According to a tweet published by Japan Ministry of Defense on March 19, 2021, Defense Minister Kishi attended the commission ceremony for the new Maya-class guided missile destroyer JS Haguro, which is to be deployed at the 8th Escort Division, and instructed to the crew.
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Commission ceremony for the new Maya-class guided missile destroyer JS Haguro DDG 180 (Picture source: Twitter account of Japan Ministry of Defense)
The Maya class of guided missile destroyers in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is a modified version of the Atago class, with an updated Aegis Combat System and electric propulsion system.
Maya-class destroyers are engineered with a COGLAG (Combined Gas turbine-eLectric And Gas turbine) propulsion system, a modification of the combined gas and gas propulsion system employing turbine-electric transmission for low-speed cruising. The JMSDF had been testing a COGLAG propulsion system on JS Asuka. Then, the adoption of the system for surface combatants began with the Asahi class. While the Asahi-class system had a low voltage distribution of 450 volts, the Maya-class system is equipped with a more advanced system that can handle a high voltage distribution of 6,600 volts.
The JMSDF already uses an integrated electric propulsion system for auxiliary vessels, and is expected to expand to surface combatant ships in the future in light of its future weapon accommodation.
The Maya class features the newer Aegis Weapon System (AWS) Baseline 9C (referred as J7 in Japan), compared with the Atago class using the Baseline 7 system (now being updated to Baseline 9C with modernization). With this system, these destroyers are equipped with the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system. This will allow the ship to share surveillance or targeting information between other CEC equipped assets, whether that be from ships from the American or Australian Navy or from American or Japanese E-2 Hawkeye. In addion to the AWS, they are also equipped with an Aegis BMD 5.1 system; they are the first JMSDF Aegis vessels to be capable of ballistic missile defense (BMD) from the time of its commissioning.
JS Maya (DDG-179, the lead ship of her class of guided missile destroyer in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), was commissioned on March 19, 2020.
