User blog comment:Morgane of the Mists/Lore (Pt. 1)/@comment-24154942-20140429084421/@comment-24878656-20140430211753

I have a second post coming up explaining a lot of the equipment-related phenomena. The short version of it is that it's magical battle-gear, if you want to think of it as such.

Kantai Collection's official light novels tend to present different worldviews. Kakuyoku no Kizuna is considerably more realistic than its predecessors, but it is a lot darker in terms of the content presented. The earlier works such as Kagero has the ship girls be actual girls, while Kakuyoku no Kizuna is the first example where they're explicitly stated to be ships.