The Korean Navy goes mobile and global:
The Navy has mobilized its first fast-response combat unit composed of six destroyers, including the country’s first Aegis combat destroyer King Sejong the Great. Since its inception in 1945, the operational radius of the South Korean Navy had been restricted to waters near the coast, due to the small number of ageing vessels. But since 2002, the Navy has commissioned six 4,500-ton KDX-II destroyers and the 7,600-ton Aegis destroyer.
The high-mobility unit will be able to conduct operations against North Korean aggression and protect South Korea’s key trade routes including the Straits of Malacca and support UN peacekeeping operations in major trouble spots. The unit will patrol South Korea’s coastal waters on the lookout for possible provocations by North Korea and be capable of deployment anywhere around the world if the need arises.
When the need arises, the six destroyers will be joined by other vessels, including the light aircraft carrier amphibious assault ship Dokdo.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Just rename the fleet, “The one that hopelessly outclasses anything that the Norks can put in the water”… unless they can get the Improved Kilo or Landa class Russian diesel-electric submarine. However, fat chance that the Norks will ever get enough foreign currency to buy one from the Russians or the Chinese.
The Korean Navy has come a long way since the days of exporting used patrol boats to land-locked Mongolia.
WangKon: don’t underestimate Hu Jintao (interested) generosity toward friends
I really, really doubt Hu Jintao’s gonna give the Norks submarines.
Imagine that, a “high-mobility” naval unit. Could this be a world first?
The newspaper translators ought to learn the term “expeditionary” as that is the military parlance for this sort of thing.
… or perhaps “blue water” fleet.
But the Norks have all the foreign currency they want. They can just print it.
Well… I don’t know if it’s a good idea to give a $100 million in fake Benjamins to your Chinese overlords… not that the Chinese have enough dollars in their reserves, but still.
The Russians? They don’t strike me as being that dumb…
@6:
Brendon, it’s not the translators’ fault — it’s the fault of the native English speaking copy editors. At one time or the other, I knew most — if not all — the NES copy editors over at Korea Herald, Chosunilbo and JoonAng Daily News as I was part of that crew, and while they were a talented bunch in their own motley way, most, if not all, were oblivious to U.S. military terminology and jargon, which of course is not surprising when you realize that less than 1 percent of all Americans have ever served a day in their life and therefore, wouldn’t be able to tell you what an “MEU” is let alone a “ESG.” Long gone are the days when vets and prior-service guys, who were wise in the ways of the U.S. military and all the bullshit that goes along with it, ran our newsrooms and did the final markup….
The distinction between blue-water and brown-water navies is soooo Vietnam, especially when you take into consideration the extent of riverine operations in places like the Mekong Delta (think John Kerry and his “swift” boats). Nowadays, when you’re talking littoral operations and all the stuff that brown-water navies do, you might as well be talking about the USCG running CT patrols up and down the Potomac during inauguration day, or a boatload of Army combat engineers floating up and down the Tigris performing EOD ops. I think for the time being, it can assumed that when talking about what the USN is and has been doing — and what the ROKN will soon be doing — it’s all of the blue-water variety.
For the uninitiated and curious, an “ESG” is a U.S. Navy Expeditionary Strike Group (there’s that word expeditionary again!) of vessels and air assets centered on an amphibious assault ship (LHA or LHD) and supporting vessels including submarines and guided-missile frigates for picket duty, or protection of the main ship.
ROKS Dokdo is, as I understand it, displaces about 19,000 metric tons, which makes this most powerful Korean vessel about 30% to 40% the size of America’s LHAs which form the nuclei of our ESGs. But it’s a welcome start.
A bit late joining the discussion, but it seems that the ROK Navy is trying to ape the Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces.
The plan envisages two types of escort divisions: the DDH group, consisting of one of the future helicopter carrier destroyers, one Kongou-class destroyer and two other destroyers; and the DDG group, comprising three destroyers and one Kongou.
From;
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68785
I believe in a strong ROK Navy just like the Marmot himself, but one has to wonder if the ROKN is obsessed with following the JMSDF’s every move from its shipbuilding program to its fleet structure, does it have any idea of what Korea’s real maritime security needs are?
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