South Korea Regains Naval Power in East China Sea With Its First Task Fleet Exercise.

South Korea’s Navy has finished its first fleet-level maneuver exercise under the new Task Fleet Command, a three-day operation built around Aegis destroyers and logistics escorts in the East and South Seas. The wargame signals how Seoul intends to merge missile defense, strike options, and mobility to counter North Korean launches and rising Chinese naval activity.

The Republic of Korea Navy announced on November 11, 2025, that its new Task Fleet Command had completed the Navy’s first-ever fleet-level maritime maneuver exercise in the East and South Seas, a three-day wargame centered on its Aegis destroyers and logistics escorts. The drill, held from November 9 to 11 to mark the Navy’s 80th anniversary, brought together seven warships and three aircraft to rehearse anti-ship, anti-submarine, air-defense, and ballistic-missile tracking missions under a single embarked fleet staff.
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South Korea's new Task Fleet unites Aegis destroyers, escorts, and support ships into a blue-water force capable of missile defense, ASW, and long-range precision strike (Picture source: South Korea Navy).

Task Fleet Command, formally established on February 1 and based at Jeju, concentrates ten destroyers and four auxiliaries as the Navy’s mobile striking arm, freed from the geographic limits that constrain the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fleets. Seoul describes it as the maritime pillar of its “three-axis” deterrence concept, designed to support the Kill Chain pre-emptive strike architecture, Korea Air and Missile Defense, and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation doctrine against North Korean missile units.

The exercise formation reflected that mission. Lead ship ROKS Jeongjo the Great, the new KDX-III Batch II Aegis destroyer, sailed with the earlier Sejong the Great-class ships ROKS Yulgok Yi I and ROKS Seoae Ryu Seong-ryong, backed by Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin-class destroyers ROKS Wang Geon and ROKS Gang Gam-chan and the Cheonji-class fast combat support ships ROKS Cheonji and ROKS Daecheong. Jeongjo the Great joined even before her first operational deployment, underscoring the Navy’s intent to make the ship the flagship and brains of the fleet from day one.

Jeongjo the Great is the centerpiece of South Korea’s future sea-based missile shield. The 170-meter, roughly 11,000-ton destroyer carries the latest Aegis Baseline 9.C2 “KII” combat system paired with AN/SPY-1D(V) radar, giving it the processing power and sensor fidelity to detect and track ballistic missiles at long range and to share those tracks across allied networks. Its mixed vertical-launch battery combines 48 Mk 41 cells for SM-2 today and SM-3/SM-6 in the near future, with 80 Korean VLS cells and the deeper KVLS-II modules sized for heavier land-attack and potentially ballistic missiles, directly feeding Korea Air and Missile Defense and the long-range strike leg of the three-axis strategy.

Beside her, the Batch I Sejong the Great-class ships remain among the most heavily armed surface combatants afloat. At around 7,600 tons standard and up to 11,000 tons fully loaded, they field 128 VLS cells split between Mk 41 and KVLS, able to mix SM-2 area-air-defense missiles, Red Shark ASROC, Hyunmoo land-attack cruise missiles, and Korean surface-to-air rounds, backed by a 127 mm gun, 16 Haeseong anti-ship missiles, RAM, Goalkeeper CIWS, and hangar space for two ASW helicopters. During the drill, Seoae Ryu Seong-ryong’s combat information center ran simulated intercepts against a notional North Korean aircraft and anti-ship missile salvo, launching paired virtual SM-2s in a scenario designed to stress timing, track management, and deconfliction inside the Aegis picture.

Wang Geon and Gang Gam-chan, from the Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin class, provided the outer screen. These roughly 150-meter, 30-knot destroyers carry a 32-cell Mk 41 VLS for SM-2, eight Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a RAM launcher, Goalkeeper CIWS, a 127 mm gun, and twin triple torpedo tubes, supported by hull sonar, a towed array, and an updated Korean combat system now being modernized under a long-term upgrade program. In wartime, ships of this class would likely hold the ASW screen and prosecute contacts while the KDX-III class concentrates on air and missile defense and precision strike.

Endurance came from the Cheonji-class support ships. At about 133 meters in length and more than 9,000 tons fully loaded, Cheonji and Daecheong can carry roughly 4,800 tons of fuel, ammunition, and stores, resupplying two combatants alongside while also conducting vertical replenishment from their stern flight decks. Over three days, the task group maneuvered across both the East and South Seas without returning to port, validating the command’s ability to keep a missile-defense-capable surface force on station around the clock.

The Navy used the wargame to rehearse how this formation would fight. The Aegis destroyers and escorts practiced live 127 mm gunnery, multiship air-defense engagements, ASW prosecutions, and ballistic-missile detection and tracking drills, shifting between column, line-abreast, diamond, and arrowhead formations. At one point, all seven ships formed a tight diamond around the logistics pair, mimicking a U.S. carrier strike group screen, a deliberate nod to Seoul’s plans for a 30,000-ton “Korean-style” carrier and a future where this Task Fleet protects high-value aviation assets at sea.

Just days before the ships sailed, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile from Taegwan County that flew roughly 700 kilometers into the East Sea, its second ballistic test since President Lee Jae-myung took office. The Task Fleet drill, with its emphasis on ballistic-missile tracking and simulated intercepts, was clearly scripted as a reply: a visible demonstration that South Korea can fuse Aegis sensors, national C4I, and airborne assets into a layered response to SRBM salvos while retaining the ability to strike command nodes and transporter-erector-launchers if ordered.

The exercise also points toward tighter trilateral missile-defense cooperation. The same Korean destroyers now training as a national task group regularly steam alongside U.S. Arleigh Burke-class ships and Japanese Maya-class destroyers in ballistic-missile defense drills such as Freedom Edge, which integrate Aegis ships, fifth-generation fighters, and maritime patrol aircraft into shared BMD, ASW, and air-defense architectures. By proving it can operate as a coherent Aegis-led fleet in home waters, the ROK Navy is effectively rehearsing the role it will play inside a wider U.S.–Japan–ROK sensor-to-shooter network in the Western Pacific.

Beyond Pyongyang, Seoul’s planners are watching China’s fleet numbers climb. Pentagon and congressional assessments now describe the People’s Liberation Army Navy as the world’s largest, with more than 370 battle-force ships today and a projected 395 by 2025 and 435 by 2030, much of that growth in major surface combatants that will patrol the Yellow and East China Seas. Chinese warships and coast guard cutters already conduct “gray-zone” operations in and near South Korea’s exclusive economic zone hundreds of times a year, challenging long-standing norms and eroding operational space in the Yellow Sea. A mobile, heavily armed Task Fleet that can swing east toward the Pacific or west toward contested waters is Seoul’s answer to this twin pressure from North Korean missiles and Chinese naval expansion.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.