Kaibōkan

[3] While similar, destroyer escorts of the US Navy played a slightly different role to that of kaibōkan within the IJN, namely being that kaibōkan were diesel engine ships that never carried torpedo tubes,[2] while many examples of Allied destroyer escort classes featured boiler and turbine machinery, and carried torpedoes; as a result of these design differences, kaibōkan often proved inferior to Allied destroyer escorts when undertaking escort roles.

[5][6] Kaibōkan had some counterparts among Japan's Axis allies: the 10 Kriegsmarine escort ships of the F-class, and Amiral Murgescu of the Romanian Navy.

In the course of the war, the design was simplified and scaled down to permit larger numbers of vessels to be built more quickly.

Before the onset of World War II, kaibōkan was the catchall name for various ships, from battleships to sloops, which had become obsolete.

For example, the battleship Mikasa was reclassified as a Kaibokan 1st class in 1921, after 19 years from her commissioning.