German frigate Brandenburg

Brandenburg is a Brandenburg-class frigate of the German Navy, and the lead ship of her class.

Brandenburg in 2013
History
Germany
Name: Brandenburg
Builder: Blohm+Voss, Hamburg
Laid down: 11 February 1992
Launched: 28 August 1992
Commissioned: 14 October 1994
Identification:
Status: Active
General characteristics
Class and type: Brandenburg-class frigate
Displacement: 3,600 tons (4,490t full load)[1]
Length: 138.85 metres (455.5 ft)[1]
Beam: 16.7 metres (55 ft)[1]
Draught: 4.35 metres (14.3 ft) (6.3 metres (21 ft) over sonar)[1]
Propulsion:
Speed: >29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph)[1]
Range: 4,000 nautical miles (7,400 km; 4,600 mi)at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)[1]
Complement: 26 officers, 193 enlisted[1]
Sensors and
processing systems:
Electronic warfare
& decoys:
  • 1 EADS FL 1800S ECM suite
  • two OTO-Melara SCLAR launcher
  • four TKWA/MASS (Multi Ammunition Softkill System) decoy launcher (currently under procurement)
Armament:
Aircraft carried: Two Sea Lynx helicopters equipped with ASW torpedoes, or air-to-surface missiles Sea Skua, and a heavy machine gun.

Construction and commissioning

Brandenburg and the three other frigates of the Brandenburg class were designed as replacements for the Hamburg-class destroyers. She was laid in 1992 at the yards of Blohm+Voss, Hamburg and launched in August 1992. She was christened by Ingrid Stolpe, the wife of the then Minister-President of Brandenburg Manfred Stolpe.[2] After undergoing trials she was commissioned on 14 October 1994, and assigned to 6. Fregattengeschwader. After the naval structure was reorganised, Brandenburg was assigned to 2. Fregattengeschwader, based at Wilhelmshaven.

Service

Brandenburg spent some time in 2006 assigned to the maritime element of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, serving as the flagship of the maritime taskforce commander Flotilla Admiral Andreas Krause. On 30 November 2006 she was visited by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier while docked in Larnaca, Cyprus.[3] In 2009 she was deployed with Operation Atalanta, the anti-piracy patrols off the Horn of Africa. On 3 August 2009 the captured merchant vessel MV Hansa Stavanger was released from pirate control, with Brandenburg and the frigate Rheinland-Pfalz escorting her into port in Mombasa, Kenya.[4] On 7 September Brandenburg launched a Sea Lynx helicopter to perform a reconnaissance mission on a suspected skiff just south of Mukalla, Yemen. Five suspects were observed throwing ladders and weapons overboard. Brandenburg fired warning shots across the skiff's bow after she refused to stop, and then disabled the skiff with gunfire. A team was sent aboard using a rigid-hulled inflatable boat, took control of the crew and seized a number of weapons. One of the suspects was injured by gunfire during the incident, and later died of his wounds onboard Brandenburg while receiving medical treatment.[5][6] This was the first fatality caused by the Bundeswehr in the course of Operation Atalanta.[7] The weaponry found on board the skiff was later destroyed, and the four surviving suspects released.[8]

In 2010 Brandenburg, the frigate Niedersachsen, the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main and the ammunition transport ship Westerwald carried out exercises together as part of the Einsatzausbildungsverband (Operational Training Association), with Brandenburg also participating in the German-South African missile exercises Good Hope IV. The following year Brandenburg and the other ships of the Einsatzausbildungsverband were temporarily involved in Operation Active Endeavour.[9] In late February 2011 Brandenburg, Rheinland-Pfalz and the replenishment ship Berlin were ordered to the Libyan coast to assist in the evacuation of German citizens during the Libyan Civil War.[10] They assisted in the evacuation of several hundred people, and also transported Egyptian citizens from the port of Gabes, Tunisia to Alexandria, Egypt.[11]

