Laforey-class destroyer (1913)
The Laforey class was a class of 22 torpedo boat destroyers of the Royal Navy, twenty of which were built under the Naval Programme of 1912–13 and a further two under the 2nd War Emergency Programme of 1914. As such they were the penultimate pre-war British destroyer design. All served during World War I during which three were lost; the survivors were all scrapped in 1921-23.
HMS Loyal, October 1914
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were originally conceived in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.
USS Arleigh Burke, the lead ship of her class of guided-missile destroyers.
The destroyers of the US Navy's Zumwalt-class, pictured here sailing with a Littoral combat ship (LCS) are the longest and heaviest destroyers currently in service.
The Italian Caio Duilio, belongs to the Horizon-class of Franco-Italian designed first-rate frigates.
Fernando Villaamil, credited as the inventor of the destroyer concept, died in action during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898.