F222 Baden-Württemberg under construction, 2015
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Class overview | |
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Builders: | Thyssen-Krupp/Lürssen |
Operators: | German Navy |
Preceded by: | Bremen class |
Cost: | ca. € 650 million per ship (can increase 3% p. a.) |
Built: | 2011-present |
In service: | mid-2017 |
In commission: | November 2016 |
Building: | 4 |
Planned: | 4 |
General characteristics (Note that the final design may differ.) | |
Type: | Frigate |
Displacement: | 7,200 tonnes |
Length: | 149.52 m (490 ft 7 in) |
Beam: | 18.80 m (61 ft 8 in) |
Draft: | 5 m (16 ft 5 in) |
Propulsion: |
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Speed: | 20 knots (37 km/h) on diesel only, 26 kn (48 km/h) max. |
Range: | 4,000 nautical miles (7,400 km) |
Boats & landing craft carried: |
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Capacity: | Space for two 6.1 m (20 ft 0 in) containers |
Complement: | 190 (standard crew: 110) |
Sensors and processing systems: |
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Electronic warfare & decoys: |
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Armament: |
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Aircraft carried: | 2 × NH-90 helicopters |
F125 is the project name for the Type 125 Baden-Württemberg class of frigates, currently in development for the German Navy by ARGE F125, a joint-venture of Thyssen-Krupp and Lürssen. The F125-class are officially classified as frigates but in size they are comparable to destroyers, since, with a displacement of more than 7,200 tons, they will be the biggest class of frigate worldwide. They are to replace the Bremen class.
In contrast to the Bremen class, which were built with Cold War-era scenarios in mind, the F125 will have much enhanced land-attack capabilities. This will better suit the frigates in possible future peacekeeping and peacemaking missions. For such reasons, the F125 will also mount non-lethal weapons.
Major design goals are reduced radar, infrared and acoustic signatures (stealth technology), something that was introduced to the German Navy with the Brandenburg-class frigate and was further developed with the Sachsen-class frigate and Braunschweig-class corvette.
Other important requirements are long maintenance periods: It should be possible to deploy F125 class frigates for up to two years away from homeports with an average sea operation time of more than 5,000 hours per year (that's nearly 60%) which includes operation under tropical conditions. For this reason, a combined diesel-electric and gas arrangement has been chosen for the machinery. This allows the substitution of large and powerful diesel engines for propulsion and sets of smaller diesel generators for electric power generation with a pool of med-sized diesel generators, reducing the number of different engines.