Start of construction for the new Meko A200 frigates: the first sections have been delivered to Stahlbau-Nord in Bremerhaven. The first ship is scheduled for completion in 2029.
At the company Stahlbau-Nord (SBN) in Bremerhaven, which belongs to the Heinrich Rönner Group, two steel sections have now been delivered to the Lunehalle on a pontoon with the tugboat “Greif” and moved into the Lunehalle. The two sections were manufactured by the steel constructor BVT, also a Rönner Group company, in Bremen-Nord and are apparently intended for the new MEKO A-200 frigates for the German Navy. There is currently no official confirmation from the project partners, nor any information on the dimensions of the sections.
The Kiel shipyard TKMS had offered the design of the MEKO A-200 to the Dutch general contractor Damen as a replacement for the stuck design of the F126 frigate. The Heinrich Rönner Group from Bremerhaven is also a project partner. The frigates are to be built by the two Rönner subsidiaries Flensburger Shipyard and SBN under subcontract to TKMS. SBN had already successfully produced three frigates for the Egyptian Navy between 2019 and 2023 under subcontract to TKMS.
As time is very short for the construction of the new German frigates, with the first ship scheduled for delivery in 2029, the Kiel-based shipyard TKMS recently signed a preliminary contract with the German Armed Forces Procurement Agency for the construction of frigates. This involves the provision of initial funding so that the shipyard can get started immediately.
The purpose of the preliminary contract is to enable the delivery of the first ship by the end of 2029 while the final preparations for the construction contract are being made in the background. With a budget of €50 million, production of the first sections can begin shortly. According to TKMS, the first step will be the procurement of steel, for which €50 million was initially earmarked. If necessary, there is also the option of extending the contract in stages. The signing of the preliminary contract marks the official start of the project for the MEKO A-200 frigates.
Parallel to the design from Kiel, preparations are underway at the NVL shipyard group in Wolgast and at German Naval Yards in Kiel for the further construction of the first F126 class frigate, which is to be commissioned as the “Niedersachsen”.
As previously announced, the Bundeswehr now intends to pursue a two-track approach to the procurement of new frigates. As the F126 class frigates ordered in 2020 have been significantly delayed and will therefore not be delivered until after 2030, the order for the Meko A-200 TKMS frigates is intended to provide a quickly available class of ship. This model has proven itself internationally and offers an “excellent solution to strengthen the German Navy’s submarine hunting capabilities in a timely manner”. The delivery by the end of 2029 serves to provide powerful anti-submarine warfare units, as also required by NATO. (CE)
