South Korea approves plan for new assault aircraft carrier with F-35B fighters

The new LPX-II ship would be larger and twice as heavy as the LPX-I Dokdo-class ships (above). Photo c/o Shephard Media.

The South Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) has approved a request made by the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) for a new aircraft-carrying assault ship under the Next Generation Large Transport Ship "LPX-II" project.

The ship is expected to be in service with the ROKN by the late 2020s.

The new ship would be capable of carrying up to 3,000 marines and 20 armored vehicles. But it would also be the first ship in the ROKN to carry up to 16 to 20 of Lockheed Martin's F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter in short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant, or helicopters depending on deployment requirements and mix.

The ship is expected to be larger and twice a heavy than the exisiting 14,500-ton Dokdo-class Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH) constructed under the LPX-I program. And at 30,000 tons displacement, the LPX-II ship is seen to be larger than Japan's Izumo-class multi-purpose operations destroyers.

It will benefit from being designed at the start to operate the F-35B, probably speculations on plans for the ROKN to retrofit the Dokdo-class to allow F-35B operations.

South Korea's decision comes as Japan announced plans to retrofit their two Izumo-class aviation destoyers to operate F-35B stealth fighters, and as China builds its second and third aircraft carriers. This may also put pressure for Australia to retrofit their two Canberra-class landing helicopter docks (LHD) to also allow F-35B operations.



[1] Naval News
[2] Defense News
[3] Defence Connect