German Navy Commissioned Its Fourth and Final F125-class Frigate

TR_123456 · Jul 18, 2022

Rheinland-Pfalz (F225) is the fourth F125 class frigate of the German Navy. German Navy picture.

The German Navy (Deutsche Marine) commissioned its fourth and final F125 Baden-Württemberg-class Frigate on Wednesday, July 13, 2022. The "Rheinland-Pfalz" joined the German fleet during a ceremony at Naval Base Heppenser Groden in Wilhelmshaven.

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.

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 and “Sachsen-Anhalt” in May 2021.

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