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Further Reading

KSS-III SSX Jangbogo-III Class

As of 2004 South Korea was planning to build a class of 3,500-ton submarines, with the first entering service around 2012. About 1.7 billion won ($1.4 million) was in the 2004 defense budget for a two-year study of the project. South Korea had deployed nine 1,200-ton submarines since 1992, and planned to launch three 1,800-ton vessels worth 2.27 trillion won from 2007, all with diesel or diesel-electric engines designed by a German firm. As for next-generation subs, the ROK Navy was in the concept design stage.

According to the transcript of the national assembly's meeting of 05 April 2006, South Korea's submarine plan was changed in December 2005 from 9 Type 209s, 3 Type 214s, and 12 "SSX" (indigenous 3,000-ton submarines) to 9 Type 209s, 9 Type 214s, and 9 "KX-3" submarines. The Korean name for the SSX is Jangbogo-III. The Type 214 is called Jangbogo-II [Chang Bogo]. The KX-3 is a rarely used name for the SSX. In May 2007 a committee chaired by the Defence Minister authorized the 2.5 trillion won ($2.62 billion) plan to develop an indigenous 4,000-ton (submerged displacement) submarine. The contract for basic design was signed in December 2007. Daewoo and Hyundai will jointly design the sub from December 2007 to December 2011.

By 2011 Korea planned to build the 3,000-ton KSS-III heavy attack submarines beginning in 2018. DSME and its domestic rival Hyundai Heavy Industries would cooperate for the development of the new submarine to be equipped with a domestically-built vertical launching system (VLS). The VLS is a modern type of missile-firing system used aboard submarines and surface vessels of several navies around the world. When installed on an attack submarine, a VLS allows a greater number and variety of weapons to be deployed in comparison to using only torpedo tubes.

A submarine that performs three-dimensional movement in extreme surroundings hundreds of meters under the sea has to be prepared with numerous machinery and equipment within very small space. In addition, if specifications of major equipments are changed, all the designs and calculations have to be done from scratch. As submarine design process repeats this process more than 10 times, it is the most intricate and time intense technology that requires approximately a 2 ~ 2.5 year period. Four times longer than the period required for conventional commercial ship design. DSME completed its submarine basic design system in March 2000 to acquire its unique submarine design technology. The basic design system is composed of an Image Defining System that produces a 3D submarine model using CAD and a Basic Design Data Management System handling the enormous amount of data accumulated in the previous design processes and calculations. Only ten nations in the world own submarine design technology. But there are only a few nations hat commercialised such design systems including The Netherlands, Russia and Sweden. As DSME achieved enormous savings when it first established its submarine design system: a 2.3 billion won commercial programmme introduction fee and 10 billion won from design royalties per submarine. Moreover, the company's unique submarine design technology laid the groundwork for submarine export to the world.