 The two ships were laid down in early 1924 with that intent.In 1924 the IJN Naval General Staff pressured the acting head of the Basic Design Section, Kikuo Fujimoto, to use the newly designed twin gun turrets on the "Furutaka"-class ships.Fujimoto agreed to modify "Aoba" and "Kinugasa", but it was already too late to retrofit and , which had been laid down in late 1922.