ROKS Dae Jo-yeong named Navy's 'Top gunnery' ship for 2025

The Navy's destroyer ROKS Dae Jo-yeong has been named the service's top gunnery combat ship for 2025, an annual honor recognizing units that demonstrate the highest level of combat readiness and firepower proficiency. The 4,400-ton destroyer earned the title after receiving the highest score in a fleet-wide evaluation conducted from August to September. It marked the ship’s first time receiving the award in 15 years following its previous win in 2010. Assessment categories included surface and air gunnery drills, teamwork between gunnery crews and system operators and tactical training involving anti-ship guided missiles. The evaluation placed particular emphasis on coordination across the entire ship, the Navy said, noting that naval gunnery requires close teamwork among all crew members under constantly changing sailing environment and weather conditions. According to the Navy, the ROKS Dae Jo-yeong achieved top performance through carefully planned training, including test firing, live-fire exercises, missile tactics training and torpedo countermeasure drills. In preparation for the