Johnston

14.3

Johnston

Destroyer | U.S.A. | Tier IX

Tech Tree Position

General

Purchase priceSpecial

Hit Points17,100

Main Battery

127 mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount5 x 1 pcs.

Rate of Fire17.14 shots/min.

Reload Time3.5 sec.

Rotation Speed34 deg./sec.

180 Degree Turn Time5.3 sec.

Firing Range12.5 km.

Maximum Dispersion109 m.

HE Shell127 mm HE Mk32

Maximum HE Shell Damage1,800

HE Shell Chance to Cause Fire5 %

Initial HE Shell Velocity792 m./s.

HE Shell Weight25 kg.

SAP Shell127 mm SC Mk38

Maximum SAP Shell Damage2,500

Initial SAP Shell Velocity792

SAP Shell Weight25 kg.

Torpedo Tubes

533 mm Mk142 x 5 pcs.

Rate of Fire0.35 shots/min.

Reload Time170 sec.

Rotation Speed25 deg./sec.

180 Degree Turn Time7.2 sec.

Maximum Damage17,900

Torpedo Speed66 knot

Torpedo Range13.5 km.

Torpedo Detectability1,400 m.

Anti-Air Defense

127 mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount5 x 1 pcs.

40 mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.1 mount5 x 2 pcs.

20 mm Oerlikon on a Mk.4 mount6 x 1 pcs.

N/AN/A pcs.

. . . Long AA Range5.8 pcs.

. . . Long AA DPS74 pcs.

. . . Mid AA Range3.8 pcs.

. . . Mid AA DPS112 pcs.

. . . Short AA Range2 pcs.

. . . Short AA DPS53 pcs.

Flak Range5.8 pcs.

Flak Count4 pcs.

Flak Damage1,540 pcs.

Maneuverability

Maximum Speed38 knot.

Turning Circle Radius580 m.

Rudder Shift Time3 sec.

Concealment

Surface Detectability Range7.16 km.

Air Detectability Range3.27 km.

Battle Levels

12345678910

X

Special

Johnston — American premium Tier IX destroyer.

A Fletcher-class destroyer—one of the most extensively produced destroyers in the U.S. Navy. After entering service in 1943, the ship participated in military operations in the Pacific, conducting patrol duties, providing fire support for ground forces, and escorting various formations and convoys. In October 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, USS Johnston served as part of a covering force for a group of escort aircraft carriers. The ship bravely engaged the Japanese forces with six other destroyers, providing cover for the carriers to escape the attack; however, she was ultimately sunk in the intense battle.

Johnston was first released for sale on 4 July 2024.

Modules

	Hit Points	Plating (mm)	Belt Armor (mm)	Rudder Shift Time (Seconds)	Turning Circle (Meters)	Surface Concealment (Kilometers)	Aerial Concealment (Kilometers)
Johnston	17,100	19 mm	19 mm	3 sec.	580 m.	7.16 km.	3.27 km.

	Main Turrets	Reload Time	180° Turn Time	Maximum Dispersion	Maximum Range
127 mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount	5 x 1	3.5 sec.	5.3 sec.	109 m.	12.5 km.

	Torpedo Launchers	Reload Time (Seconds)	Range (Kilometers)	Maximum Damage	Speed (Knots)	Detectability (Kilometers)
533 mm Mk14	2 x 5	170 sec.	13.5 km.	17,900	66 knts.	1,400 km.

Player Opinion

Performance

Combat Capability - Alternative Firing Mode

Johnston can alternate between a regular firing mode and a Burst Fire firing mode. Firing the guns with the alternative firing mode enabled will fire 3 salvos in quick succession. This firing mode takes longer to reload.

Requirements:

Burst fire can be toggled on and off at will.

Effects:

• Reload time: 9 seconds
• Interval between individual shots: 1.4 seconds
• Number of bursts in a series: 3
  
  

Pros:

• Pros

Cons:

• Cons

Research

As a premium ship, Johnston has no module upgrades to research.

