February 3, 2025: In early 2017 Japan put into service a second 27,000 ton destroyer, the Kaga DDH 184 that looks exactly like an aircraft carrier. Actually, it looks like an LPH, an amphibious ship type that first appeared in the 1950s. This was noted when Izumo, the first Japanese LPH, was launched in 2012 and entered service in 2015. The Izumos can carry up to 28 aircraft which includes twelve F-35Bs and a dozen or so helicopters or fixed wing surveillance aircraft. These ships are armed with two Phalanx anti-missile systems and a launcher with sixteen ESSM missiles for anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense.

The Izumos are the largest LPHs to ever enter service and are now being converted to aircraft carriers that can operate two dozen F-35B short take-off, vertical landing, STOVL aircraft. Japan is currently modifying the Izumo and Kaga to be just aircraft carriers. This means no accommodations for a battalion of soldiers or transport helicopters to get the troops ashore and landing craft to put vehicles and other heavy equipment ashore. These modifications will be finished by 2028 and the two ships should be operational with their full complement of aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters.

The Izumos are part of a trend. In 2009, Japan launched its second Hyuga class LPH. Earlier in 2009, it commissioned the first of these helicopter-carrying destroyers. This was the first Japanese aircraft to enter service since 1945. The Hyuga class are 197 meters long, 18,000 ton warships that operate up to eleven SH-60 helicopters from a full-length flight deck. Although called a destroyer, it very much looks like an aircraft carrier. While its primary function is anti-submarine warfare, the Hyuga will also give Japan its first real power projection capability since 1945. The Hyuga was also the largest warship built in Japan since World War II.