Sweden Has a Sub So Deadly the US Navy Hired It to Play Bad Guy (2014)
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com
The US wanted to train against attack subs that are much smaller than what Russia is using since North Korea and Iran were developing small subs that can be used in effectively what would be suicide missions against US carrier groups.
Sweden built a small sub because it cannot afford large ones and because it allows the sub to operate in shallow water and the narrow passes in the fjords.
Since the US can't ask North Korea to play the red team since they do it in real life they've rented a Swedish sub as an agressor.
From the article, a larger ship was used to move the sub from Swedish waters to the Pacific for these war games.
Nuclear subs can go wherever they want, whenever they want.
For Swedish use, however, the sub will never have to be far from home, so the tradeoff is worth it for them.
Nuclear submarines can never be totally quiet. Turbines and pipes give out noise. Submarines with air independent propulsion can be totally silent when they stop and extremely silent when moving slowly.
North Korean submarines are not a threat. Chinese diesel electric submarines are.
So how good are their defense? ~1 week will it take to invade Sweden according to them self... With the help of the militia. [5].
My concern is that they basically just develop expensive military stuff because they want to feed the industry. A political dance with money.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby-class_corvette
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stridsvagn_122
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Artillery_System
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_90
[5] https://www.svd.se/forsvar-med-tidsgrans (swedish)
Sweden used to have a pretty decent military though. For example:
> In 1957 Sweden had the world's fourth most powerful air force,[5] with about 1000 modern planes in front-line service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Air_Force
However these days it is pretty crippled I think. Large budget cuts and a big transformation to a much smaller military that focused on missions abroad.
"Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year."
Henry Kissinger
I think that it is a quite serious signal for Sweden to start taking again their army seriously.
I don't really think those are good use, Sweden is pretty large and doesn't really hold water passage alone, it's not like Panama canal or Turkey's Bosporus. But anyway, do you think, but really honestly, that large scale NATO - Russia war is possible? With all those nukes etc. It didn't even happen during cold war, so I don't see any possibility of that. (Also Russians are not that blood-thirsty as western media shows them, so there's 0 desire of that as well).
1) attacking Sweden does not trigger NATO article 5 (because Sweden in not in NATO),
2) Sweden will give close proximity to Germany and to the rest of central Europe,
3) Finland would become cut out and would very likely just surrender (or surrender sooner),
4) complete control over Baltic Sea makes helping Baltic states considerably harder by other NATO members.
In many cases it makes seriously more sense for Russia to first attack Sweden than countries next to its border.
I am not saying that Russia will just do it, but it may seriously consider it within a larger conflict.
I therefore believe that there are serious reasons for Sweden to have considerable deterrence against it just happening when Russia just pleases it.
Russia already has Kaliningrad which is already very close to Germany and the rest of central Europe, for whatever reason you think it's good.
It also all involves some larger conflict with western war, large scale war. But it's a suicide for Russia, this won't happen. Russia isn't a blood-thirsty monster that each day thinks how to conquer the world or die trying to... There's a lot of problems with Russia, but mostly poeple of Russia are the victims...
It was called Königsberg. It was once Germany but it is no where near Germany today - there is still this pesky Poland in between. Having control over Sweden also helps to deal with the Polish question...
Let me stress it again. At current state attacking Sweden probably (and hopefully) will be suicide for Russia, but only thanks to respectable deterrence by Sweden.
Otherwise, if Russia would consider attacking one of its western neighbours, it would make much more sense to attack Sweden first.
I hope it makes it clear why it is ridiculous to ridicule Sweden for having a serious army.
>mostly poeple of Russia are the victims...
... of their own delusions (i.e. NATO countries are trying to encircle them etc)?
The absolutely crucial difference is that Latvia and Lithuania are both NATO countries, and that would trigger Article 5.
The difference between attacking a country with sub-par military vs attacking the mightiest military alliance on the whole world?
If a war would break out and Russia would need to secure a passage for it's baltic fleet it would likely involve a ground invasion into Sweden and then Norway and Denmark likely through Finland.
Russia might also use it's Northern Fleet for which Severomorsk serves as it's home port, in that case Russia would need to circle the Scandinavian Peninsula, in which case the Northern fleet would be well in range of the Swedish (as well as Finnish, and Norwegian) air forces.
Russia's Baltic fleet is located in Kaliningrad a small Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad would not hold out for long without Russia escalating to the nuclear options as such in any major conflict Russia would want to ensure the security and freedom of movement of it's Baltic fleet, this would involve pinning down Sweden to prevent a naval blockade of Kaliningrad, the use of it's air force against Russian targets in the Baltic and the Arctic and as a stepping stone into invading Norway and further.
