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

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

in the

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force The , 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 ( ...

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

Mount Kirishima The 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 1717. Augite-hypersthene andesite ...

. She was laid down by

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese Multinational corporation, 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 prede ...

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

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 373,797, 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 is ...

, 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. 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 Missile Defense Agency program under the United States Department of Defense developed to provide missile defense against short and inte ...

(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 On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

. 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 Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

'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 The Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) 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 373,797, 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 i ...

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 used by the United States Navy to intercept ballistic missiles as a part of Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Although primarily designed as an anti-ballistic mis ...

on 29 October 2010 File:JS Kirishima and JS Sawayuki at Yokosuka, -10 Jun. 2012 a.jpg, JS ''Kirishima'' and

JS Sawayuki JS ''Sawayuki'' (DD-125) is a of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). The ship was built by IHI Corporation, IHI Maritime in Tokyo and commissioned into service on 15 Feb 1984. Service This ship was one of several in the JMSDF flee ...

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 Reci ...

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