South Korea Wants A New Amphibious Ship Designed To Carry F-35Bs

South Korea already operates the landing platform helicopter ship Marado. (Courtesy of the South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration)

Warzone/The Drive: South Korea Kicks Off Development Of A New Amphibious Ship Designed To Carry F-35Bs

The planned ship will give the South Koreans a significant boost in capability for operations around and beyond the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea is in the early stages of developing a new, larger amphibious assault ship that could support short-takeoff and vertical-landing combat aircraft and plan to launch the ship toward the latter end of the next decade. For more than a year, the South Koreans have been considering a purchase of up to 20 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, which would likely form the core of the air wing onboard this future vessel.

South Korea's decision to acquire the ship, presently known only as Landing Platform Helicopter-II, or LPH-II, reportedly came during a meeting that South Korean Army General Park Han Ki, the Chairman of the country's Joint Chiefs of Staff, held on July 12, 2019. LPH-II is a reference to the ship being a successor South Korean Navy's two Dokdo class LPHs.

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Update: South Korea to build ship for short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing aircraft (Defense News)

WNU Editor: The key stats to know about this new ship ....  

.... The new LPH is to be refit to displace 30,000 tons, double the capacity of the previous two LPHs — Dokdo and Marado — with 14,500 tons of displacement. The carrier-type vessel is also bigger than the 27,000 tons associated with Japan’s Izumo-class helicopter destroyers.

In short, this is the first time that a light aircraft carrier-class ship is being proposed under South Korea’s force improvement plans