On the other side of the Baltic Russia would undoubtedly invade the small baltic states, either annexing them completely or securing a land corridor from Russia proper to Kaliningrad in order to be able to keep it's naval base there supplied and operational.
As silly as it might sound, the world is a giant game of Risk especially when it comes to Russia since they have been always at a geographical disadvantage despite being the largest country in the world and one of the most resource rich countries to boot.
In general i think you have the notion that the fact that Sweden is preparing itself for a Russian invasion means that Russia have somehow singled out Sweden. It didn't, it's just another piece on the board that Russia would have to take out or severely confine in order to be able to move it's own pieces to where it counts.
Finland, the Baltic states, the rest of Scandinavia and Europe at large are all effectively planning for the inevitable if unlikely Russian invasion in case of a major conflict.
Sweden being close to Russia, having whilst a small but sufficiently sophisticated and relatively large for the area navy (5 decent stealth corvettes and 5 submarines all of which are more than capable of effecting a blockade against a merchant fleet escort or not), having a relatively large air forces for the region (about 100 Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighters, all equippable with anti-ship missiles) and being just across the baltic at a very short distance from the Russian baltic fleet home port and headquarters makes Sweden a strategic target for Russia as it poses a direct threat to it's interests.
If you still can't see that then I'm sorry but I don't know how to explain it in a more simple or detailed manner.
If anything else fails then go to https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kaliningrad,+Kaliningrad+O... and zoom out a bit.
Russia could win again Sweden alone, though it won't be that easy as well, as you said, Sweden is not completely defenseless. To attack big country you don't even border, with harsh environment and landscape and then control it is not an easy task. And that would be only Sweden attacked, that's my original point, why to do that? What's the point of attacking Sweden alone, you don't gain anything from it and then face the wrath of the world.
> In general i think you have the notion that the fact that Sweden is preparing itself for a Russian invasion means that Russia have somehow singled out Sweden
No, my notion is that it's Sweden who singled out itself. Lately I've seen abnormally many news about Sweden being afraid, and they even returned conscription, that's why I guessed that it's some local political play (though I don't know political situation in Sweden to be sure). And I'm worried about Sweden because I think it's waste of resources and people's time.
> If you still can't see that then I'm sorry but I don't know how to explain it in a more simple or detailed manner.
> If anything else fails then go to https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kaliningrad,+Kaliningrad+O.... and zoom out a bit.
No need to be condescending, I see what you say and I say it's not real scenario.
B) Yes this is a far fetched scenario, but as military scenarios go it's the only one that is applicable to Sweden no one else would invade, or attack Sweden other than Russia.
Sweden has a right to be afraid, it's not part of NATO so no article 5, Russia has been shown to respond to EU/NATO pushing into its sphere of influence with uncharacteristically direct responses.
Russia invaded Georgia effectively to kill the pipeline that the EU was planning to build after a Georgian provocation fueled by the west promising to back it up against Russian retaliation.
Russia went into Crimea again after western funded protests to oust a democratically elected government (corrupt or not) that both EU and US election inspectors concluded was elected fair and square simply because they didn't liked the results.
Russia is violating Swedish territorial waters and their airspace regularly, they deem waters that Sweden has claims too as their own, and effectively claim most of the Baltis as Russian territorial and economical waters.
So regardless of how far fetched this scenario is according to you the only 3 possible scenarios in which Sweden would be invaded are: Alien Invasion, Space Nazi's or the Russians, with the latter being the only one that might actually happen.
B ->
> Sweden has a right to be afraid, it's not part of NATO so no article 5, Russia has been shown to respond to EU/NATO pushing into its sphere of influence with uncharacteristically direct responses.
Russia just doesn't like expansion of NATO in Europe in general, nothing specific to Sweden. When USSR put missiles on Cuba USA didn't like it a lot as well... But I don't know how much of that opposition is real, and what portion is just a political game. Because there's the same point as with Sweden being attacked by Russia - attack from NATO won't happen, as long as there's nuclear weapon.
Those issues you described are just local conflicts, that's the max what Russia can afford. And USA also do play with territorial waters, spy planes etc, that's all part of regular military routine.
> So regardless of how far fetched this scenario is according to you the only 3 possible scenarios in which Sweden would be invaded are: Alien Invasion, Space Nazi's or the Russians, with the latter being the only one that might actually happen.
