German Navy oiler joins NATO’s SNMG1

German Navy replenishment oiler Rhön (A 1443) is set to leave its homeport of Wilhelmshaven on October 4 to join the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1.

Captain Egon Rhauderwiek is looking forward to the deployment following a longer dockyard period. Rhauderwiek said it was very important for him and the crew to get back to their actual tasks of supporting units at sea.

The ship’s main task during this deployment will be to supply fuel for the ships in the group which is made up of units from Spain, Portugal and Germany. As it was the case with earlier deployments, Rhön will also serve as a training platform for the group’s boarding teams.

Rhön is the lead ship in a class of two replenishment oilers the German Navy received in the 1970s. The other ship in the class is FGS Spessart which recently concluded its counter-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia.