USS Porcupine, an Armadillo-class tanker
Class overview
Builders	California Shipbuilding Corporation, Delta Shipbuilding Company
Operators	United States Navy, Maritime Commission
In service	18 November 1943[1] - 12 July 1946[2]
Completed	20
Cancelled	2 converted to Stag-class distilling ships
Lost	1[3]
Retired	17
General characteristics
Type	Liberty tanker
Tonnage	7,219 GRT 10,674 DWT
Displacement	14,245 tons
Length	441 ft 6 in (135 m) overall 427 ft (130 m) waterline 417 ft 9 in (127 m) between perpendiculars
Beam	57 ft (17 m)
Draft	27 ft 9 in (8 m)
Propulsion	2,500 hp (1,900 kW)
Speed	11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Capacity	272,978 cu ft (7,729.9 m3; 48,619.5 bbl)
Complement	81 officers and enlisted
Armament	Typically 1 × 5-inch 38 caliber dual purpose gun 1 × 3 in (76 mm) gun 8 × 20 mm cannons

The Armadillo class of tankers was a class of Type Z-ET1-S-C3 Liberty ship, that were commissioned into the United States Navy. They were given the hull classification symbols of unclassified miscellaneous vessels. Two would be converted to Stag-class distilling ships ^[4]

This group of Liberty based tankers all served in the United States Navy during the Second World War. Each ship was commissioned in late 1943, and decommissioned in the summer of 1946. These ships primarily served in the Asian-Pacific theater of the war. These ships brought aviation gasoline to remote islands in the south Pacific, required for the many aerial reconnaissance missions there.^[5]

Notable incident

• USS Porcupine sank due to an enemy kamikaze attack on 30 December 1944 at Mangarin Bay, Leyte, Philippines.

References