All were converted from civilian transports, Chuyo even began conversion AFTER the war start (20 August 1942), so obviously it should not be in construction queue at the game beginning (same as Kaiyo, which was converted from Argentina Maru, in December 1942, the same conversion was planned for Brazil Maru, and same as Shinyo, which began conversion at September 1942
Anyway, they are listed as having:
Armor: 2.5 cm (0.98 in) side belt over machinery spaces and magazines
8 × Type 95 depth charges in 1945 coversion,
and their cruise speed is 18.
The most interesting part are flight decks:
Wikipedia says, that neither have catapults, or arresting gears, and their strips were 150 meters long, however Hosho, at 168.25 meters:
at longer deck could not operate aircrafts which are listed as standard for TAIYOs. I can understand, that they could lift-off with rockets assistance (according to TMJ AT A-II AERONAUTICS TARGETS, Aircraft arrangements and handling facilities in Japanese naval vessels), but how could they land? Being caught in nets?
It seems additional landing equipment was not needed for pre-war planes:
Fifteen different types of landing equipment were evaluated before the British longitudinal wire system was adopted. Low landing speeds of the time meant that aircraft had little difficulty in stopping, but their light weight made them vulnerable to wind gusts that could blow them over the side of the carrier, and the longitudinal wires helped to prevent that.
The most interesting informations are on this page:
First, it claims, that Depth Charges were installed from the beginning, it also shows, that not only flight decks were longer, but Chuyo had actually full 172 meters deck, and the rest get it upgraded in 1944 (no word about additional flying equipment). All carriers have D3A as standard equipment, and Chuyo have even D4Y (only TAIYO lists CLAUDEs, and SUSIEs).
And, with situation similar to YAMATOs, RADAR is listed, as being installed during first upgrades in mid-1943 (plus they got some 13.2 mm AAMGs).
