Republic of Korea Navy’s ROKS Namhae was recently launched by Kangnam Corporation. Kangnam has been designated as a defense industry shipyard by the Korean Ministry of National Defense since 1975. ROKS Namhae is a Yangyang-class minesweeper is a ship class of minesweepers currently in service on the Republic of Korea Navy. The naming of minesweeper ships is taken from the names of counties and towns adjacent to a naval base, Namhae County (Namhae-gun) is a county in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. According to Facebook account of ROK armed forces, ROKS Namhae (MSH-575) was launched 16 years after the last ship of her class, ROKS Haenam (MHS-573), was commissioned in 2004.
Yangyang-class minesweeper main missions are gathering data of ports in the Korean region, and searching naval mine and minesweeping, in wartime. They sometimes used at finding and recovering North Korean missiles, by using Variable Depth Sonar to detect missile fragments. To protect the ship from magnetic mine, the ship’s hull is made of fibre-reinforced plastic, which does not have a magnetic attraction, and lasts longer than commonly used material. It also minimized metallic equipment to tightly control the magnetic material inside the ship. Steel objects that are brought into the ship, like canned food, are heavily restricted and strictly controlled.
Yangyang-class ships are 60 metres (196 ft 10 in) long, 10.5 m (34 ft 5 in) wide. They are equipped with Multi-purpose machine gun, a 20 mm (0.8 in) main gun, and Mine Disposal Vehicle (MDV). They use two Voith Schneider Propellers as propulsion, to control the ship more precisely. To perform minesweeping activities, mechanical/inductive minesweeping device and sonars are equipped. The machinery system comprises two MTU 2,000 bhp diesel driving two independent vertical Voith-Schneider cycloidal propellers through a gearbox and universal joint shaft. Officially about 50 crew are boarding the ship.
