The KDX-III Warship Korea Produce is clearly intended to be a multi-purpose destroyer will full air defense, land attack, anti-shipping, and anti-submarine capabilities. It is also being designed with tactical ballistic missile defense capabilities, and important consideration if North Korea is your neighbor. All of its contemporaries are classed as DDG (guided missile destroyers), but the ROK Navy has designated its KDX ships as DDH. The ROKN has ordered 3 ships so far, with an option for another 3.
The KDX-III King Sejong Class will be significantly larger than the 5,000t KDX-IIs, with a standard displacement of over 7,600t and a full load displacement of around 10,000t – almost light cruiser size. GE’s ubiquitous LM2500 gas turbines provide main power, thanks to 4 turbines mounted in each destroyer.
Weapons will include RIM-116B Rolling Airframe Missile Block 1 and vertically-launched SM-2 Block IIIB surface-to-air missiles for anti-aircraft duries, plus a 30mm “Goalkeeper” CIWS system for close-in defense. Submarines will be confronted with 16 anti-submarine “Haesung” (sea star) rockets, and a pair of 324mm torpedo mounts in KMK 32 configuration. Other naval and land targets can be confronted with any combination of cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, etc. that the ROKN decides to place in the remaining MK 41 and K-VLS vertical launch cells.
In June 2006 the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, the Korean military acquisition agency, selected Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. to build the country's second Aegis-equipped destroyer. Daewoo was expected to deliver the destroyer to the Navy by the end of 2010. In July 2007 Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) began the steel cutting of the South Korean Navy's second KDX-III Aegis-equipped destroyer. The Seoul-based company said that following the start of the steel cutting the first keel would be laid in December, with launching scheduled for November 2008. On 16 November 2008 South Korea launched its second AEGIS KDX-III destroyer. The ship was built at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering yard on Geoje Island in South Gyeongsang. The ship was named after Yulgok Yi I, a prominent Confucian scholar of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910).
KDX-III was to be a larger (7000 tons or greater), more "Aegis-like" ship (Aegis Combat System with the ship incorporating certain Low Observables (LO/CLO) technology). The KDX-III' standard displacement is 7,000t, while its full load displacement would be above 9,000t.
Three or four KDX-III hulls were expected. After the first ship was completed in 2008, the ministry expected to deploy two other KDX- III destroyers in 2010 and 2012, respectively. By one estimate each vessel will cost about 1.2 trillion won ($923 million). The entire project, including the ships themselves, is expected to cost 2.8 trillion won by other estimates. The ROK KDX-III destroyer is intended to be a multi-purpose destroyer featuring anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare and tactical ballistic missile defense capabilities.
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