JS ''Kirishima'' (DDG-174) is a guided missile

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed ...

in the

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force , abbreviated , also simply known as the Japanese Navy, is the maritime warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. The JMSDF was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJ ...

(JMSDF). ''Kirishima'' was named for

Mount Kirishima are a 1700 meter high active volcano group in Kagoshima Prefecture and Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan. Numerous eruptions have been recorded since 742. Very strong eruptions happened in 788, 1716 and The Great Snow of 1717, 1717. Augite-h ...

. She was laid down by

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi ...

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

on 7 April 1992, and was launched on 19 August 1993. It was not until 16 March 1995 that she was commissioned. She is based at the JMSDF base in

Yokosuka, Kanagawa is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

, and as of 2014, is the flagship of Rear Admiral Hidetoshi Iwasaki.Kelly, Ti
Japan raises military profile in maritime war games with U.S. 21 November 2014
''

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'' Retrieved 13 May 2017

History

In 2003 the ''Kirishima'' was deployed to the Indian Ocean as logistical support for US forces engaged in the

War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

. This prompted some opposition including protests and boatloads of protesters attempting to block the ship from leaving its harbor at Yokosuka. It was later replaced in the deployment by the destroyer . ''Kirishima'' underwent modification at

to add the

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD or ABMD), also known as ''Sea-Based Midcourse'', is a United States Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency program developed to provide missile defense against short to intermediat ...

(BMD) capability to its weapons suite. This ship was one of several in the JMSDF fleet participating in disaster relief after the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peni ...

. The ship was also deployed in preparation for

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

's launch of

Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 () was a North Korean Earth observation satellite which, according to the DPRK, was for weather forecast purposes, and whose launch was widely portrayed in the West to be a veiled ballistic missile test. The satellite was l ...

in March 2012. From 26 June to 1 August 2014, ''Kirishima'' participated in

RIMPAC RIMPAC, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, is the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise. RIMPAC is held biennially during June and July of even-numbered years from Honolulu, Hawaii, with the exception of 2020 where it was held ...

alongside . In November, it participated in the Keen Sword 15 exercises with the US. The ship was responsible for guarding the , the US aircraft carrier then forward-deployed to Japan.

Gallery

File:DDG-174 12l.jpg, JS ''Kirishima'', date unknown File:JS Kirishima (DDG-174).jpg, JS ''Kirishima'' at

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

on 13 July 2009 File:US Navy 101029-N-XXXXX-004 An SM-3 (Block 1A) missile is launched from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Kirishima (DD 174), succe.jpg, JS ''Kirishima'' launching a

SM-3 The RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) is a ship-based surface-to-air missile system used by the United States Navy to intercept short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles as a part of Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Although primar ...

on 29 October 2010 File:JS Kirishima and JS Sawayuki at Yokosuka, -10 Jun. 2012 a.jpg, JS ''Kirishima'' and JS Sawayuki on 10 June 2012 File:JS Kirishima (DDG-174) vertrekt uit Pearl Harbour voor deelname aan de RIMPAC 2014, -7 juli 2014 a.jpg, JS ''Kirishima'' at

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

on 7 July 2014

References

External links

GlobalSecurity.org; JMSDF DDG ''Kongo'' Class
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirishima (DDG-174) Kongō-class destroyers 1993 ships Ships built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries