The contract for the detailed design and construction of the South Korean Navy's first FFX-III-class guided missile frigate is set to be awarded to Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) in the first quarter of 2020, the country's Defense Acquisition Programe Administration (DAPA) confirmed earlier this month.
The new contract will follow an earlier December 2016 contract awarded to HHI for preliminary design and development work on the vessels, which will be optimised for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and anti-air warfare (AAW).
A total of six FFX-III-class frigates will be built for the South Korean Navy. Each vessel will have a displacement of approximately 3,000 tonnes and a phased-array radar capable of tracking and detecting multiple targets simultaneously.
