Recently, the latest warship of the German Navy, the F126, was officially built at the Peene-Werft shipyard in Vorgast, the purpose of the ship construction is to replace the F123 "Brandenburg" class in service in the mid-90s**, it is planned to build four, and Germany can add two more ships as needed, and the unit price of the construction is about 13700 million euros.
According to the German side:
When completed, the F126 will be the largest tonnage and most powerful warship that Germany has ever built since World War II.
However, this German "strongest" battleship was not designed by the Germans themselves, its design scheme came from the Dutch company Damen, of which 70% of the construction was carried out in Germany, and the remaining 30% was completed by the Dutch;Specifically, the Peene-Werft shipyard in Germany was responsible for the construction of the bow section, the German naval shipyard in Kiel was responsible for the construction of the stern section, and the Damen company was responsible for the construction of the key systems, and then all the sub-components were to be transported to Hamburg, where they were completed.
After the completion of the F126 ship, Germany will also successfully enter the ranks of countries with 10,000-ton warships, and the country's top ** in the past is the F125 "Baden-Württemberg" class, which has a full load displacement of about 7,100 tons.
According to relevant information, the F126 ship has a full load displacement of about 10550 tons, a length of 166 meters, and is equipped with a 127-mm naval gun and 16 MK 41 vertical launch cells, which can accommodate up to 64 ESSM Block 2B anti-aircraft missiles at a time;The ship is equipped with two NH90*** and is said to carry the Skeldar V-200 medium-range unmanned *** produced by Saab
Of course, there are no big highlights in these conventional configurations, and 10,000 tons of displacement are equipped with 16 "pits", which is a bit too "wasteful";
Its main highlights are the very small number of core operators, the terrifying continuous deployment capability, and the modular design
The core operator configuration on the F126** is 114 people, which means that as long as it is equipped with these personnel, it can independently perform combat missions at sea;Such a scarce staffing is due to the ship's highly automated and low-maintenance design, in comparison, the standard number of Arleigh Burke-class Type III destroyers with a displacement significantly smaller than the F126 is about three times that of the F126, and the same is true for China's 10,000-ton Type 055 destroyers.
According to the design requirements, as long as these 114 key personnel are replaced every four months, the warship can be deployed at sea for more than two years without having to return to port for maintenance.
In terms of modular design, the scheme given by Damen is different from the design of the American Littoral Combat Ship that is too "chicken".
Damen's modules emphasize fast interchangeability without excessive debugging, which may also be a lesson learned from the United States. At present, there are only two combat modules that can be provided, namely the anti-submarine combat mission module and the towed array sonar module, and other follow-up modules such as "anti-mine module", "air defense module", "detention module", "medical module" and so on are under development.
If this modular design is successfully used on the F126 ship, it will also play a good role in demonstrating the development of such capabilities by the navies of other countries in the future.
As for the other highlights?I don't see it, or is there still multi-purpose?
This is not a bright spot, but it is actually a common performance of all warships in service in the German Navy, a multi-purpose ship, both air defense, anti-submarine, and also shoulder a variety of uses such as ground strikes and water operations.
Another interesting question is that you don't look at the full load displacement of this battleship is more than 10,000 tons, but Germany still calls it a frigate.
Not only the F126, but also the previous F123 "Brandenburg", F124 "Saxony" and F125 "Baden-Württemberg" classes were all called frigates regardless of displacement.
That is to say, now the backbone of the German Navy is all frigates, they do not have the definition of destroyers, under the frigates are minesweepers, minehunters, and then submarines.
So why did the Germans define their own warships so much?
I've searched a lot and found a few pretty reliable answers to share with you;
The Germans said that although such as the F124 and F125 could already be called destroyers in other countries in terms of displacement, there was no such thing as a destroyer in the German Navy, so why was there such a strange way of naming?
This is mainly because the frigate does not sound too threatening, and it will be easier for the population to accept it.
In today's Germany, most people believe that their country's army is essentially a purely defensive armed force (now it looks a bit nonsense), and the scope of action of the Navy is limited to escort missions in the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic, so the German Navy does not need aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers, or even destroyers, as long as there are frigates.
Another reason comes from the "small calculations" of politicians, it is much easier to fight for a budget in the name of a frigate than to build a destroyer;
With the cognitive understanding of ordinary people, it is definitely cheaper to build a frigate than a destroyer, and this kind of ship is less threatening, even if it is built a few more, it doesn't matter much, it is easier to pass when applying for a budget from **, and the resistance of the people will be relatively small. (It seems that this kind of thing can only work in Germany, not in other countries).
Politicians took advantage of this psychology and simply classified all warships as frigates.
There is also a historical reason, I don't know if it counts as a reason for Germany not to name destroyers?
In German, "zerst rer" means destroyer, in addition it also has the meaning of "destroyer" and "saboteur", due to historical reasons, such a term is not allowed to be used as a military naming by Germany, because it has obvious inflammatory nature, so far there is no "destroyer" ship in Germany, simply put, it is to avoid it.
In this way, after the completion of the construction of the F126, it will become the largest tonnage of a "epic" frigate in history, I really don't know what kind of ship is worth protecting with such a frigate?