The Japanese destroyer was one of 21 s built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1910s. It was decommissioned on February 1, 1940, and converted to a training ship. It was later re-converted to auxiliary ship No.2 Tomariura (第二泊浦, Dai-2 Tomariura) on December 15, 1944, and was later modified into a Shin'yō suicide motorboat mothership in 1945. It was surrendered at the end of World War II and was finally scrapped in 1947.
The Momi class was designed with higher speed and better seakeeping than the preceding second-class destroyers.[1] The ships had an overall length of 280feet and were 275feet between perpendiculars. They had a beam of 26feet, and a mean draft of 8feet. The Momi-class ships displaced 850lk=onNaNlk=on at standard load and 1020LT at deep load.[2] Ashi was powered by two Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by three Kampon water-tube boilers.[3] The turbines were designed to produce 21500shp to give the ships a speed of 36kn. The ships carried a maximum of 275LT of fuel oil which gave them a range of 3000nmi at . Their crew consisted of 110 officers and crewmen.[4]
The main armament of the Momi-class ships consisted of three 12adj=onNaNadj=on Type 3 guns in single mounts; one gun forward of the well deck, one between the two funnels, and the last gun atop the aft superstructure. The guns were numbered '1' to '3' from front to rear. The ships carried two above-water twin sets of 533adj=onNaNadj=on torpedo tubes; one mount was in the well deck between the forward superstructure and the bow gun and the other between the aft funnel and aft superstructure.[2]
Ashi was laid down on November 15, 1920, at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries shipyard at Kobe. She was launched on September 3, 1921, and completed on October 29, 1921. It was decommissioned on February 1, 1940, and converted to a training ship. It was later re-converted to auxiliary ship No.2 Tomariura (第二泊浦, Dai-2 Tomariura) on December 15, 1944, and was later modified into a Shin'yō suicide motorboat mothership in 1945. It was surrendered at the end of World War II and was finally scrapped in 1947.