Optimal Configuration

Upgrades

The recommended upgrades are:

• Slot 1:
• Slot 2:
• Slot 3:
• Slot 4:
• Slot 5:
• Slot 6:

Commander Skills

Recommended Commander Skills
Cost (points)	Attack				Defense
1	Grease the Gears +15% main battery traverse speed.	Liquidator +30% chance (multiplicative) of causing flooding.	Consumables Specialist −7.5% cooldown time of all Consumables except:  Damage Control Party ,  Repair Party .	Gun Feeder -40% time to switch shell type.	Incoming Fire Alert Receive a warning about a salvo fired at your ship from more than 4.5 km.	Preventive Maintenance −30% chance of main armament, engines, steering becoming incapacitated +15% to HP of secondary and AA guns.
2	Demolition Expert +1% chance of main and secondary HE shells causing a fire. +15% to the damage-inflicting area of HE shells fired at submarines.	Swift Fish +5% torpedo speed.	Consumables Enhancements +10% action time of: Hydroacoustic Search , Surveillance Radar , Smoke Generator , & Engine Boost .	Extra-Heavy Ammunition +7.5% main battery AP shell damage. +10% damage from depth charges.	Priority Target The detection indicator will show the number of enemies aiming at you with main battery.	Last Stand The ship remains able to move and maneuver - slowly - while the engine or steering gears are incapacitated.
3	Main Battery & AA Specialist -5% main battery reload time. +10% continuous AA damage.	Fill the Tubes -10% torpedo tubes reload time.	Adrenaline Rush -0.2% reload time of all armaments per 1% HP lost +0.2% AA continuous damage per 1% HP lost.	Inertial Fuse for HE Shells +25% armor penetration of HE shells Base fire chance reduced by half.	Superintendent +1 charge to all consumables.	Survivability Expert +350 HP per ship tier.
4	Main Battery & AA Expert +20% main battery range. +15% flak damage.	Swift in Silence So long as the ship remains undetected: +8% ship speed +5% main battery reload time.	Radio Location Shows the direction to the nearest enemy ship. The enemy is alerted that a bearing has been taken..	Fearless Brawler +1 flak burst per salvo. -10% main battery reload when ship is spotted.	Concealment Expert -10% detectability range of the ship.	Dazzle For 15 seconds after you are detected: * +20% dispersion of enemy shells fired at you. * +8% ship speed.
Key: ★★★ - Extremely Useful      ★★ - Frequently Useful      ★ - Occasionally Useful     No stars - Not Useful

Consumables

Johnston equips the following consumables:

• Slot 1: Damage Control Party 
• Slot 2: Smoke Generator  – 3 charges
• Slot 3: Engine Boost  – 3 charges or Defensive AA Fire  – 4 charges

Camouflage

As a premium ship, Johnston comes with Default permanent camouflage and a set of permanent combat bonuses.

Signals

Recommended Signal Flags
Combat
Charlie Kilo +5% ship HP; +2.5% squadron HP.	Juliet Yankee Bissotwo -20% to flooding duration.	India Yankee -20% to fire duration.	Hotel Yankee -20% to damage received when ramming the enemy. +50% to damage dealt when ramming the enemy.	Victor Lima +1% chance for HE bombs and shells with a caliber above 160mm causing a fire. +0.5% chance for bombs and smaller shells causing a fire. +4% chance of torpedoes causing flooding.	India X-Ray +1% chance for HE bombs and shells with a caliber above 160mm causing a fire. +0.5% chance for bombs and smaller shells causing a fire.
Juliet Whiskey Unaone +15% chance of causing flooding.	Mike Yankee Soxisix +5% to secondary battery maximum firing range. -5% to maximum dispersion of secondary battery shells. -5% to secondary battery loading time.	November Echo Setteseven +5% continuous AA damage at all ranges. +5% damage from flak bursts.	Sierra Mike +5% to the ship's maximum speed.	November Foxtrot -5% reload time on all consumables.	India Delta +20% to the amount of HP recovered when Repair Party  is used.
X-Ray Papa Unaone +10% action time of a Smoke Generator .	Sierra Bravo +10% action time of Hydroacoustic Search  -10% reload time of Defensive AA Fire .