There's much more than 3. But even you admit that it's a far fetched scenario, so it's not according to me, it's just far fetched, period. And that was my point, you can as well start preparing for alien space Nazi invasion, but will it be money well spent? It's like amputating your healthy foot because who knows, sometime in the future you can get diabetes. Returning conscription is a very serious thing to do, it's a large move which affects whole country. And there's no point in that. In 1 on 1 conflict it won't help and in case of large scale war (which Russia can't afford nor doesn't want) it won't matter, because Russia will be destroyed by the allies. And nobody here could come up with the answer to original question, "what is the point of attacking Sweden", alone, just Sweden, can you answer it?
Tell it to a random Finn and their eyes will not stop rolling.
Finland has modern reservist army with modern planes, tanks and very sizeable artillery.
I understand that Russian media really wants to ridicule Sweden for that. You do not have to buy this. Sweden has been very destructive to its military and they just started to realise it. I think it is good for them.
>Sweden being afraid and even returning conscription (that awful atavism of the past)
A reservist army is an only way to build a real defence for a small country.
Service time in a modern country is limited to reasonable time and is optimized to give reasonable military training.
If you compare it to the experience in the Soviet Army then it will be not comparable - it is not for painting grass or glueing leaves on trees.
>If you ask random Finn how possible is war with Russia nowadays, what do you think he/she will answer?
Do you mean on the street or after bottle of vodka (that is do you want to hear a politically correct opinion or the real one)?
Russia has shown they have tendencies towards nationalism and imperialism. USA is fine with the globalism that is taking place, and has no problem flexing muscle abroad when it feels like it, i.e. profit motives for Iraq War, perceived threats against Germany if they provided Snowden asylum, CIA drug and weapons selling schemes for political or economic motives--i.e. Iran Contra or Gary Webb or US funding ISIS in Syria. None of this was ever to annex territory.
Last year the US dropped over 26,000 bombs. Zero territory gained.
The most bombed and devastated country in the history of the earth is... Laos. Definitely not for territory.
The plutocracy in the US simply would not attack Sweden because it does not need to do that to achieve their goals.
Even when it comes to torturing people, Sweden does this at the behest of the US--HRW has heavily criticized Sweden for this.
Why would the US invade such an obedient country? It's actually incredibly unlikely.
Russia on the other hand would take Scandanavia in an instance if it had the capability.
The biggest hope Russia has now is global warming. It appears to disrupt most of the world negatively while increasing water passages and even likely arable land in Russia.
"That's actually not true"
> Russia on the other hand would take Scandanavia in an instance if it had the capability.
No, not any person in Russia has thoughts like this. That's not even a topic for a discussion because nobody can think of such a thing.
> Why would the US invade such an obedient country? It's actually incredibly unlikely. Incredibly unlikely scenario: Assange returns to Sweden and start publishing materials about trump through Wikileaks. Sweden doesn't give him out. Trump orders marines to take him out by force. Yeah, I know it's pretty crazy unlikely, that's the point :)
> The biggest hope Russia has now is global warming. It appears to disrupt most of the world negatively while increasing water passages and even likely arable land in Russia.
Russia can't even use current water passages capabilities.
It's not true in so much as Russia simply isn't powerful enough to be an imperial power.
"That's actually not true"
What about wide spread usage of George ribbons? What about cries about loosing Soviet territories? What about Nacy movement? What about constant shit talk in media? Etc, etc.
My observations are that Russia is spiralling into madness comparable to 1930 Germany. It is perhaps difficult to see while being inside of it but the sign are clearly observable from the outside.
I really wish that it is not like this. It is really saddening to observe this.
Russia has a modern history of invading European countries and is illegally possessing the invaded region of Crimea and astro-turfing a 'civil war' in Eastern Ukraine.
They recently threatened NATO out-right over the acceptance of a new member.
But, in light of this, you think it's more likely that their strong ally for many decades, US or UK, would be more likely to attack them than the proven-aggressive adversary which self-titles itself enemy of NATO?
This has got to be actual disinformation.
There are other imperatives at work as well. For example, in a fight against NATO, Russia's number one concern is to prevent NATO's reinforcement via the Atlantic. To close those sea lanes, they have two weapons: subs and planes. Those planes can't fly over Europe, they'd be massacred. So they have to fly north from the Murmansk area, keep clear of Finland, Norway, Sweden, go west for a while, then turn south and fly down to find and kill the convoys. That's a huge, wasteful dogleg. Invading north Finland, Sweden and Norway allows their bombers to cut across that land, giving them a much straighter shot at all that shipping and keeps them further from the NATO forces that would be on Iceland. They use less fuel to get to the sea lanes, which means they carry more weapons and have more time to look for targets.
