Australia’s Second of Three Destroyers Handed Over to the Navy

The second of three new domestically built air warfare destroyers has been officially handed over to the Australian government at a ceremony in Adelaide Friday.

The destroyer, ‘Brisbane’, part of $9 billion defense project, will now head to Sydney, where it will be commissioned later this year after final sea trials, News.au reported Friday.

Brisbane, similar to the other two ships, ‘HMAS Hobart’ and ‘Sydney’ is 146 meters long with a range of 5000 nautical miles. It is powered by a combination of gas and diesel turbines driving twin propellers and has a top speed of more than 28 knots.

The destroyers are armed with harpoon missile systems and have missile decoy technology. They are also fitted with a flight deck and hangar for one helicopter.

The Hobart was launched in Adelaide in 2015 and commissioned in September last year. The final ship, the Sydney, was launched earlier this year and should be in service by 2020.

The destroyer program was plagued with problems in its early years, with delays and cost blowouts, but was recently removed from the defence department's projects-of-concern list.

The ships are being built and integrated by AWD Alliance that includes Australian Department of Defense, Raytheon Australia and ASC Shipbuilding and Navantia Australia.