The MKS 180 programme will provide the Navy with warships capable of tackling targets above and below water and supporting land missions. The country's ruling coalition said it would buy a second batch of K130 corvettes to compensate for the six-month delay.
The corvettes are not as expensive as frigates, are easier to navigate in coastal waters and congested regions and don't have to be designed from scratch. A German Navy spokesman also said, according to DefenseNews, that the purchase of the corvettes answers NATO's recently enacted new requirements.
NATO reportedly expects Germany to provide two extra corvettes at the highest readiness level for use in littoral operations from 2018 on. Currently, only two of the country's existing squadron of five K130 Braunschweig-class corvettes are assigned to NATO missions.
The Navy hopes that the first two corvettes will join the fleet by the end of this decade, with the remaining three vessels entering service by 2023.
