Seoul commissions first Aegis destroyer

SEOUL, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea commissioned on Monday the first of three
Aegis destroyers, equipped with unrivaled attack capabilities and a
state-of-the-art automatic target tracking system, the Navy said.

The destroyer, named after a 15th century king who is one of Korea's most
renowned, Sejong the Great, comes after an 18-month trial run and is expected to
be the Navy's main warship as South Korea prepares to dispatch forces to Somali
waters to combat pirates.
Aegis, an invincible shield in Greek mythology, is an integrated weapons control
system that allows ships to detect over 1,000 surface, underwater and aerial
targets within a 500 kilometer radius simultaneously and destroy any target
within a 150 kilometer radius.
The 7,600-ton ship is 166 meters long and 21 meters wide, and is equipped with
120 ship-to-ship and ship-to-air attack missiles and long-distance torpedoes. It
has a top speed of 30 knots per hour, according to the Navy.
"With the commissioning of Sejong the Great, the Navy now possesses a precise
combat ability (to defend) against enemy missile threats," Adm. Jung Ok-geun,
naval chief of staff, said at the commissioning ceremony held at the Navy's
command headquarters in Busan.
Seoul's second Aegis ship, named Yulgok Yi I, was launched last month and is
scheduled to be commissioned in 2010. The third destroyer, tentatively named
after a Korean Army general, Kwon Yul, is under construction.
brk@yna.co.kr
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