From March to August 2014 Brandenburg was again deployed with Operation Atalanta, serving as the flagship of the Force Commander, Flotilla Admiral Jürgen Mills.[12][13] On 20 March 2017 Brandenburg left Wilhelmshaven to replace the frigate Sachsen in Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, taking over from the Sachsen in early April at Souda, Crete.[14] During her time with the Group she served as the flagship of the force's commander, Flotilla Admiral Axel Deertz.[15] While leaving Piraeus on 17 April 2017, Brandenburg collided with a pier, damaging her steering gear and a propeller. The Greek tug Christos XVII escorted the damaged frigate to the floating dock at Paloukia, Salamis Naval Base.[16] On 22 May 2017 Brandenburg was able to resume her patrol activity after repairs. On 4 July 2017, Deertz handed command of the Group over to a British commodore, and the Brandenburg ceased to be the flagship.[17]

gollark: Yes, it's called SCP-682.
gollark: Some of them are just weird for reasons other than that, though.
gollark: 4703 somehow *does things* just because the law says it can, even though the law is just a human concept and only affects what humans do.
gollark: Really, one of the main things which makes (some) SCPs weird is that they take convenient abstractions/concepts and turn them into immutable physical laws, while our real universe just runs on... well, physics. 173 is affected by line of sight, even though this is just a thing humans do to reason about... looking at things. 005 is just a magic item which unlocks things, 048 is just a label we assign to things which somehow affects them.
gollark: Alternatively, the machine breaks, if it prefers simple changes - so I guess make it STUPIDLY redundant.

References
  1. Wertheim, Eric (2007). The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World: Their Ships, Aircraft, and Systems. Naval Institute Press. p. 246. ISBN 9781591149552.
  2. "Ministerpräsident Platzeck gratuliert der Fregatte Brandenburg zum 10-jährigen Jubiläum ihrer Indienststellung" (in German). Land Brandenburg – Staatskanzlei. 27 August 2004. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  3. "Deutscher Außenminister zu Gast auf der Fregatte BRANDENBURG". einsatz.bundeswehr.de (in German). 5 December 2006. Archived from the original on 7 December 2006. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  4. "EU NAVFOR ship BRANDENBURG leads HANSA STAVANGER safely into Mombasa". EU NAVFOR Public Affairs Office. 18 August 2010. Archived from the original on 4 November 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2011.
  5. German frigate kills suspected pirate off Somalia AFP, 7 September 2009
  6. German Navy kills pirate suspect Marine Log, 8 September 2009
  7. German navy releases suspected pirates after thwarting attack Deutsche Press-Agentur, 16 September 2009
  8. Suspected pirates released by EU NAVFOR 14 September 2009
  9. "Pressetermin: Einsatz- und Ausbildungsverband 2010: Kiel und Wilhelmshaven erwarten Marinesoldaten zurück". presseportal.de (in German). Presse- und Informationszentrum Marine. 15 June 2010. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  10. "EU schließt Militäreinsatz nicht aus". faz.net (in German). 24 February 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  11. "Bundeswehr beginnt hunderte Flüchtlinge in Nordafrika zu evakuieren" (in German). BMVg Presse- und Informationsstab. 5 March 2011. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
  12. "Half-time for FGS Brandenburg". eunavfor.eu. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  13. "Axel Schulz heißt Fregatte „Brandenburg" nach Einsatz Willkommen". www.marine.de (in German). Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  14. "Wechsel in der Ägäis: Neues Flaggschiff „Brandenburg"" (in German). 7 April 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  15. "Fregatte „Brandenburg" wird Flaggschiff in der Ägäis" (in German). Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  16. "Deutsche Marine: Fregatte kollidiert mit Mole". kn-online.de (in German). Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  17. "NATO Unterstützung Ägäis: Kommandoübernahme des 4. Deutschen Einsatzkontingentes" (in German). 4 July 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
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