Foreign warships coming to Plymouth
By The Captain, maritime correspondent, The Beagle
As I have previously written, lots of foreign warships come to Plymouth for NATO’s Operational Sea Training (OST). The Royal Norwegian Navy’s Frigate Otto Sverdrup has been here for the last fortnight and may have finished her training period (she is not on KHM’s movements signal for tomorrow (Monday June 16th). A new arrival for OST last week was the German frigate FGS Sachsen-Anhalt (seen in the background of the photo of HMS Astute sailing in Friday’s Beagle).
As you may notice, Sachsen-Anhalt is an unusual shape – her two superstructure blocks are almost equally high and it makes her look a bit top heavy. I have no doubt that these blocks are made of some radar-absorbing material and that they cover electronic equipment – not so much to hide the aerials, as to keep the salt air out of them. They will certainly have a lot of windage and will affect her Captain’s ability to manoeuvre at low speeds in a high wind.
Some older residents will remember the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle running aground (well, really, just touching the bottom) off Jennycliff in the autumn of 1969 – at the subsequent courts-martial, it was pointed out (by the defence) that HMS Eagle had the same windage as the famous clipper Cutty Sark under full sail. This is a factor that all navigators have to take into account – Brittany Ferries raised this as a concern when the Millbay grain silo was demolished. The slab-sided mega cruise ships have a real problem with wind when berthing.
FGS Sachsen-Anhalt is also unusual is that she is a frigate – but is almost the same size as the RN’s Type 45 destroyers. Her class (the Baden-Württemberg class general purpose frigates) are the largest (by tonnage) frigates in the World. She has a wide range of weaponry, but her only air defence systems are for self-defence.
According to the King’s Harbour Master’s movements signal for tomorrow, as well as the Sachsen-Anhalt, there will be another German ship – the air-defence frigate Sachsen, the French Navy’s Tanker/Command ship Somme and the RN mine countermeasures vessel (MCMV) HMS Cattistock sailing from Devonport. In addition, the Royal Netherlands Navy’s air-defence destroyer HNlMS De Ruyter will be in and out of the Sound tomorrow evening.
One easy way of telling a modern European ships main task is large flat black radar array on their mainmast – this is the BAE/Thales S1850M long range (over 400km) air warning radar – the photo below is an RN Type 45 destroyer.
The same basic radar is fitted on the FGS Sachsen and HNlMS De Ruyter – to be seen in the Sound tomorrow – and the RN’s two aircraft carriers plus the French and Italian Navy’s air defence ships.
Another busy day, with lots to be Scene on The Sound tomorrow.
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