Gonna expand on it quite a bit over here even. It's time we had a thread on the German Navy anyway, other than the two that everyone went offtopic on
The four frigates i mention in there that i can't find current info on are:
Type 124
F219 Sachsen
Type 123
F215 Brandenburg
F216 Schleswig-Holstein
F217 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
F215 was hanging around the Marinearsenal a lot the last summer and fall. F217 has also been spotted there a few times in fall.
All four i suspect are currently on "downtime" somewhat, and will probably be used for some training this year, if they don't go on deployment. One of the three Type 123 will definitely replace
Bayern in MTF448 in a few months.
There will be one frigate needed as replacement for
Augsburg in CTF150, which i somewhat suspect will be
Karlsruhe (F212). Would fit in anyway, being a Type 122 that would replace a Type 122. Either her, or
Emden (F210), which would also be available.
What's noticable is that out of the 8 Type 122 frigates, 4 are now on deployment, one recently returned from deployment and one from training, while two are just in/out of their overhaul. Really examplifies their nickname of the German Navy's "workhorses".
The Type 123 pretty much cycle through deployments as Taskforce command ships only - and MTF448 is the only one the German Navy has at the moment, so there'd "always" be three available. Good thing too, because they're supposed to go into overhaul one at a time over the next few years. If they'd get a similar upgrade to the one
Bayern already has - mostly LFTASS plus some structural chances - they'd be able to relieve the Type 122 in their ASW role, e.g. with the two SNMGs. But that's quite a bit in the future still.
The Type 124 similarly serve primarily as Taskforce command ships, as well as AAW of course. As the need for that is pretty low really, they serve in specific training roles to those tasks primarily (like
Hamburg on that EAV cruise). Probably one of the other two will again go through GOST or FOST at Plymouth sometime later this year as well - the newest software upgrades to fix their problems do have to be tested thoroughly. After that - say next year - i could see a potential UNIFIL deployment for a Type 124, if we're still in that by then. Maybe alongside a Type 130 corvette even.
The absence of submarines from deployments is also something i've noticed. To be fair though, two of them just returned from one such deployment. And then there's to consider that the tender for the squadron isn't ready yet - meaning there's only limited possibilities for them anyway (
Main is still being reconfigured, but should be ready soon). In addition to that, there's the ongoing drawdown as old Type 206A subs are being decommissioned - afaik, there are now 7 remaining, with a further 3 to be decommed sometime soon, and the other 4 to be decommed within the next 5 years (at which point the two Type 212A Batch 2 now under construction would commission).
The "vacant" SNMCMG2 position is somewhat interesting. As SNMCMG2 operates in the Mediterranean I'd suspect the German Navy points at the presence of two German MCMV with MTF448 in the area if someone addresses that "vacancy". Though we'll see about that once they withdraw.
I could realistically see a switch sometime in the next few months or so with
Überherrn and
Auerbach withdrawing, and a MCMV being attached to SNMCMG2 again instead. Guess it depends more on how UNIFIL develops though.
Regarding those two ships, i edited the Blog post btw. They were accidentally marked as "rotated in Jul 07", but actually rotated in September.