The ''Yamagumo'' class are vessels of the

Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force , abbreviated , also simply known as the Japanese Navy, is the maritime warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. The JMSDF was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) ...

, usually classified as a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

, but due to their relatively light displacement, in other sources as a

destroyer escort Destroyer escort (DE) was the United States Navy mid-20th-century classification for a warship designed with the endurance necessary to escort mid-ocean convoys of merchant marine ships. Development of the destroyer escort was promoted by th ...

. This class is the successor of the . This class was planned to become the new generation workhorse of the fleet of the JMSDF. In support of this objective, it was equipped with some new generation weapon and sensor systems such as the ASROC anti-submarine rocket and the OPS-11

early warning radar An early-warning radar is any radar system used primarily for the long-range detection of its targets, i.e., allowing defences to be alerted as ''early'' as possible before the intruder reaches its target, giving the air defences the maximum t ...

(Japanese equivalent of the American

AN/SPS-40 The AN/SPS-40 is a United States Navy two-dimensional, long range air search radar that is capable of providing contact bearing and range. It was used on s, s, s, s, s, s, s, s, s, s and many other ship classes. Its "basket" antenna with the ove ...

radar). The ''Minegumo''-class destroyer derived from this class as the new

DASH The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

equipped version, but after the QH-50D DASH was scrapped, the JMSDF decided on resuming the construction of this class. The latter batch sometimes called as the ''Aokumo'' class, and there are some improvements, mainly in their electronics such as the OQS-3 hull-sonar (Japanese variant of the American AN/SQS-23) and the AN/SQS-35 variable depth sonar system.

Ships

References

* *The Maru Special, ''Ships of the JMSDF No.58 "Escort ship Yamagumo-class and Minegumo-class"'', Ushio Shobō (Japan), December 1981 {{Combatant ship classes of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Destroyer classes