The Agano-class cruisers (阿賀野型軽巡洋艦) were designed as a new generation of about 5 000 ton displacement ships to lead destroyer and submarine squadrons. They were conceived in the 1930s as a replacement for the aging Tenryū, Kuma, and Nagara classes. Larger than these previous light cruisers, the Agano-class vessels were fast, but with little protection, and were under-gunned for their size.
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Unlike the previous light cruiser classes, their main armament was the 152 mm (6 inch) gun that was used by the Kongō-class battlecruisers, and some of these weapons having been removed from the Fusō and Kongō classes during their modernizations in the early and late 1930s, respectively.
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They were also only the first Japanese warships to be equipped with bulbous bows, each equipped with a single catapult forward of the main mast with carrying capacity of two seaplanes.