After the launching of the ship, there was a massive boom in South Korean international participation against piracy and military operations other than war.

[citation needed] The primary weapon deployed by Gwanggaeto the Great-class vessels is the Super Lynx helicopter, which acts in concert with shipboard sensors to seek out and destroy submarines at long distances from the ships.

A secondary anti-shipping role is supported by the RGM-84 Harpoon surface-to-surface missile, mounted in two quadruple launch tubes at the main deck level between the funnel and the helicopter hangar.

But due to definition studies that lasted until late 1993, the construction of the first ship did not started until April 1994 with the first steel cutting at Daewoo shipyard in Okpo.

[2] It was reported on April 27, 2016, that the KDX-1 class will undergo a limited mid-life upgrade at a cost of 67.41 billion won, aimed at replacing obsolete foreign equipment.