By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Navy Tuesday commissioned its first 14,000-ton Dokdo-class large-deck landing ship, a step torward building a blue-water naval force with greater mobility and operational range.
The amphibious high-speed vessel, classified as a Landing Platform Helicopter, will serve as a light aircraft carrier to orchestrate the future strategic mobile squadron consisting of KDX-III Aegis destroyers, KDX-II stealthy destroyers and high-tech submarines, Navy officials said.
It also will take the lead in conducting international peacekeeping operations and disaster relief, they said.
``The Dokdo ship reflects the Korean people's desire for the Navy to faithfully carry out its mission of protecting the national interest in oceans, as well as guarding our territorial waters and islands,'' Vice Adm. Ahn Ki-seok, chief of the Navy's Operational Command, said in a speech at the commissioning ceremony at a dockyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction in Busan.
Launched in July 12, 2005, the ship, named after the country's easternmost islets in the East Sea, has been under sea trials and will be fully operational with the Navy next year.
The 199-meter-long, 31-meter-wide vessel is the largest helicopter transporter in the region and has a larger payload capacity. Previously, the Osumi-class landing ships (8,900 tons) of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force were the largest.
The ship is capable of carrying 300 crew members, 720 Marines, six tanks, seven amphibious assault vehicles, seven helicopters, 10 trucks, three field artilleries and two air cushion landing crafts, according to a press release.
Self-defense armaments include a RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile system and two Goalkeeper Close-in weapon systems.
The vessel can sail at a maximum speed of 43 kilometers, 23 knots, per hour.
When the landing ship is equipped with a ski jump board module 15-17 meters in length, vertical or short takeoff and landing aircraft (VSTOL) such as the Harrier or F-35B can be launched from the deck coated with special urethane material to resist heat generated from aircraft engines.
The Navy is seeking to develop two more Dokdo-class carriers by 2016.