EU — Deutschland — Deutsche Marine

Due to the changed tasks of the Ger­man armed forces some of the Fast Patrol Boats are replaced by corvettes. This new type of ship for the Ger­man Navy allows world­wide deploy­ment in multi­na­tion­al cri­sis response forces. The corvettes are opti­mized for naval sur­face war­fare tasks in the lit­torals.
The con­struc­tion of the units places par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on sur­viv­abil­i­ty. This is achieved by min­i­miz­ing the radar and infrared sig­na­ture as well es redun­dant employ­ment of mis­sion crit­i­cal sys­tems. The flight deck enables the deploy­ment of heli­copters for sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance beyond own sen­sor hori­zon. The units are equipped with the mis­sile sys­tem RBSI5 Mk3 enabling the Ger­man Navy for the first time to attack land tar­gets at long range.

In addi­tion to anti-ship mis­siles and artillery, which are typ­i­cal for fast attack craft, these units are equipped with the RAM sys­tem, which pro­vides enhanced anti-mis­sile defence and capa­bil­i­ties to attack air and sur­face tar­gets at short range. The high­ly inte­grat­ed IT sys­tems allow for simul­ta­ne­ous engage­ment of five tar­gets.
Togeth­er with the capa­bil­i­ty to deploy decoys and an elec­tron­ic war­fare suite this ensures a high degree of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and sur­viv­abil­i­ty. The GEPARD- class fast patrol boats are capa­ble of infor­ma­tion and sit­u­a­tion pic­ture exchange almost in real time via data link and satel­lites in a nation­al or multi­na­tion­al environment. 

The class 206 A sub­marines were com­mis­sioned between 1973 and 1975 and under­went a major upgrade in the ear­ly 90s. Due to their small size and low­sound radi­a­tion they are extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to detect. In addi­tion they are high­ly manou­vre­able. To pro­vide pro­tec­tion against mines, they are built of non-mag­net­ic steel. They are capa­ble of launch­ing a total of eight wire-guid­ed tor­pe­does and lay­ing 24 bot­tom mines. Due to their small dimen­sions and good depth keep­ing capa­bil­i­ty they can still oper­ate sub­merged in depths of approx­i­mate­ly 20 meters.

The class 212 A sub­ma­rine sig­ni­fies a great leap in con­ven­tion­al sub­ma­rine tech­nol­o­gy. This new class is fit­ted with an air-inde­pen­dent propul­sion Sys­tem (hydro­gen-oxy­gen fuel cells). Its sig­na­ture (noise. mag­net­ism, radar, infrared and pres­sure) is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced com­pared with oth­er con­ven­tion­al sub­marines. The pres­sure hull is built of non-mag­net­ic steel of high strength and resilience. Its main arma­ment is the new­ly devel­oped, wire-guid­ed DM 2A4 heavy­weight tor­pe­do, a fur­ther devel­op­ment of the DM 2A3 SEEHECHT tor­pe­do, which had already been installed on class 206 A submarines.

The OSTE-class Fleet Ser­vice Ves­sels have been designed as high­ly effi­cient ear­ly warn­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and recon­nais­sance plat­tforms, capa­ble of oper­at­ing inde­pen­dent­ly as well as with­in an oper­a­tional and com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work with oth­er Ger­man and inter­na­tion­al units and agen­cies. These units are equipped with state-of-the-art elec­tro­mag­net­ic, hydro-acoustic and elec­tro-opti­cal detec­tion devices and, in the past have repeat­ed­ly been suc­cess­ful­ly employed in strate­gic intel­li­gence gath­er­ing in cri­sis areas. With their oper­at­ing range of over 5,000 nm they are designed for extend­ed recon­nais­sance mis­sions. In addi­tion to their per­ma­nent crew, com­mu­ni­ca­tions per­son­nel and oth­er spe­cial­ists for elec­tron­ic recon­nais­sance may be embarked depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion and mis­sion. The ships are based in Eckernförde. 

