Japan’s new warships likely to be world’s most powerful surface combatants

Japan is building a pair of vessels equipped with the Aegis Combat System; the Telegraph said today they are likely to be the most powerful warships on the planet. At 620-feet-long and displacing 14,000 to 16,000 tons, these super-destroyers, which some say will be classified as cruisers, will be substantially larger than the United States Navy’s Arleigh Burke Flight iii guided missile destroyer and have nearly twice the displacement of Britain’s Type-45 destroyers. The Japanese vessels will have 128 missile launch cells, armed with SM-3 Block iias and SM-6s, some of the world’s most advanced and lethal missiles. “That combination of exo-atmospheric defense, advanced air defense, maritime and deep strike in one hull is as good as it gets,” the Telegraph stated. These powerful warships are only the latest example of decades of military restraint in Japan giving way to rapid and advanced militarization.