JS Yūgiri

The Asagiri class is equipped for combat and interception missions, and is primarily armed with anti-ship weapons. They carry two of the Mk-141 Guided Missile Launching System (GMLS), which are anti-ship missile systems. The ship is also fitted to be used against submarines. She also carries the Mk-32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes (SVTT), which can be used as an anti-submarine weapon. The ship has two of these systems abeam to starboard and to port. They is also fitted with an Oto-Melara 62-caliber gun to be used against sea and air targets.[1]

They are 137 m (449 ft 6 in) long. The ship has a range of 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) with a top speed of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph). The ship can have up to 220 personnel on board. The ship is also fitted to accommodate one aircraft. The ship's flight deck can be used to service a SH-60J9(K) Seahawk helicopter.[2]

Yūgiri was laid down on 25 February 1986 and launched on 19 September 1986 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Uraga. She was commissioned on 17 March 1988.

The destroyer participated in maritime training in the Philippines from 1 July to 4 August 1995. On 2 November, the same year, US Secretary of Defense William J. Perry visited the ship.  The ship participated in the Exercise RIMPAC from 19 May to 13 August 1996. On 4 June, the vessel was involved in an exercise with a US Navy aircraft carrier towing a target during a shooting training with a 20 mm cannon (CIWS) over the western Pacific Ocean about 2,400 km (1,500 mi) west of Hawaii. An incident occurred in which an A-6 carrier-based attack aircraft from USS Independence was shot down by mistake (the pilot was rescued by an escape internal fireboat of Yūgiri). Though a malfunction in the Phalanx CIWS was initially implicated as the cause of the incident, human error was later blamed.

The vessel was dispatched to the Great East Japan Earthquake caused by the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku Earthquake on 11 March 2011.

On 31 August 2012, the 13th dispatched anti-piracy action water squadron departed from Ōminato for the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia with JS Makinami. On 23 January 2013, on her way home after completing her mission, she conducted goodwill training with the Maldives National Defense Force Coast Guard patrol boat Shahid Ali in the Indian Ocean, and returned to Ōminato on 11 February. On 7 March 2013, she was transferred to the 11th Escort Squadron under the direct control of the escort fleet due to reorganization, and the fixed port became Yokosuka again and transferred to the same area. After the transfer, undergo regular inspections and life extension work at Hakodate Dock. 

On 6 March 2016, as the 24th dispatched anti-piracy action water squadron, sailed from Yokosuka base to the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia with JS Yūdachi and returned to Yokosuka on 7 September. In addition, on 1 September on the way back to Japan, a goodwill training was conducted with the Philippine Navy's BRP Rajah Humabon.[3][4][5]

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  JS Yūgiri at Trafalgar on 26 June 2005.
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  JS Yūgiri on 17 March 2007.
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  JS Yūgiri alongside USS Ronald Reagan on 17 March 2007.
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  JS Yūgiri alongside JS Yūdachi in March 2016.
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  JS Yūgiri alongside JS Yūdachi on 31 August 2016.

Media related to JS Yūgiri (DD-153) at Wikimedia Commons

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