Korea's Blue-sea Navy

Modern 7,600 ton aegis destroyer launched at Hyundai Heavy Shipyard in Ulsan

KDX3 King Sejong the Great, an aegis destroyer built with Korean technology at the Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. dockyard in Ulsan was launched on May 25 in a ceremony attended by a slew of government officials and industry people led by President Roh Moo-hyun.
President Roh, in his speech at the ceremony, said the high-tech aegis destroyer with modern radars and missiles is part of the Defense Plan 2020 to expand the country's naval power. Under the plan, second and third aegis destroyers will be built and along with escort ships including a 3,000 ton submarine, will allow the Navy to have a high-sea combat fleet to protect the country's waters. President Roh called the launch of the King Sejong the Great, a great milestone in the annals of building an independent national defense
The 7,600 ton destroyer is equipped with powerful radars that can detect enemy planes, missiles and ships several hundred km away and attack them with its own missiles,
which is why the ship is called a 'dream boat,'a sign that Korea is close to opening the age of having a high-sea navy.
Korea has become only the fifth country in the world to own an aegis destroyer after the U.S., Japan, Spain, and Norway, but the King Sejong the Great is considered the most powerful except those in the U.S. naval fleet.
Military sources said the ship is much better in offensive systems than 'Atago'class destroyer launched in March by the Japanese Navy. She is able to launch more missiles due to her diversified system. The brand new aegis vessel is equipped with SPY-1D(V) radar and is able to search for 1,000 targets simultaneously, pursue them and conduct attacks on 20 of them at the same time.
She will carry 32 to 38 more missiles than five aegis ships being operated by the Japanese Navy, especially, she is armed with 32 ship-to-ground cruise missiles named "Cheon Yong"or "Heavenly Dragon"which can hit a target 500 km away.
She has the ability to defend against air, ground objects,
ground attacks and trace ballistic tracks of missiles and guns as modern battleship are capable to perform. The ship will also carry 16 missiles against submarines with a range of 19 km, which shows that the King Sejong the Great is a strategic weapon unlike Japan's aegis ships, which lack the ship-to-ground cruise missiles. In addition, the aegis destroyer can detect planes or missiles some 1,054 km away and pursue 900 separate objects and shoot 15 missiles at the same time. She can fight against 17 enemy aircraft at the same time. She will be officially delivered to the Navy after a year of test-runs. The Navy will build Nos. 2 and 3 aegis destroyers of the same class by 2012 with all localized technologies including vertical missile pads, ship to ship missiles, and torpedoes-with all kinds of weapons systems, electronic war equipment and navigational radars. The ship also has stealth technology to avoid electronic waves, and infra-red and noise reduction systems and she is also equipped to fight chemical and radiation attacks to protect the crews, the vessels and its equipped with a damage repair system that works automatically.
The significance of building the King Sejong the Great is that she is the successful result of the concentration of the technological capacities across the various related sectors in the country. The sectors involved in this process include the Navy, academics, research institutions, and the shipbuilding industry to upgrade the technology of the defense industry of the country one notch up the progress ladder since the Hyundai Heavy Industries launched the work to localize the technologies to build the battle ship Ulsan in 1975.
Hyundai Heavy Industries Company, the world's largest shipbuilding company, since its building of battle ship Ulsan in 1980, constructed three KDX-II destroyers and KSS-II submarine to help the development of the Navy and during the process, the company exported naval ships to a number of countries including New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Venezuela. nw

Chairman Chung Mong-joon of Hyundai Heavy Industries Co.

(photo above)The launching ceremony of KDX King Sejong the Great, an aegis destroyer built for the Navy at Hyundai Heavy shipyard with President Roh Moo-hyun and other dignitaries, cutting the tape May 25.
KDX King Sejong the Great, the first aegis destroyer that can operate in high seas, built with Korea's own technologies, equipped with radars and cruise missiles.