benjamin Stoddert received the full NTU refit. Others, including Charles F. Adams herself, received partial work limited to the AN/SLQ-32 and Harpoon installations as a stopgap until the Arleigh Burke class became operational.

Goldsborough, the last U.S. Navy ship of the class, was decommissioned on 29 April 1993. Four destroyers were transferred to the Hellenic Navy in 1992 as Kimon (D218, ex-USS Semmes), Nearchos (D219, ex-USS Waddell), Formion (D220, ex-USS Joseph Strauss) and Themistoklis (D221, ex-USS Berkeley), all since decommissioned. The Australian and German navies retired their last units by 2003. Mölders is preserved as a museum ship at Wilhelmshaven; the three Perth-class ships were sunk as dive wrecks. Plans to open Charles F. Adams as a museum ship in 2018 were suspended and the destroyer was scrapped in 2020.