Corvette Cologne - Background

Kölle Alaaf - Since 21 April 2022, construction number 6 of the Braunschweig class has been named "Köln". At 10.55 a.m., the Kölsch bottle set in motion by the Lord Mayor of the sponsor city, Henriette Reker, smashed against the bow of the corvette.

[ 21 April 2022, construction number 6 of the Braunschweig class was christened "Köln" at the traditional Hamburg shipyard Blohm & Voss, which has belonged to Lürssen Defence, now NVL Group, since 2016. The "Köln" is the first unit of the German Navy's second batch of class 130 (K130) corvettes].

The class 130 corvettes (K130), also categorised as the Braunschweig class, are a key component of the navy's crisis response operations. Their main tasks are reconnaissance of the surface situation and maritime target engagement. The operational spectrum ranges from peacetime presence and military crisis management tasks to combat in marginal seas and weapons effects on land. The first five units of the Braunschweig class have been in service since 2008 and are deployed on international alliance missions, for example as part of the UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The corvette "Erfurt" is currently reinforcing NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 in its tasks in the northern flank area. As a result of current developments, it has been re-routed from its originally planned deployment off the coast of the Levant to the Norwegian Sea.

The procurement of the K130 dates back to the second half of the 1990s. A requirement request from 1997 envisaged replacing the German Navy's 40 fast patrol boats with 15 corvettes. For budgetary reasons and due to the security policy assessment at the time, the number of corvettes was reduced. In December 2001, the procurement contract for the construction of five units was signed. When the security policy situation and its consequences for the task profile of the armed forces were reconsidered in later years, the procurement of five more corvettes was initiated, fuelled by an impulse from two members of the governing coalition.

Cologne at the outfitting pier, photo: Holger Schlüter

Five more corvettes were to contribute to this,