Gallery

Historical Info

Johnston is perhaps one of the most famous warships in the entirety of the Second World War, best remembered for the bravery (or perhaps insanity) of her crew. In October 1944, the ship took on a major Japanese Task Force composed of battleship Yamato and several other heavy warships and destroyers. She managed to severely damage heavy cruiser Kumano and deal light damage to Japanese destroyers, before suffering enough battle damage that she had to be abandoned. For her heroics, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, and served a focal point of morale for the United States Navy during the latter half of World War II.

Johnston started her life at the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilders Yard, where she was laid down on May 6th, 1942 and launched on March 25th, 1943. This was unusual for a Fletcher-class destroyer, since most Fletchers were built at shipyards on the East Coast of the United States while she was one of the few laid down on the West Coast. Of course, Johnston specifications were fairly standard for a Fletcher-class destroyer, weighing about 2900 tons at full load and armed with five 127 mm/38 main guns and 2 quintuple 533 mm torpedo tubes, along with numerous 20 and 40 mm AA guns for air defense. Johnston’s power came from four Babcock and Wilcox steam boilers and two General Electric steam turbines which produced 60,000 horsepower on two shafts, allowing for a top speed of 38 knots and a cruising range of 5,500 nautical miles at 15 knots. Her sensor array was also standard for the Fletcher-class, with an SG surface-search radar, Mark 12/22 fire-control radar, and the Mark 37 GFCS for her main battery, along with the QCA radar for anti-submarine warfare and the TDC system for her torpedoes.

Perhaps the only thing more famous than Johnston is her captain, Lieutenant Captain Ernest E. Evans. A native Oklahoman and a born leader, upon being assigned command of the ship, he famously stated, “This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now.” His words rang true throughout the ship’s brief but illustrious career, especially during the Battle off Samar. However, her early deployments were fairly routine and somewhat uneventful, taking part in shore bombardments and anti-submarine warfare in the Gilbert and Marshall Island campaign, the Solomon Islands campaign and the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. It wouldn’t be until the Battle off Samar that she would earn her famed reputation as a “Fighting Ship.”

The Battle off Samar, which was a part of the much wider Battle of Leyte Gulf, was as the result of a tactical mistake rather than a calculated risk. Over the course of two days, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, in charge of the 3rd Fleet, had relentlessly struck Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Center Force with air and submarine attacks, the latter of which, conducted by the submarines Darter and Dace, managed to sink the heavy cruisers Atago and Maya and severely damage the heavy cruiser Takao. This forced Kurita to turn back and regroup. At that point, Kurita had essentially decided to re-engage at the assumed location of the 3rd Fleet in an attempt to counteract any thrust by the Americans through the Sibuyan Sea and San Bernardino Strait. However, Halsey had instead opted to move the 3rd Fleet to chase down a decoy group of carriers led by Admiral Ozawa, which the Bull had assumed to be the primary Japanese strike force in the area. This left just Taffy 3 to defend the area off Samar, with Rear Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s 7th Fleet well out of support range. It would be up to the small Escort Carrier fleet, led by Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague, to stall for time against Kurita’s Center Force — which had now moved back towards Samar — and protect Kinkaid from the North, assuming Kurita had realized Halsey’s blunder and was now moving in to attack Kinkaid from that direction with his much larger Center Force.

Taffy 3 was essentially going into battle completely outmatched and outgunned. This was a task force composed of 6 escort carriers, 3 destroyers, including Johnston, and 3 smaller destroyer escorts, against a vast force of 4 battleships, 8 cruisers, and 11 destroyers, including battleships Yamato, Nagato and two Kongō-class battlecruisers. However, Evans was undeterred by the overwhelming odds. At 06:57 on October 25th, Admiral Sprague ordered Taffy 3 into a defensive formation, but Captain Evans decided to go on and directly attack the Japanese Center Fleet. He turned northeast and began his attack run, running a lethal gauntlet of 16-inch shells from Nagato and volleys of 6-inch secondary fire from Haruna. Despite the best efforts of the Japanese, Johnston remained untouched. Evans then singled out a target, the heavy cruiser Kumano, and began to bombard her with volleys of 5-inch shellfire. The Japanese returned fire with 8-inch artillery salvoes of their own, but scored no hits on Johnston. In the meantime, the Fighting Ship had scored upwards of 40 hits on Kumano, damaging her and setting her superstructure on fire. Johnston then turned away from Kumano into her own smoke, launching a full salvo of 10 torpedoes, one of which scored a hit directly on Kumano’s bow, blowing it off and forcing her to retreat.

