South Korea Invites Local Firms to Design Aegis-equipped Destroyer

The South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) on Friday issued a bid notice inviting locally-based firm to design an indigenous Aegis-equipped destroyer.

Seoul floated Korea Destroyer Next Generation (KDDX) project to build 6,000ton destroyers in 2018.

Deadline to finish design and begin construction is set for 2023 and 2024 respectively. The project is to be completed by late 2020s.

Last week, DAPA approved a $283.5 million program to develop an indigenous close-in weapon system (CIWS) to be equipped on all of its warships including KDDX boats.

Two of South Korea’s biggest shipbuilders are competing to bag the KDDX contract with their own designs- Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and Hyundai Heavy Industry (HHI). DAPA will award basic design contract to one of them by year-end.

DSME completed their conceptual design in 2019. In its baseline configuration, DSME’s KDDX has a length of 155 meters, a beam of 18 meters and a draft of 9.5 meters for a displacement of 8,000 tons. It features 48x VLS cells forward, 16x VLS cells aft, 16x anti-ship missiles and 2x K-DAGAIE NG decoy launchers.

HHI unveiled an entirely new design featuring an inverted bow.

In March 2020, General Electric and Hanwha Aerospace signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work with the ROK Navy and its shipyards (HII, DSME) to bring electric propulsion solutions for the Navy’s new, six-ship KDDX destroyer program.