TSAMTO, August 15th. On August 9, the christening ceremony of the lead multipurpose frigate Tamandare took place at the Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems - Estaleiro Brasil Sul enterprise in Itajai (Santa Catarina).
The event, held by the Brazilian Navy Command, Emgepron (Empresa Gerencial de Proyectos Navales) and SPE Aguas Azuis, was attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In the presented photo, the ship is moving to a floating dock, and then it will be launched. This is a complex procedure that will take several days to complete. After that, the frigate will be towed to the completion berth to complete the equipment and conduct initial tests.
The assignment of the F200 number to the frigate marks another milestone in the construction of new Brazilian Navy warships. As planned, all four ordered frigates will be delivered to the customer in 2029.
As reported by TSAMTO, the implementation of the Tamandare frigate construction program began in 2017. In March 2019, the Brazilian Navy Command selected the Aguas Azuis consortium, formed by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Embraer Defense & Security and ATECH Negocios em Tecnologias SA, as the preferred bidder for the supply of four Tamandare-class ships.
In March 2020, the state-owned company Emgepron (Empresa Gerencial de Projetos Navais), acting on behalf of the Brazilian Ministry of Defense, and the joint venture Aguas Azuis signed a contract for the construction of four Tamandare-class multipurpose frigates. The cost of the project is estimated at 9.1 billion reais ($2 billion). Ship deliveries are tentatively scheduled for the period from 2025 to 2029.
The contract also includes the transfer of ship construction technologies, combat control and platform management systems, integrated logistics support and lifecycle management.
The Brazilian Navy will use new ships to counter modern surface, underwater and aerial threats, ensure the protection of maritime transport, control territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone. They will also be used for search and rescue operations and in peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance missions.
Steel cutting for the construction of the lead frigate, Tamandare, began on September 5, 2022, and the keel laying ceremony took place on March 24, 2023. The ship is scheduled to be delivered to the Brazilian Navy by the end of 2025. The keel of the second ship in the series, the F201 Geronimo de Albuquerque, was laid in June 2024. It will be delivered to the customer in 2027.
The new multipurpose ships are based on the German MEKO project. It is assumed that the length of the Tamandare-class frigate will be 107.2 m, the maximum width is 15.95 m, draft is 5.3 m, displacement is 3380 tons, crew is 136 people. The power plant will include 4 MAN 12V 28/33 DSTC diesel engines, Caterpillar C32 diesel generators. The estimated cruising speed is 14 knots, the maximum speed is 25 knots. The range will be 5,500 nautical miles, and the autonomy will be 28 days. It is assumed that the armament of the ships will include a 76/62 mm artillery installation, the SeaCeptor air defense system, the MM40 Exocet PKR Unit.3, the FN Herstal DUMV, the C-Guard false target shooting system, three-tube torpedo tubes of the SEA company. The frigate will be equipped with a flight deck and a helicopter hangar.
