The Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) commissioned a new ocean surveillance ship into service on Friday, March 6.
JS Bingo is named after two former administrative districts of Japan. She is the fourth Hibiki-class SWATH surveillance ship to be acquired by the JMSDF and was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The Hibiki-class ships were originally developed in the late 1980s during the closing years of the Cold War to provide the JMSDF with enhanced ocean surveillance capability in response to the Soviet Navy's regular deployments of diesel-electric submarines near Japanese territorial waters.
Bingo has a length of 67 metres, a beam of 29.9 metres, a draught of 7.5 metres, and a displacement of 3,048 tonnes at full load. She was designed to be able operate at low speeds while conducting surveillance, and her SWATH construction ensures improved stability even when sailing in bad weather and higher sea states.
The standard SWATH design is a proven one for ocean surveillance, as evidenced by the US and Chinese navies adopting the same design for their own ships that perform the same undersea monitoring role.
The ship was designed to be crewed by 40 personnel at any given time. The crew complement will also include five civilian technicians who will assist the JMSDF personnel in operating the vessel's array of ocean surveillance equipment, which includes a towed array sensor system.