This mine­hunter is a dual-role ves­sel that is able to car­ry out both minelay­ing and mine­hunt­ing oper­a­tions. It is based on the stan­dard FRANKEN­THAL-class plat­form. To per­form its pri­ma­ry role of mine­hunt­ing it relies on a state-of-the-art TAKIS mine­hunt­ing com­mand and con­trol Sys­tem and a mine­hunt­ing sonar used to detect and engage bot­tom mines and moored mines by means of an expend­able drone (SEEFUCHS) which is unique. In addi­tion, a mobile clear­ance div­ing unit can embark on the vessel.

Like the ships of the KULMBACH and ENS­DORF-class, the FRANKEN­THAL-class ships are built from non-mag­net­ic steel and use a com­mon tech­ni­cal plat­form. The ves­sels are equipped with a DSQS 11 M sonar fea­tur­ing a dig­i­tal sig­nal proces­sor and syn­thet­ic dis­play. The mine­hunters are armed with two PINGUIN B3-type remote­ly oper­at­ed vehi­cles.
The crew com­pris­es spe­cial­ly trained clear­ance divers who can iden­ti­fy and destroy mines. To be able to treat div­ing casu­al­ties on the spot, the ships are equipped with a decom­pres­sion cham­ber. The BAD BEVENSEN, GRÖMITZ, BAD RAPPENAU and DATTELN are des­ig­nat­ed for mis­sion of the naval pro­tec­tion forces from 2008 onwards.

The ENS­DORF-class minesweep­ers and the SEEHUND type remote-con­trol sole­noid sweeps make up the TROIKA PLUS sys­tem. Accord­ing to the method of employ­ment, up to four unmanned SEEHUND drones with acti­vat­ed minesweep­ing equip­ment are con­trolled from the minesweep­er. For rea­sons of safe­ty, the con­trol ves­sel itseif remains out­side the mine­field. lt is equipped with a mine avoid­ance sonar to detect moored mines, a con­trol and steer­ing device for the four remote­ly con­trolled sole­noid sweeps, SEEFUCHS expend­able drones and mechan­i­cal minesweep­ing equip­ment to clear moored mines.

The land­ing craft util­i­ty is the fleet‘s work­horse. lt is used for per­son­nel and materiel trans­port by sea and is also suit­able for minelay­ing oper­a­tions. The BARBE-class ves­sels are the only Navy ves­sels on which chief pet­ty offi­cers per­form the duties of com­mand­ing offi­cers. These two ves­sels are under com­mand of the Navel Spe­cial­ized Forces in Eck­ern­förde were they are based

The ELBE-class ten­der is designed to sup­ply small­er units at sea with fuel, water or ammu­ni­tion and to pro­vide main­te­nance sup­port. Anoth­er impor­tant task is the dis­pos­al of waste. The crew encom­pass­es Sys­tem sup­port group mem­bers from the respec­tive boat squadrons, who have con­tainer­ized work­shops and spares hold­ings at their dis­pos­al. The land­ing deck can be used tor heli­copter operations.

The SACH­SEN-class ships are designed as mul­ti­pur­pose frigates for escort­ing and area pro­tec­tion and accom­mo­date heli­copters. Their sen­sors and weapons are opti­mized to ful­fill their pri­ma­ry tasks, i.e. force com­mand and extend­ed air defense. Sim­i­lar to frigates of the BREMEN- and BRAN­DEN­BURG-class, the ship­borne heli­copter is employed in long-range anti-sur­face and anti­sub­ma­rine oper­a­tions. With the deliv­ery of the SACH­SEN-class frigates, the Navy has received a par­tic­u­lar­ly ver­sa­tile and robust means of naval warfare.

The BRAN­DEN­BURG-class frigates are pri­mar­i­ly 4 designed tor anti-sub­ma­rine war­fare and force com­mand and con­trol. The SEA LYNX ship­borne heli­copter is not only used pri­mar­i­ly for anti­sub­ma­rine oper­a­tions, but is also employed in sea sur­veil­lance and anti­sur­face war­fare. The ships are equipped with etfi­cient radarsys­tems for sur­face and air sur­veil­lance, fire con­trol and nav­i­ga­tion. Sonar sys­tems, tac­ti­cal pic­ture and data trans­mis­sion sys­tems, elec­tron­ic wartare sys­tems and advanced com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy spe­cial­ly designed tor com­mand and con­trol tasks com­plete their array of equipment.

Like the BRAN­DEN­BURG-class frigates, the BRE­MEN-class frigates are high per­for­mance ves­sels. Their main tasks, are anti-sub­ma­rine and anti-sur­face war­fare. The SEA LYNX ship­borne heli­copter is employed in anti-sub­ma­rine oper­a­tions, and also in long-range sea sur­veil­lance and anti-sur­face war­fare Operations.

The BERLIN-class sup­port ships ren­der sup­port to Navy task groups, the com­po­si­tion of which depends on their tasks. Here, the focus is on logis­tic and med­ical sup­port by the com­bat sup­port ship. The ship‘s main logis­tic task is to sup­ply the units with fuel, con­sum­ables, pro­vi­sions and ammu­ni­tion. In addi­tion, the com­bat sup­port ship per­forms the fol­low­ing tasks: 

• Med­ical sup­port by accom­mo­da­tion of a con­tainer­ized mobile naval sur­gi­cal hos­pi­tal, referred to as MERZ

• Oper­a­tion of two ship­borne helicopters

• Trans­port, man­age­ment and han­dling of containers

• Accom­mo­da­tion for sup­port personnel

• Pro­vi­sion of we!fare facilities

• Envi­ron­men­tal­ly com­pat­i­ble dis­pos­al of sewage and waste

Aux­il­iaries ensure the sup­ply of fleet units at sea. Depend­ing on the mis­sion assigned to the indi­vid­ual units, the aux­il­iaries are specif­i­cal­ly equipped and manned for this pur­pose. Apart from the self­de­fence weapons aboard the BERLIN-class ships which are manned by mil­i­tary per­son­nel, aux­il­iaries are not equippeci with weapon sys­tems. Addi­tion­al auxi­i­iary squadron class­es are:

• WEST­ER­WALD-class sup­ply ship

• WANGEROOGE-class ocean tug

• WALCHENSEE-class replen­ish­ment tanker 

Many units are for­mer mer­chant ships or were built to mer­chant marine stan­dards. Where nec­es­sary, equip­ment and Sys­tems were adapt­ed to mil­i­tary requirements. 

Only recent­ly upgrad­ed, the P‑3C ORION pro­vides the Bun­deswehr with enhanced capa­bil­i­ties in terms of long-range recon­nais­sance and com­mand sup­port in joint and com­bined Oper­a­tions. The ORION is a state-of-the-art weapon sys­tem which will also in the future allow suc­cess­ful con­duct of clas­si­cal tasks such as sea sur­veil­lance and engage­ment of under­wa­ter tar­gets. Its Flight Oper­a­tions start­ed in Nord­holz in 2006. The P‑3C ORION replaces the 40-year-old BREGLIET ATLANTIC BR 1150 aircraft.

The SEA KING heli­copters have pro­vid­ed out­stand­ing ser­vice in their dai­ly sup­port of the fleet as ship­borne heli­copters of the com­bat sup­port ships and in their SAR role. Both at sea and on land, they are the work­hors­es of the Ger­man Navy. ln a joint approach, Naval Air Wing 5 has the fol­low­ing tasks:

• Search and res­cue (SAR)

• Air­lift­ing personnel/staff material 

• Dis­as­ter relief 

• Tac­ti­cal trans­port in the littorals 

• Evac­u­a­tion operations 

• Mar­itime sur­veil­lance and reconnaissance