Flotilla Admiral Czerwinski, head of the naval department of the BAAINBw (Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support), personally started the cutting of the first steel plate for the forecastle in the shipyard in Kiel:
The Karlsruhe is the eighth ship in the Braunschweig-class. The German Navy put the first five ships into service between 2008 and 2013. In 2017, the Bundeswehr placed an order for five additional K130 corvettes. Work on the second batch’s first unit, the Köln (F265) corvette, began in February 2019 while the keel laying for the second vessel, Emeden (F266), took place in February this year. Köln is now in its final stage of fitting out in Hamburg.
About K130 Batch 2 corvettes
Two of the five Batch 2 corvettes are being built at the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen, while the three others are being manufactured and pre-equipped at the German Naval Yards site in Kiel. The ships’ stern are manufactured at the Lürssen Peene shipyard. Lürssen subsidiary Blohm + Voss will be in charge of connecting the ship fore and aft parts in Hamburg, a major step known as the “wedding thrust”.
The roughly 89-meter-long corvettes will also be fully equipped and put into operation in Hamburg. They also go through their functional tests and approvals from Hamburg – in coordination with the Bundeswehr and the German Navy.
First pictures of the K130 Batch 2 also suggests that the future ships will receive the latest variant of the 76mm main gun by Leonardo (with a stealthy shield, while existing K130 main guns have a round cupola). Existing K130 Corvettes weapon systems include four Saab RBS-15 anti-ship missiles, two 21-cell RAM surface to air missile systems, an Oto Melara 76/62 gun and two Rheinmetall MLG 27 guns.