This was the beginning of the end for USS Johnston however. At 07:30, Yamato herself fired an entire salvo of nine 18.1-inch Armor Piercing rounds and 6-inch rounds at Johnston. Three of the 18.1-inch rounds tore through Johnston’s hull, severely damaging her engines and cutting her power in half, while another three 6-inch shells disabled her torpedo director and damaged her superstructure, badly injuring Captain Evans. At this point, Evans decided to continue his defense of the escort carriers, coming to the assistance of the stricken Gambier Bay and attempting to stave off the Japanese battlecruiser Kongō. However, at this point, the Japanese cruiser Yahagi, along with five destroyers, moved into position, and began striking her with 5 and 6-inch High Explosive rounds. Eventually, Johnston was reduced to a sinking, holed, and mangled wreck, her deck ablaze, her artillery silent, and her engines destroyed. At 09:45, Evans gave the order to abandon ship, and at 10:10, Johnston split apart and sank with the loss of 186 men out of her total crew of 327, including Captain Ernest E. Evans. As she sank, the crew of the Japanese destroyer Yukikaze sailed past and saluted her crew, as an honor to the fighting spirit of Johnston and her crew. For their actions during Samar in defense of the Escort Carriers, as well as the heroics, determined optimism and fighting spirit demonstrated during the engagement, the crew of the Johnston was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, and Commander Evans was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

In 2019, Johnston’s was discovered at a depth of ~20,000 feet in the Pacific Ocean, and was identified in March 2021. Her hull number, “557”, remains intact despite the crushing depths of the Pacific, as well as the majority of the battle damage that the ship suffered, including where she split in two from the damage caused by one of Yamato’s shells striking her amidships. Johnston’s preservation at the bottom of the ocean remains a testament to the spirit of her crew in the face of overwhelming odds, along with the bravery, and perhaps determined insanity, of Captain Ernest Evans. Until the wreck of Samuel B. Roberts was discovered in 2022, Johnston was the deepest discovered shipwreck in the world.

Johnston, 1943

Construction

Builder: Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Company

Laid down: May 6, 1942

Launched: March 25, 1943

Commissioned: October 27, 1943

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Specifications

2100 tons displacement, standard

114.76m length

12.1m beam

5.4m draft (mean)

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Machinery

4 x Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 2 Shafts, 2 Geared Steam Turbines

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Performance

38 knots at 60,000 shaft horsepower

5500nm range at 15 knots

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Armament

Main

5 (5x1) 127mm/38 Mark 30 Mod 0 rifles

Anti-Aircraft

5 (5x1) 127mm/38 Mark 30 Mod 0 rifles

10 (5x2) 40mm/60 Bofors L60 rifles

7 (7x1) 20mm Oerlikion L70 rifles

Torpedoes

10 (5x2) 533mm torpedo tubes with Mark 15 torpedoes

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Historical Gallery

References

Ship Change Log

See here for links to Update notes.

• Available for testing by supertesters in the game starting from Update 13.3 as Frank Friday.

Testing Changes

• DevBlog 516:
  • Preliminary characteristics.
• DevBlog 523:
  • Maximum speed increased from 36.5 to 38 kts.
    • As a result of this change, Frank Friday's turning circle increased from 560 to 580 m.

• Update 13.5:
  • Available in the Armory for 33,950 doubloons, as well as the Premium shop, both for a limited time. Johnston was also available in the Wings of Freedom containers.
• Update 13.6:
  • Fixed textures on the ship.

Ships of U.S.A.

Destroyers