USS Frank Knox

USS Frank Knox

USS Frank Knox

Description

The Gearing-class, Frank Knox (DD-742), 1944 is a premium rank American destroyer with a battle rating of (AB), (RB), and (SB). It was introduced in Update "Fire and Ice".

General info

Survivability and armour

USS Frank Knox has the same armour layout as the USS Gearing, the lead ship of the Gearing class. This means she has a main belt of 0.75 inches, which is surprisingly well armoured for a destroyer of this rank. This is more than the 0.5 inches of the Porter class and the same as the earlier Fletcher class. This belt cannot stop more than 20 mm autocannons, but it significantly lessens spall damage from HE shells from other destroyers and light cruisers. The dual turret mounts have 0.125 inches of armour on the front, sides, rear, and top, and there is a 0.5-inch deck armour plate covering the machinery spaces.

The magazine is placed under the aft turret, and is protected by fuel tanks on both sides of the hull. These fuel tanks will protect the magazine from high explosive shells, but any SAP or AP will slice straight through and ammorack the ship. Captains of USS Frank Knox should avoid taking hits to the stern of the ship whenever possible, and evasive action is recommended as any direct hit under the aft turret will most likely result in total loss of the ship.

As for crew count, USS Frank Knox is quite well off. With a crew count of 336, Frank Knox is able to lose more crew members and keep fighting in comparison to her older Porter-class and Fletcher-class predecessors, allowing her to stay in the fight for longer. This can allow captains of USS Frank Knox to serve as a flotilla leader and absorb shots in some situations, although as stated before it is not recommended to do so while the stern is within the line of fire.

The primary battery has enough armour to stop some spall damage from misses with high explosive shells, but any direct hit from any destroyer calibre gun or higher will inevitably knock the mount out of action. The secondary battery has no armour whatsoever, and splash from hits or near misses will commonly damage or destroy the battery. It is recommended to avoid repairing these whenever possible, as they will inevitably be destroyed again and drain more crew from the ship.

Mobility

Write about the ship's mobility. Evaluate its power and manoeuvrability, rudder rerouting speed, stopping speed at full tilt, with its maximum forward and reverse speed.

Mobility Characteristics
Game Mode	Upgrade Status	Maximum Speed (km/h)		Turn Time (s)	Turn Radius (m)
		Forward	Reverse
AB	Stock	___	___
	Upgraded
RB/SB	Stock	___	___
	Upgraded

Armament

Primary armament

Provide information about the characteristics of the primary armament. Evaluate their efficacy in battle based on their reload speed, ballistics and the capacity of their shells. Add a link to the main article about the weapon: {{main|Weapon name (calibre)}}. Broadly describe the ammunition available for the primary armament, and provide recommendations on how to use it and which ammunition to choose.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		1,000 m	2,500 m	5,000 m	7,500 m	10,000 m	15,000 m
AAC Mk.34	HE	36	36	36	36	36	36
Common Mk.32	Common	124	103	77	58	46	37
SP Common Mk.46	SP Common	150	125	93	71	56	45
AAVT Mk.31	HE-VT	36	36	36	36	36	36

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (s)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
AAC Mk.34	HE	792	25	0	0.1	3,220	79°	80°	81°
Common Mk.32	Common	792	24.49	0.01	6	1,150	47°	60°	65°
SP Common Mk.46	SP Common	792	25	0.01	6	906.5	48°	63°	71°

Proximity-fused shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Arming distance (m)	Trigger radius (m)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
									0%	50%	100%
AAVT Mk.31	HE-VT	792	25	0	0.1	457	23	3,220	79°	80°	81°

Secondary armament

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
40 mm HEFI-T	HEFI-T	3	3	3	3	3	3
40 mm AP-T	AP-T	81	78	68	58	49	41

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
40 mm HEFI-T	HEFI-T	874	0.9	0	0.1	67.13	79°	80°	81°
40 mm AP-T	AP-T	874	0.89	N/A	N/A	N/A	47°	60°	65°

Anti-aircraft armament

An important part of the ship's armament responsible for air defence. Anti-aircraft armament is defined by the weapon chosen with the control Select anti-aircraft weapons. Talk about the ship's anti-air cannons and machine guns, the number of guns and their positions, their effective range, and about their overall effectiveness – including against surface targets. If there are no anti-aircraft armaments, remove this section.

Additional armament

Describe the available additional armaments of the ship: depth charges, mines, torpedoes. Talk about their positions, available ammunition and launch features such as dead zones of torpedoes. If there is no additional armament, remove this section.

Usage in battles

Describe the technique of using this ship, the characteristics of her use in a team and tips on strategy. Abstain from writing an entire guide – don't try to provide a single point of view, but give the reader food for thought. Talk about the most dangerous opponents for this vehicle and provide recommendations on fighting them. If necessary, note the specifics of playing with this vehicle in various modes (AB, RB, SB).

Pros and cons

Summarise and briefly evaluate the vehicle in terms of its characteristics and combat effectiveness. Mark its pros and cons in the bulleted list. Try not to use more than 6 points for each of the characteristics. Avoid using categorical definitions such as "bad", "good" and the like - use substitutions with softer forms such as "inadequate" and "effective".

Pros:

Cons:

History

Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the ship in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the ship and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Ship-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the ship's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

Links to articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the ship;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• Forum post
• [Development] Premium destroyer USS Frank Knox
• other literature.