Category:Destroyers

This category contains all ships classified as Destroyers.

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A Destroyer (駆逐艦 kuchikukan) 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.

The Imperial Japanese Navy possessed some of the most formidable destroyers of their day. This came as a nasty surprise to the Allies, who had generally underestimated Japanese technical capabilities.

Originally the IJN issued numerical designations to every ship. However, the bland numerical designations were unpopular with the officers and crews. Thus the IJN abolished destroyers' numerical designations in August 1928, reverting to names. The reverence held by the Japanese for the arts of war, promoted by the pre-war military governments, led to poetic-sounding names for warships. Destroyers were allocated names associated with natural phenomena of weather, sky and sea, e.g., wind (kaze), snow (yuki), rain (ame), clouds (kumo), waves (nami), mist (kiri), frost (shimo), tides (shio), and the moon (tsuki).

The IJN further classified its destroyers by types, classes, and eventually sub-classes. The "type special" is named as such because of how much a leap forward it was, redefining the general ship design of all future IJN destroyers. Later in WWII, the IJN ordered many specialized destroyers, now divided into type A, for the main combat ones, type B, for the AA-focused ones, type C for the most formidable ones (only experimental), and type D for the cheaper ASW-focused ones.