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Destroyer Tender
A Destroyer Tender is a ship designed to provide maintenance support to a flotilla of destroyers or other small warships.These warships lacked the space on board for extensive machine shops and spare parts stores, which made them more dependent on outside facilities for routine repairs and maintenance than larger warships.
Destroyer tenders were naval auxiliaries equipped to perform repairs and provide stores for destroyers at advance bases. They were particularly well equipped to service and repair torpedoes, the destroyer's main weapon. Despite their title, destroyer tenders service a variety of ships besides destroyers. The Yellowstone, Gompers and Dixie class destroyer tenders can provide battle damage repair, maintenance and logistics support to ships at anchor or moored to a pier, in a wartime environment.
The Gompers class can accommodate ships up to and including the highly complex nuclear-powered missile cruisers. The crews are formed mainly of technicians and repair crews.
These Destroyer Tenders have a helicopter platform and hangar, and are equipped with two 30 ton and two 6 ton cranes. They can provide simultaneous services to as many as five ships moored along side.
These ships, so vital to fleet operations, range in age from the Dixie class ship Prairie (AD 15), commissioned in 1940, to the new Shenandoah (AD 44), commissioned in late 1983.
Because of the advent of nuclear power and the phenomenal advancement in electronics and weaponry, AD capabilities have had to be vastly increased. The Gompers and Yellowstone classes are the first of post-World War II design; however, more than 15 years elapsed between the launching of the second of the Gompers class, Puget Sound (AD 38), and Yellowstone (AD 41).
Tenders
