Ikazuchi class destroyer

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In 1894, the Imperial Japanese Navy instituted a new plan for expansion and modernization based on lessons learned in the First Sino-Japanese War. The Ten Year Naval Expansion Program included 23 new destroyers. The Japanese shipbuilding industry, as it was at the time, could not produce ships on this scale, so orders were placed with several British shipyards for a majority of the destroyers.

The order for the first of these, the Ikazuchi class, was placed with the Yarrow yard. The design was based on the Argentine destroyer Corrientes. These six ships were completed between 1899 and 1900.

The ships were armed with 1 - 12pdr. cannon aft, 5 - 6pdr. cannons, and 2 - 18 inch torpedo tubes. They were 220.8 feet long, had a 20.5 foot beam, a draught of 5.3 feet and displaced 305 tons. They had a crew of 55 and were driven by a vertical triple expansion steam engine developing 6,000hp driving 2 shafts giving them a top speed of 31 knots.

The ships in this class were Ikazuchi, Inadzuma, Akebono, Sazanami, Oboro and Niji. Five of them served during the battles of the Russo-Japanese War, and Akebono, Sazanami and Oboro served through World War I.