Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

A recently released rendering of the possible MKS 180. Looks like a 5" (?) in lieu of U$Ns required 57 mm popgun for their new frigate...if the U$N can ever decide on a design. DFO

Gepard Class Fast Attack Craft FGS Hermelin...2019.

Lead Ship,Frigate FGS Baden-Württemberg pictured as she departs from HMNB Devonport February 17th 2020..Images courtesy of Tom Leach Photography.

Given that CdG has been recalled to Toulon due to Covid-19; the German frigate LUBECK has finished its escort mission......... DFO

Brandenburg Class Frigate FGS Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.They were ordered by the German Navy in June 1989, and then completed and commissioned between 1994 and 1996 to replace the Hamburg Class Destroyers. These frigates primarily carry out Antisubmarine Warfare, but they also contribute to Antiaircraft Warfare defenses, the tactical command of squadrons, and surface-to-surface warfare operations. Their design includes some stealth features.
Currently the Class is being upgraded under the auspices of the Fähigkeitsanpassung FüWES (FAF) project. The primary component being upgraded under this program is the Combat Management System, for which a version of the Thales Nederland TACTICOS system will be used. The ships will also receive an IFF upgrade, to the EADS MSSR 2000 I secondary radar system. However, its primary radars, specifically its long-range 2D search radar, the Thales Nederland LW08, and its medium-range 3D surveillance radar, the Thales Nederland SMART-S, are to remain. The ships were to receive low-frequency active sonars under the Franco-German LFTASS programme but the French withdrew in 2000 and are now using a derivative of the British Sonar 2087.

Lead Ship,Replenishment Ship FGS Berlin pictured with Bergamini Class ASW Frigate ITS Virginio Fasan during a RAS procedure,Aegean Sea, April 16th, 2020.

Braunschweig Type K130 Class Corvette FGS Magdeburg pictured off Lebanon..2020.

Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg.

Already in the mid-1990s, the German Navy started plans to retire and replace the fast attack crafts of the Gepard-class, which had been in commission since 1982. The main idea was to build a modern class of ocean going corvettes capable of participate in a larger variety of actions that the fast attack crafts. The process of defining the capacities of the corvettes took until 2001. A contract was granted to three German shipyards for the construction of the ships: Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, Lürssen-Werft in Bremen and Nordseewerke in Emden. The shipyards shared the construction of the parts and the completion of the first batch of five corvettes of the K 130-class, also known as the Braunschweig-class after the first of the corvettes to be built between 2004 and 2006, and commissioned in 2008. But a long list of technical problems kept delaying the whole project. Nevertheless, in 2012, the corvette Magdeburg participated in the UNIFIL operation in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2013, the last sister of the first batch, the Ludwigshafen am Rhein, was finally commissioned with a delay of six years. The K 130-class is to be kept under regular modernisation so the first batch is at the same technical and operational level as the second batch of 5 more corvettes. The construction of that second batch was decided in 2016, as the same time as the last fast attack crafts of the Gepard-class were retired. The construction of this new batch has principally to do with the responsibilities of Germany as a member of the NATO. The construction of the sixth K 130 started in 2019 and the ship, named Köln, was launched in October last year. The Köln is to be commissioned in 2023. The construction of the other 4 ships has already started and they all should be commissioned by 2025.
The K 130s are “stealth” ships, designed to have a reduced radar, sound and infrared signature as not to be detected by enemy’s systems. The K 130s’ duties are scouting and surface warfare. While they are ocean-going, they are mostly conceived to operate in coastal waters and marginal seas.

This model showing the general configuration of the class in a scale of 1:100 stands on deck 5 of the museum.

Brandenburg Class Frigate FGS Bayern pictured with Asagiri Class Destroyer Yugiri ......Arabian Sea, August 30th 2021...Bayern is on her way to the Indo-pacific, as the first German warship to do in two decades,Yugiri is part of anti piracy Task Force 151.

Former Kreigsmarine Tug, Submarine Tender FGS Passat pictured with Training Submarines FGS Hecht and FGS Hai (former Type XXIII Submarines) at Den Helder in 1959.