USS Zumwalt ( DD-X Class), Pic courtesy- Wikimedia commons and US Navy ( Today we start a weekly series called Know the battle ship. In each series we focus on a particular class of warships, their evolution and their present and future role. We start with the Destroyers, today considered the most potent surface combatant after Aircraft Carriers) In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet , convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. The first ship named and classified as a destroyer was the Spanish warship Destructor (1886) , designed by Fernando Villaamil and constructed in England in the shipyard of James and George Thomson of Clydebank, near the Yarrow shipyards. By the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Torpedo Boat Destroyers (TBD) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other t