The F123 Brandenburg class is a class of German frigate. They were ordered by the German Navy in June 1989 and completed and commissioned between 1994 and 1996, replacing the s. The ships primarily carry out anti-submarine warfare (ASW), but they also contribute to local anti-aircraft defenses, the tactical command of squadrons, and surface-to-surface warfare operations. Together with the F124 Sachsen class frigates, they are the mainstay of the German surface fleet. Project history Despite having undergone a limited modernisation, the four Hamburg-class destroyers intended for escort duties in the North Sea and North Atlantic were technologically obsolete by the 1980s, lacking assets such as an on-board helicopter capable of searching for submarines and still relying on steam turbines and boilers for propulsion. A replacement was considered overdue. Blohm + Voss was contracted to develop and build the ships to a clean-sheet design in 1989. Not taken up was the option of ordering a variant of the Bremen-class modified with new systems, as offered by Bremer Vulkan, the lead contractor for that class of ships. Blohm + Voss and Bremer Vulkan had previously cooperated on a new F123 design to offer to the German Navy. At the time Vulkan director Friedrich Hennemann felt that Blohm + Voss had afterwards illegitimately presented the jointly developed design as their own. The lead ship, Brandenburg was laid down in Hamburg in February 1992 and commissioned in October 1994. The last ship, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was commissioned in December 1996. Design General characteristics and machinery The frigates are long, have a maximum draught of and a beam of . A CODOG propulsion system is used, combining two MTU diesel engines and two General Electric LM2500 gas turbines for a total installed power of 38 MW. The ship achieves a maximum speed of more than . Signature reduction measures influenced the design, reducing the ships radar signature to a tenth of that of the Bremen-class frigate. Armament The primary anti-submarine weapons are Mark 46 torpedoes carried by the Sea Lynx helicopters stationed on board of the frigates. The torpedoes can also be launched from two twin launchers located behind the ships' funnels. For defense against anti-ship missiles and aircraft, two Mark 41 vertical launching system modules with 8 cells each, 16 in total are located in front of the bridge. They can accommodate 16 NATO Sea Sparrow missiles or up to 64 of the more modern Sea