F125 Frigate
Baden-Württemberg and A702 AOR
Frankfurt am Main have set sail for this year's Indo-Pacific Deployment (IPD24).
Baden-Württemberg is starting from Rota in Spain as she has already been deployed with UNIFIL since last October and spent a few weeks in the NATO base between deployments to prepare. The ship also carries a Seebataillon naval infantry platoon during the deployment; both ships together have about 380 men and women onboard.
This time the deployment takes a western route and basically goes around the globe; after meeting up the two ships will cross the Atlantic for exercises with the Canadian Navy and US Navy. Early June it's planned to cross through the Panama canal into the Pacific.
The deployment will take until
December 2024, by which time Baden-Württemberg will have been deployed away from home for 14 months consecutively - and this is on her first actual deployment cruise.
Unlike last time they're not publishing an exact route. China protested against a possible Taiwan Straits crossing already just in case.
It's planned that the two ships will take part in:
- RIMPAC.
- embargo blockades against North Korea.
- EU coordinated maritime presence in northwest Indian Ocean (activation of joint German-French flotilla).
There are planned training stints en-route e.g. in India.
In parallel there will be an Air Force deployment around the globe (
"Pacific Skies") between June and August. This will be together with Spain and France, and will involve 42 (!) aircraft moving together - 12 Eurofighter, 12 Tornado, 4 Rafale, 7 A400M and 7 A330 MRTT plus 4 H145 carried onboard; 75% of these aircraft will come from the Luftwaffe.
The Air Force deployment will do joint training for 1-2 weeks each in Alaska, Japan and India and take part in exercises in Alaska (
Arctic Defender), Australia (
Pitch Black) and Hawaii (
RIMPAC). The RIMPAC participation is coordinated with the Navy. If arriving in time they'll also take part in exercises in India (
Tarang Shakti 1). There's additionally planned visit by A400M of the group in New Zealand and stopovers for the group planned in Canada, Malaysia and Jordan.
The Army is so far not really taking part in the Indo-Pacific Deployment strategy. There will be ground troops deployed for joint exercises with the JGSDF to Japan in 2025 though, announced last months.