The Federal German Navy Frigate Baden-Württemberg (F222) arrived in Cape Town, from Mormugao in India, on 12 November on her way to the Mediterranean after an Indo-Pacific deployment.
There was a time when warships of the Federal German Navy were regular visitors to South African waters, along with warplanes of the German Luftwaffe, who held bombing tests and exercises with the South African Air Force at the Overberg military range. Sadly, these visits slowly petered out, and now it is almost a rare occurrence to see a Luftwaffe aircraft calling into Cape Town airport, or utilising the facilities of Air Force Base Overberg.
Western military visits to South African ports have visibly reduced, although they have not disappeared entirely. So any arrival of a NATO warship is always a welcome sight for the casual maritime observer.
On 12 November, at 09:00 in the morning, the Federal German Navy Frigate Baden-Württemberg arrived off Cape Town, from Mormugao in India. She was in company with her fleet replenishment vessel Frankfurt am Main (A1412), and one followed the other into Cape Town harbour, with both proceeding into the Duncan Dock for berthing.
Baden-Württemberg is the lead vessel in a class of four warships known as the Type 125 Frigate, and which are considered to have the heaviest displacement tonnage of any frigate, from any navy, worldwide (7 200 tonnes). All of the class are named after German States within the German Federation, with the state of Baden-Württemberg located in the south of Germany, and lying to the east of the River Rhine, forming the border with France and Switzerland.
Laid down in November 2011, and launched in December 2013, FGS Baden-Württemberg was only commissioned in June 2019. The long delay between launching and commissioning was because she was sent back to the builders due to major issues with her construction. She was well over her design weight, she had a seemingly permanent starboard list of 1.7°, and had some teething problems with her Operations Room. She was the first German warship ever to be refused initial acceptance by the German Navy.
After her commissioning in June 2019, it took a further four years of further sea trials, equipment and armament trials, before she was considered to have the required operational capability for her to enter full service with the German Navy. This was only achieved in mid-2023. Her first major overseas deployment saw her being sent to the Eastern Mediterranean in October 2023, from her base at Wilhelmshaven, as a result of the Hamas attack on Israel and, due to Hezbollah actions in Southern Lebanon, she was tasked to provide support to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The build of FGS Baden-Württemberg was split between the Lürssen Werft GmbH shipyard, at Bremen, who built the bow section, and the Blohm+Voss shipyard, at Hamburg, who built the stern section, and who were responsible for joining both sections, and then the completion and outfitting of her. She is 150 metres in length, and has a displacement tonnage of 7 200 tons. The total cost of her building, and that of her three other Type 125 sisterships, was €2.2 billion.
She has an unusual warship propulsion combination of CODLAG, which means ‘Combined Diesel Electric and Gas Turbine’. She has a single General Electric (GE) LM2500 gas turbine engine producing 20 000 kW, and for her diesel-electric propulsion she has four MTU 20V4000 M53B generators with each providing 2 900 kW, with power transferred to two Siemens electric motors, each providing 4 700 kW, and which drive two controllable pitch propellers. With just her diesel-electric propulsion in service FGS Baden-Württemberg has a service speed of 20 knots, and with her gas turbine engaged, her service speed increases to 26 knots.
For added manoeuvrability she has a single transverse bow thruster providing 1 000 kW. She has a range of 4 000 nautical miles, and carries a normal operational crew of 110 officers and ratings, with accommodation for up to a maximum of 190 persons, which includes an embarked aviation wing, and a marine naval infantry assault company. She is normally assigned to the 4th Frigate Squadron, of the Federal German Navy, based at Wilhelmshaven.
She was designed as a post-Cold War warship, suitable for low intensity maritime stabilization operations, providing tactical fire support for land forces, asymmetric maritime threat control, peacekeeping missions, and as a Special Forces support command vessel. She can be deployed away from her home base for a period of up to two years, without requiring any maintenance support, and is able to spend up to 5 000 hours a year at sea.
Her gun armament consists of a single 127 mm OTO Melara Vulcano lightweight gun, which is capable of firing 32 rounds per minute, for a distance of up to 23 kilometres for surface targets, and up to 9 kilometres for air targets. Her gun also has the ability to fire specialised ammunition capable of hitting a target that is a full 100 kilometres distant. She has two Rheinmetall MLG27 27 mm autocannons, and five OTO Melara Hitrole-NT 12.7 mm remote controlled heavy machine guns, and two standard, manually fired, 12.7 mm machine guns.
Her missile armament consists of two RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) surface to air launchers, each with a cell of 21 missiles, and eight RGM-84 Harpoon surface to surface missile launchers. She is also fitted with four MASS decoy launchers. Her main radar system is an active scanned array system, mounted on two masts, and which can track up to 1 000 separate targets simultaneously, out to a distance of 250 kilometres. She has a flightdeck, and hangarage for two NH90 helicopters, and carries four Fassmer 11 m Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boats (RHIB), each capable of 40 knots, and utilised for marine assault, and boarding, parties.
In May 2024 she departed from the Rota NATO naval base, near Cadiz in Spain, on a seven month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region. She was joined in mid-Atlantic by FGS Frankfurt am Main (A1412), which had departed from the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven, and both vessels conducted exercises with both the Royal Canadian Navy and the United States Navy, before conducting a transit of the Panama Canal, and crossing the Pacific Ocean to take part in a major naval exercise in the Western Pacific, and the South China Sea.
The annual trilateral exercise Noble Raven 24-3 took place between 27 and 29 August and included warships from the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Italy, and both FGS Baden-Württemberg and FGS Frankfurt am Main. Exercise Noble Raven took place in the South China Sea, and the purpose of the exercise was to enforce the premise of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’. It was very clear as to who the message of the exercise was aimed at, that of China and its assertive behaviour in the South China Sea. The message was amplified in a statement promulgated by Boris Pistorius, the German Federal Minister of Defence. He stated;
On 13 September, after completion of Exercise Noble Raven 24-3, FGS Baden-Württemberg, accompanied by FGS Frankfurt am Main became the first German warships in twenty years to conduct a passage through the Taiwan Strait, much to the chagrin of the Chinese Government, who not unexpectedly criticized the passage, claiming “it provokes and endangers China’s sovereignty and security under the pretext of freedom of navigation”, and followed it with “Germany’s actions have increased security risks and sent the wrong signals.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz countered with a statement stating “There isn’t much to say about the passage of these ships. It’s an international waterway.”
After making courtesy port calls in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, both vessels made their way to India, where they undertook a Maritime Partnership Exercise (MPX) with the Indian Navy. The exercise took place between 21 and 23 October, both in the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean, with Indian Navy Ship (INS) Delhi (D61), a guided missile destroyer. The final courtesy call, prior to making the voyage to Cape Town was to the Indian port of Mormugao, which is located in the Vasco da Gama region of Goa State.
Once her courtesy port call in Cape Town is complete, it is expected that both FGS Baden-Württemberg and FGS Frankfurt am Main will head north back to Germany, and the transit back to their base at Wilhelmshaven. The transit voyage will include one or more courtesy calls within Africa, before arriving home ahead of the Christmas holidays in early December, and the completion of a voyage of circumnavigation, and a major deployment which will have lasted for seven months.
The frigate lacks suitable long-range defences and has been forced to round the Cape rather than risk possible Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea. It was the German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius who issued instructions for the frigate and the fleet auxiliary Frankfurt-am-Main to avoid the shorter and obviously much cheaper route into the Mediterranean due to the frigate lacking suitable long-range defences.
Surprisingly, given the number of US and European and allied naval forces cooperating in the region, there were no naval assets available to escort the two through the dangerous waters.
Written by Jay Gates for Africa Ports & Ships and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.
