German Navy frigate FGS Augsburg returned to her homeport after taking part in the French mission against the Daesh by protecting the aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle during its operations.
Having spent 126 days deployed, the ship’s Commander, Frigate Captain Jörg Mascow and his crew entered Wilhelmshaven, Germany on March 24.
The crew initially set sail for EUNAVFOR’s Operation Sophia mission in the Mediterranean on November 20. However, their mission was changed at short notice in the beginning of December when the German government appropriated support for French forces in the Middle East.
Augsburg’s new task was to support the French aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle in its mission against the “Islamic State”.
“Our latest mission was a challenging time to which the crew responded with a lot of flexibility and extraordinary engagement. Watching jets take off and land while standing directly behind an aircraft carrier, just a kilometer away astern, is something one can see only in movies, like, ‘Top Gun’,” Frigate Captain Mascow described.
During the group’s deployment in the Persian Gulf, French aircraft conducted 23 reconnaissance flights while Dassault Rafale fighter jets performed an overall of 370 sorties.
This number of flights allowed the group to carry out a total of 80 airstrikes against Daesh positions since entering the Gulf on November 19, 2015.
FS Charles de Gaulle’s task force was comprised of 3.200 soldiers, two French destroyers and a replenishment ship, one British and one German frigate.
During their four-month deployment, the Augsburg crew has sailed around 23,000 nautical miles, which is enough to circumnavigate the globe more than once.