Portsmouth harbour 23/06/07

Sachsen(F129) Air Defense Frigate

The Sachsen Class (F124) is Germany's Air Defence Frigate built by ARGE F124, a consortium consisting of Blohm and Voss as the leading yard, Howaldtwerke-Deutsche Werft and Thyssen Nordseewerke. In January 2005, the three companies became part of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. The three frigates were built under the Trilateral Frigate Agreement, signed by the Netherlands, Germany and Spain, which provides cooperation in national construction of the frigates in each country. In the Netherlands Royal Schelde are building the De Zeven Provincien (LCF) Class frigates and in Spain Navantia (formerly Bazan then Izar) are building the Alvaro de Bazan (F100) Class.
The first of class, FGS Sachsen (F219), which was built at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg, was commissioned in November 2004. The second, FGS Hamburg (F220), built by HDW, was launched in August 2002 and delivered in September 2004. The third, FGS Hessen (F221), built by TNSW, was launched in July 2003 and delivered in December 2005.
COMMAND AND CONTROL
A Thales Nederland (formerly Signaal) Sewaco FD combat system using a distributed real-time database and integrated communications network includes 17 multifunction consoles and processors, two large-screen tactical displays, twelve bus interface units, a COSMOS monitor, a redundant databus and distributed processing. The system uses asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) based architectures for fast data transmission.