These are going to be very powerful combatants. They will be as strong as most destroyers, and with AEGIS will procide significant area-coverage defense.
...and with significant littoral capability too. Sort of a mix between an AEGIS vessel, a littoral vessel, and a frigate.
A 48 cell VLS would be a nice thing to have. Giving them the most powerfull AA loadout seen in our navy.
The gun will do a good job against vessels and especially land targets, too.
I hope as time goes by SM-6 and (VL)ASROC will be incorporated.
Finally, we get a real modern destroyer (A word better not to speak out loud in certain circles here
). Well, the Sachsens are at least really close.
BTW, a third replenishment ship of the 20.000t Berlin-class is also to join the fleet in the coming years.
I think after one of these ships did very well in the disaster relief ops after the Tsunami in SE Asia, the decision got fixed.
At first there were some "hopes" it could be close to a LPD. But then again this probably would have been too much. Adding even an amphib capability.
With this new class, the Sachsen class, the Brandenberg class, and the Bremen class, the German Navy is building up a very modern, and very capable force. These four will make 23 very good vessels I believe between all four of those classes.
Well, the F 125 is ment to gradually replace the Bremen class vessels from the mid of the next decade. Finally that means four of the eight vessels, wich were comissioned from 1982-'90 will be replaced. The Bremens were upgraded in the mid-90s and will see another upgrade procedure starting around right now. That means new 3D air search radar, new combat system from Thales and replacement of many subsystems. They will do some good service for another 10-15 years.
The Brandenburgs are also to be upgraded, I think with ESSM for example, starting in 2008. The Exocets are also to be replaced with land attack capable RBS15 Mk3.
Also, do not forget the Braunschweig korvettes wich will replace the FACs and give further good littoral and patrol capabilities.
However, I think it's sad the Polyphem-S concept was killed, this would have been a nice weapon for the K130s, or even the F125s, fitting their purpose.
