الفرقاطة بالأساس مخصصة للمهمات منخفضة الخطورة ضد أعداء بيملكوا أسلحة بدائية في نطاق الدول الفقيرة كمكافحة القرصنة و حفظ الأمن في القرن الأفريقي علي سبيل المثال, نوع المهمات التي لا تستوجب تواجد فرقاطة أو مدمرة بتسليح ثقيل
خصوصا أن الفرقاطة تستطيع العمل لفترات طويلة قد تصل الي عامين متتاليين و بطاقم منخفض, الفكرة من تقليل مصاريف التشغيل الي حدها الأدني
So you are probably asking yourself by now "what the hell is this ship intended for?" You wouldn't be the first wonder. The German Navy has a somewhat controversial mission set defined for these vessels. The
Baden-Wurttemberg class is supposed to be used to countering "asymmetric" threats and to perform "stabilization, crisis management, conflict prevention, and international intervention" operations.
In other words,
these ships are meant to be used in low-threat environments against enemies with rudimentary combat capabilities at best. Disaster relief and emergency aid are also at the center of their intended uses. So think special operations support nearby very poor countries or counter-terror and counter-piracy operations in remote regions of the world. The ships could be integrated into a coalition flotilla in higher-threat combat arenas, but that's not its primary operational format and what use they could be such instances is debatable.
Although those missions do matter, does building destroyer-sized ships to focus on them alone really make sense, especially considering these ships are replacing more plentiful and more traditional multi-role surface combatants?
And that's the multi-billion dollar question here.
On one hand Germany could be seen as just being realistic about the low-end missions they will need to fulfill for decades to come. On the other hand they sure went above and beyond to satisfy those limited mission sets. And does building four of these large but limited capability ships even make sense for a navy that has only roughly a dozen major surface combatants (and about a half dozen corvettes) in all?
Additionally, the whole automation and minimally manned crew concept is a risky one, especially for a ship that is supposed to operate so far from home for such long stretches of time. If anything,
aboard America's top-of-the-line
Arleigh Burke class destroyers underlines the personnel and readiness issues that can exist even on constantly deployed ships that are traditionally staffed and have extensive support infrastructure in their operating region.
Keeping a ship up while also operating it with a skeleton crew on a daily basis far from home, even if all the automation works as advertised, is a highly challenging if not questionable proposition. And if the F125 frigates require more in-port time to sustain their high-operations tempo, either abroad or at home, this will degrade the reasoning behind the entire design.
