“I am very happy about the commissioning of the third of four units. We urgently need the unit, on the one hand to relieve our existing units of obligations and, on the other hand, to use this platform to train our crews due to the lack of training infrastructure on land”
Flotilla Admiral Ralf Kuchler (51), commander of the flotilla 2.
The F125 class frigates are primarily designed for low and medium intensity maritime stabilization operations, where they are supposed to provide sea-to-land tactical fire support, asymmetric threat control at sea and support of special forces.. The German Navy adopted a dual-crew concept this class of ship.
About F125 class frigates
The F125 frigate project was launched in June 2007, with contracts worth $3 billion inked with the ARGE F125 consortium ( formed by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and Friedrich Lurssen Werft and Blohm + Voss) for four vessels.
Production of the lead ship started in June 2011. The ship was christened in 2013 but delivery, which was scheduled for 2014, was postponed to after 2017 after majors issues were undisclosed by a confidential report May 2017. This report then unveiled that the frigates were overweight and slightly listing by 1.3 degrees starboard. The ship was rejected by the German Navy in December 2017 and returned to its builder.
The issues were corrected in April 2019, when the vessel was finally handed over to the German Navy. First-in-class ship “Baden-Württemberg” was commissioned in June 2019, “Nordrhein-Westfalen” joined the fleet one year later in June 2020.
Key data for the F125:
Length: 149 m
Width: 18 m
Maximum speed: >26 knots
Displacement: approx. 7,200 t
Crew: max. 190 (of which up to 120 regular crew members)
Major armament: 1 × 127 mm lightweight Otobreda naval gun, 2x RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, 2 × 27 mm MLG 27 remote-controlled autocannons, 8 × RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles
