German Navy

[kato]

Unlike other legs of the trip for the one from Incheon to Jakarta (via Manila) the Navy is not allowing media teams onboard.

The two ships passed through the Taiwan Straits last week. AIS was switched off during the passage. The route chosen was fairly along the centerline in international waters.

Chinese complaints about it, while hearable, were fairly sedate.

Taiwanese and Japanese media were a bit hype about it, American media ignored it and instead splurged on how the German Navy was joining their effort in the South China Sea (they aren't).

The ships are currently on a port visit in Manila Sep 16th to 19th, before continuing later today towards Jakarta.

 

[kato]

The German Navy held this year's version of its Northern Coasts exercise series last month.

700 sailors from nine NATO nations in primarily smaller ships took part at sea - usually the exercise is significantly bigger than that. In addition naval base Kiel with a few hundred men was involved. No list of participating ships was published this year. Taskforce command ship was the German Elbe-class tender Rhein, according to Latvian sources 14 other ships, a submarine and four aircraft were involved. From published pictures it looks like the largest ship was a Polish OHP frigate.

Scenario this year was a defense of the German baltic coast in its entirety with a focus on area denial through minelaying, along with naval operations in own minefield areas, mineclearing and anti-ship warfare. Exercise command staff was advised by offensive mine warfare specialists from Finland and Estonia. Training minefields were laid in the Bay of Kiel, where Germany had used its first sea mines in 1848 for similar area denial purposes against the Danish fleet.

The exercise was interfered with a bit by Russian ships through both the usual electronics and visual intelligence shadowing, but also directed GPS jamming, radio message falsifications etc. To some extent the exercise was therefore also training of operations under such conditions (e.g. traditional messaging methods) and own intelligence gathering on Russian assets. This of course included Russian Navy ships just passing by with switched-on AIS, such as a supply group headed to the Russian base in Syria.

 

[Ananda]

TKMS Shows MEKO A-400 AMD Missile Frigate At Euronaval 2024

German builder TKMS has shown its MEKO A-400 AMD missile frigate at Euronaval 2024 in Paris. The concept aims at the German F127 requirement

www.navalnews.com

TKMS shown their bid model for German AAW Frigate as Sachsen class replacement. Requirement of 6 against existing 3 also not only double the #of vessels but also double the VLS. It's just me, but for 10000 ton size, it should be at least 80 VLS.

 

[Redlands18]

TKMS Shows MEKO A-400 AMD Missile Frigate At Euronaval 2024

German builder TKMS has shown its MEKO A-400 AMD missile frigate at Euronaval 2024 in Paris. The concept aims at the German F127 requirement

www.navalnews.com

TKMS shown their bid model for German AAW Frigate as Sachsen class replacement. Requirement of 6 against existing 3 also not only double the #of vessels but also double the VLS. It's just me, but for 10000 ton size, it should be at least 80 VLS.

The Germans prefer using the RAM CIWS instead of the extra VLS or a gun-based system. Possibly aimed at being more a GP Frigate with a strong AAW fitout than a true Destroyer. Italy is building 10,000t ships as well with a similar number of VLS, don't forget all the Western 9-10,000t Destroyers with 90+ VLS are based on designs that go back to the 1980s, these are the first modern 10,000t AAW ships with a high degree of LO built in and will require a lot of power to operate upcoming systems.

 

[Ananda]

Possibly aimed at being more a GP Frigate with a strong AAW fitout than a true Destroyer.

That's what I suspect more. German seems still prepared enough space for non AAW related functions.



The space is enough to put 48 VLS instead just 32. This is also if not mistaken what Italian do. So two VLS modules of 48 and 32. Don't have to be 96 like US Burke do or what Korean and Japanese do. However if this is AAW dedicated Frigate, why only 64 with this kind of large hull?

The way I see it, the need to prepare this Frigate for other GP functions seems make the German designer put space on that. This days of threat, 64 seems only on minimum end for AAW dedicated Frigate/Destroyer. Especially for new design.

 

[Ananda]

New guided missiles for submarines: the Bundeswehr has commissioned thyssenkrupp Marine Systems to develop the advanced air defence system IDAS

TKMS got contract to install interactive air defense system IDAS. The picture from TKMS above shown canister of IDAS being loaded to 212 Sub as trial. The system design to answer one of biggest menace to Submarine forces worldwide, aerial ASW.

 

[Rob c]

New guided missiles for submarines: the Bundeswehr has commissioned thyssenkrupp Marine Systems to develop the advanced air defence system IDAS

View attachment 52253

TKMS got contract to install interactive air defense system IDAS. The picture from TKMS above shown canister of IDAS being loaded to 212 Sub as trial. The system design to answer one of biggest menace to Submarine forces worldwide, aerial ASW.

It will be interesting to see if they can really make this work. In the past the drawbacks with anti air systems for subs have been that when you use them you immediately tell the enemy were you are just by targeting them and made very obvious if you fired anything and they could only be used at shallow depths which again put the sub in danger. If these problems have been solved then it could be viable

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

According to this article, some sabotage actions were performed on the Braunschweigklasse korvet Emden. The 7th corvette of this class is already five years under construction at the Blohm&Voss shipyard in Hamburg and the sabotage damage was discovered just before seatrials.

Vernielingen en sabotagepogingen aan boord van Duitse marineschepen

Sabotage an neuem Kriegsschiff "Emden"?

 

[swerve]

Tens of kg of metal shavings in the engines, fortunately found before the engines were run. Cleaned out, & Emden put to sea on 16th January.

I think inspections are very thorough now.

 

[spoz]

One does wonder how “10s of kilos” was introduced into the engines. That implies cylinder heads were off or something similar, and that one of those involved in the activity that required that was the perpetrator. Hard to see any other way. And it would presumably have taken some time to do.

 

[John Fedup]

One does wonder how “10s of kilos” was introduced into the engines. That implies cylinder heads were off or something similar, and that one of those involved in the activity that required that was the perpetrator. Hard to see any other way. And it would presumably have taken some time to do.

Would this sabotage have occurred at the engine production location or at the shipyard?

 

[kato]

The keel for the first Type 424 electronics intelligence ship was laid today. The ceremony was attended by fairly high-ranked personnel, including the Inspector Admiral of the Navy, Inspector General of Cyber Domain, the three-star Deputy Inspector General of the Bundeswehr and the Flotilla Admiral in charge of the navy office of procurement agency BAAINBw.

The project for three frigate-sized vessels (and a training site copying their equipment) currently has a final pricetag of 3.26 billion Euro. Escalating costs were an issue for the project during 2023, but complaints about it were largely silenced due to the Ukraine war. Due to secrecy issues the construction was not tendered out, but handed directly to NVL.

The three current Type 423 vessels are basically equivalent in electronics fit to an AAW frigate (albeit using the radar for other purposes). The new ships update both sensors and electronics to current standards in a "generational jump". The base vessels, unlike their predecessors, are laid out for in-theater operations of up to one year with at-sea replenishment. They will also have some aviation facilities and carry drones. Details have not and will not be published.

 

[kato]

Federal Waterways Authority WSV has ordered five new larger riverine vessels to replace river buoy tenders on the Lower Rhine.
The 33m long ships will be based on prototype ship Emmerich and built by the same shipyard (Bolle), although with slightly modified diesel-electric propulsion.

The first of these five new 33m combination patrol ships / work tenders / landing craft, MS Neuss, arrived at WSA port Cuxhaven this week after transferring from its shipyard on the Elbe river via the North Sea coast. Not formally commissioned yet.

Fassmer has launched "Rügen", a 67m long new patrol ship for German Customs. Will be the largest ship for the service. Delivery is planned for end of the year.

The ship was commissioned earlier this month.

Can be seen in this short report by German TV (likely geoblocked though). The captain being interviewed is saying a few lines about how the ship accomodates additional roles in the current geopolitical environment, in particular patrolling and protecting offshore critical infrastructure such as wind parks and undersea cables.

Lürssen is building three further 55m LNG-powered patrol boats for Customs for the Coastguard.
The first of these three is built with EU funding as an additional unit to offset more patrol duties due to Brexit (and will be stationed to patrol the sea EEZ border with the UK). It's already completed and running trials in coastguard livery, including e.g. in February a "visit" to a Russian tanker currently held by German customs offshore.
The other two as far as i know replace the last two 38m patrol boats from the late 80s still in service with customs. The first two boats of that class were replaced with two 49m 1000-ton SWATH OPVs in 2009.

 

[kato]

Germany Orders Wind Farms To Install Radar For Improved Surveillance

Marine Insight - The maritime industry guide.

www.marineinsight.com

This and some other recent english-language articles allege that (German Hydrography Agency) BSH is ordering offshore wind farms to install radars for "surveillance". This is however based on a Bild newspaper article, meaning basically not to be trusted unless proven otherwise. The Bild article itself does not use the German word for "order" but instead "request". They asked BSH for confirmation on the basic fact which was answered affirmative.

BSH is responsible for spatial zoning and authoritative planning at sea in German waters. They recently (end of January) issued a new development plan for offshore infrastructure for 2025 - which in its text explains that given increasing traffic patterns on searoutes in German waters and types of ships involved, as well as where this intersects with planning zones, using AIS beacons in a cooperative fashion as was previously mandated is now insufficient for monitoring traffic. The development plan is 183 pages total, this is a fairly small part.

Since this is somewhat interesting and at least in Germany the press does not cover it at all i've had a look at the new plan myself. Note: It's publicly available for download and not classified in any way.

In section 7.9 of the zoning plan ("Communications and Surveillance") BSH requires wind park operators to install:

• Systems for bidirectional coastal radio stations (for monitoring distress calls etc) with a minimum range of 15 nm around the wind park, i.e. basically horizon range. These coastal radio installations are required to include AIS monitoring equipment and a meterological measurement suite. In addition operators have to install a cell phone network active within 2 nm of the wind park, i.e. standard range for a 4G antenna in the 2+ GHz band.
• In seven positions zoned by the plan (4 in the North Sea, 3 in the Baltic Sea) BSH requires operators to install a navigation radar suite to certain standard specifications. Two of these positions in the Baltic are platforms with a transformer station, the third monitors the relatively small German baltic EEZ. In the North Sea the positions are about 50 km apart diagonally crossing the EEZ at around 150 km or so offshore.
• Operators have to run bird collision radars on their installations (not in this section, but stated otherwise). New here: If automatic monitoring routines of bird collision radars detect drone flights by unknown actors these have to be reported to maritime safety center MSZ (i.e. the coastguard). The same goes for drone flights and "unauthorized ships" (in safety zones) spotted by on-site personnel during e.g. maintenance on installations.

Data generated in the above (Radar, AIS, meteo) has to be provided to WSV, which runs the Vessel Traffic Control Centers (... and feeds their situational picture for the coastguard). The plan outlines both required encryption and additional end-to-end VPN usage for these transfers. It also lists availability requirements, which from an IT perspective are all fairly low.

Defence-related subjects are separate from the above - in section 7.4 of the zoning plan. This section mandates:

• operators are are required to install sonar transponders for Bundeswehr usage (and to Bundeswehr-provided specs) in corner positions on their wind parks. These transponders have to be permanent, mobile systems are explicitly disallowed. From my understanding this is "publicly" about systems that will actively respond to a sonar ping primarily so that dived subs don't crash into a wind park, which has been a Navy requirement since 2011 or so and is fairly standard internationally. However under BSH regulation - found mentioned in an ad by a company producing them - such transponders do not only run standard interrogation at 8.1 kHz, but also act as general sonar beacons in a slightly lower frequency band.
• Bundeswehr vessels have full freedom of movement within offshore wind parks and their safety zones, provided effects on regular operations are "negligible or limited". Also, the Bundeswehr gets the right to mount "fixed installations", in particular communications transponders, on any offshore infrastructure, especially platforms.

Additionally it sets out rules on how intersections of offshore infrastructure with adjacent military restricted areas are to be handled (cables crossing, nearby underwater sensor usage during maintenance etc).

Separately from the above, notably mentioned:

• wind park operators have to jointly provide "sufficient" tug capacity in a specific sea position offshore in whatever concept they come up with themselves for that (laid out as an ocean tug comparable to contracted WSV tug "Nordic"). Alternatively WSV operating or chartering a tug and offshore operators paying for it would be sufficient too. Either way these tugs have to be made available to orders from WSV traffic control centers, to the Maritime Emergency Center (Coastguard), as well as - in wartime - to the German Navy.

 

[kato]

The unclassified brochure for ZVM 2035+ has now been officially released (on March 15th, on website about two weeks later).

The Inspector Admiral of the Navy has presented an update to ZVM 2035+, in the form of a 40-page document called "Course of the Navy 2035".
Presentation was to a very limited number of media representatives onboard "Marine 1", a small Navy VIP yacht stationed in Berlin.

Compared to fleet numbers in ZVM 2035+ (see above post), the new document calls for:

• 3 "large remote missile vessels" (LRMV) primarily supporting F127 - new
• possibly retaining the fourth F125 (now "3-4". ZVM called for a reduction to 3)
• 18+ FCSS instead of "up to 18"
• 12+ MCMV instead of "up to 12"; augmented by 18+ MCM-USV/UUV and 6+ L-MCM (land-based). Augmentation was previously "to be decided".
• 40+ "multipurpose combat boats" (MZKB) - new
• 9-12 U212 instead of 6-9
• 12+ LUUV instead of up to 6
• 8-12 P-8A instead of 8; augmented by 8-12 UAS instead of 8

All other numbers as previously presented for ZVM2035+ (therefore check the linked post!).

The very large number of "MZKB" is part of a plan to restructure the Naval Infantry Platoon for "Maritime Infantry Combat". Think CB90 or similar.

The weapons research vessel Planet of WTD71 will be integrated into the "underwater domain" of the Navy due to "special systems" installed (read: she has sonar etc). According to the audio she will be integrated as a "special ship for protection of maritime infrastructure". The ship is currently - fairly controversially - deployed on a patrol mission in the Aegaean Sea because the Navy refused to field one of its own ships for the mission.

The two new ocean tugs (former civilian oil platform supply tugs) will be rebuilt for minelaying in wartime, i.e. mine rails, new communication systems. The two ships have a fairly large open deck that can be utilized for rails.

The Navy is currently evaluating integrating Tomahawk on suitable frigates.
IRIS-T SLM is being evaluated for possible "strap-on" AAW capability on suitable vessels, especially F125, with tests planned.
There are operational evaluations for LUUV (last year, "very successful") and FCSS.

According to the Inspector Admiral the Navy is "holding talks" about at which point of escalation the remaining WTD71 fleet (65m and 50m multipurpose vessels) would be integrated into the Navy operationally. He is intending to expand this to civilian vessels, i.e. to the vessels assigned by federal agencies to the Coastguard. With a joke that "in war fisheries protection (ships) won't be counting cod".

 

[kato]

The third (and last) Scharhörn class "multipurpose ship" for the coastguard under construction was transferred from Lithuania to German waters today.

The ship, Neuwerk, will replace its equally named predecessor around 2027 for stationing in Cuxhaven, the main WSV/Coastguard base. The other two new ships replace ships stationed at navy bases Kiel and Wilhelmshaven (planned end of '25 and '26 respectively).