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By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering will be commissioned to build the Navy's fourth Type-214 1,800-ton submarine equipped with high-tech missiles and sensor systems as part of programs to create an expanded submarine command by 2018, a military source said Monday.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration will ink a contract with Daewoo soon, the source said on condition of anonymity. Daewoo competed with Hyundai Heavy Industries, which constructed the first batch of three Type-214 submarines, for the bidding, he said.
The per-unit price will be about 110 billion won.
The Navy aims to launch a total of nine Type-214s by 2018 in a bid to strengthen its blue-water capability, and will also seek to acquire locally built 3,000-ton submarines.
The diesel-electric submarine, which was first built with technical cooperation from Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW), is expected to play a key role in sea defense against North Korea and other hostile forces, and anti-submarine warfare, Navy officials said.
The 1,800-ton submarines are also a core part of the soon-to-be-created ``strategic mobile squadrons,'' involving Aegis-equipped destroyers and anti-submarine aircraft, which can be deployed in a conflict situation, they said.
The submarine is armed with state-of-the-art torpedoes and submarine-to-surface missiles. It has a maximum submerged speed of 20 knots and a crew of 40.
The 65.3-meter-long submarine is equipped with Air Independent Propulsion (AIP), which improves its underwater performance and gives it stealth capability. The submarine can submerge to depths of up to 400 meters and carry out underwater operations for as long as two weeks. Its operational radius reaches Guam.
Its ISUS-90 integrated sensor submarine system enables operators to deal with varied information in many different variants and detect up to 300 targets simultaneously.
The first Type-214 submarine, named Sohn Won-il, began operations with the Navy earlier this year, while the second and third ― the Jeong Ji and the Ahn Jung-geun ― are to be operational in 2009 and 2010, respectively, after sea trials.
gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr
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