South Korea has completed the construction of Shin Dolseok(ROKS SS-082), the 9th ship of Son Wonil class(South Korea’s Type 214) submarines. The South Korean Son Won-Il U214 Class Submarine is equipped with a SPHINX-D Radar System supplied by Thales Defence Deutschland GmbH. It uses an additional pulse transmitter in the top of the mast. The combination of high power pulse radar and a very low power LPI transmitter is very effective for submarines. During surface operations, the boat sails with an open pulse fingerprint for ESM systems, but within a secret mission the operator switches to LPI mode. The boat remains invisible to others. Total of 9 are planned and 4 are in active duty.
South Korea ordered its first three KSS-II/ Type 214 boats in 2000, which were assembled by Hyundai Heavy Industries. The Batch 2 order will add six more submarines to the Navy, to be built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.
The Type 214 is a diesel-electric submarine developed by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW). It features diesel propulsion with an air-independent propulsion (AIP) system using Siemens polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cells. The Type 214 submarine is derived from the Type 212, but as an export variant it lacks some of the classified technologies of its smaller predecessor, the most important of which is probably the non-magnetic steel hull, which makes the Type 212 submarine difficult to detect using a magnetic anomaly detector. Due to improvements in the pressure hull materials, the Type 214 can dive nearly 400 meters.[3] It can also carry food, fresh water and fuel for 84 days of operation.
Now South Korea has 18 submarines including 9 Type 209(Chang Bogo class) submarines & 9 Type 214(Son Wonil class) submarines. And now, the first ship of KSS-3 submarines(of which displacement is approx 4,000 ton) is under construction.
