The first four Hayabusa-class boats were ordered from a French yard, but most of the fifteen-ship class was built at Kure and Kobe. That shift from overseas purchase to domestic production was strategically important for a navy still developing its industrial base. The small boats combined roughly 29 knots of speed, useful cruising range, a crew of about thirty, light guns, and as many as three torpedo tubes. They were not yet a Fisher-style flotilla defence intended to replace capital ships. Japan instead treated them as attack-wing escorts that extended the battle fleet's offensive reach while giving domestic yards experience with fast combat craft.
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Hayabusa boats mark Japan's shift toward domestic naval construction
Building most of the Hayabusa class at Kure and Kobe turned a foreign design into evidence of Japan's growing naval-industrial capacity.