These countries aren't building defenses against Russia because it's politically convenient or just for the fun of it.
Russia is expansionist because it suits the government just fine to blame their massive internal problems on anyone but the kleptocrats in power.
The Russian way of invading countries with no or weak armies is to send little green men w/o signs on their uniforms, hold elections and install a puppet government, many times without a fight.
Burundi hasn't threatened Germany and Poland with military invasions, even going as far as announcing that they could have their tanks in their capitals in a couple of days.
I really don't understand how someone as clueless as you insists in commenting on issues you clearly know nothing about, particularly with such strongly-worded unsound beliefs.
Maybe it's because that's you who's clueless, and I'm ready to hold conversation with unpopular opinion trying to bring a little more peace in this world.
And yet, Russia has in the past done just that. The Finns don't maintain their extremely vigilant conscripted military for shits and giggles.
More generally, your hyper-active argumentation all over this thread is just weird : all countries develop military contingency plans, and everyone within artillery range of Russia's border is legitimately concerned about the threat of Russian military action. Plain and simple.
And in the past Sweden attacked Russia. We're talking about current situation. In 1930s whole world was preparing for a big war (even regular people 1935 were discussing and guessing when the war will erupt) and it has nothing to do with modern situation.
> More generally, your hyper-active argumentation all over this thread is just weird
I'm just trying to hold civil discussion, what's the problem here?
> all countries develop military contingency plans, and everyone within artillery range of Russia's border is legitimately concerned about the threat of Russian military action. Plain and simple.
That's the point of discussion - only Sweden has become lately very worried about being attacked by Russia. And my point is there's no any possibility of such attack, and protecting from this is just waste of resources. Also, Sweden is out of artillery range from Russian border.
Patently false. Literally every country along or near Russia's border is concerned about Russia.
> Sweden has become lately very worried about being attacked by Russia. And my point is there's no any possibility of such attack
Sweden is neutral with a capital N, and yet they just reinstated conscription resulting from years of aggressive Russian military exercises along their borders and airspace[1][2], threats against neighboring countries[3] not to mention overt and well publicized Russian military action against sovereign nation along its border.
Frankly, your bias is palpable and I doubt this discussion will lead anywhere constructive.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/world/europe/sweden-draft...
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1213...
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/646064c8-d07a-11e4-a840-00144feab...
I think that the main problem is that you are trying to spread your own learned delusion by ridiculing a sovereign country decisions to have an army that can keep reasonable deterrence against its potential aggressors (you know, if it works against Russia over the sea, it might work against US over the ocean).
You clearly detached yourself from reality.
I suggest you discover why Russia is compelling Swedento join NATO, and what was Russia's subsequent reaction to Sweden's move towards NATO membership, which even includes yet again the threat of launching a preemptive attack against Sweden.
http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-vows-eliminate-nato-t...
Only to people who are completely clueless, and entirely oblivious to events in contemporary history.
I suggest you educate yourself, or in the very least discover Sweden's move to join NATO and the subsequent response by Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
Finland:
25,904 dead or missing
43,557 wounded
126,875–167,976 dead or missing
188,671 woundedRussia is (defacto) the world's largest land locked country.
It possess no warm water ports which are open to the high seas.
This reality shaped Russian expansion and regional and global geopolitics since the 19th century.
A warm water port is why Russia invaded Korea(and Manchuria) 3 times, it's why it would go to a war with NATO over Ukraine and why it would not let Syria fall.
Russia's only open port is in Vlodivostock and its closed for 4 or more months of the year and its on the other side of the world.
To access the Atlantic Russia needs to cross the Great Belt and the North Sea, to access the Med it needs to cross the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles.
This means that to get anywhere it either needs to set sail from the other side of the world if it's not winter or pay a toll fee to NATO.
Global warming might actually play into Russia's hands, they are far north enough not to be affected by the drought, they are a bread basket, rich in natural resources, have a small population, and will reap the benefits the northern passage and their eastern ports open all year round.
Mountain ranges, warm-water ports and "buffer" countries for Moscow have all shaped their actions.
And then there's Norway and all that north sea oil.
I dont see who else in the neighborhood would and could attack sweden in all seriousness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...
Plenty of people died and the US didn't really accomplish very much on the ground. Karzai has very weak control and his enemies multiply.
Vietnam could also be used - they just destroyed us with attrition and a culture that had acceptance of heavy losses.
Fancy weapons aren't a panacea - "war is politics by other means" - the people in the end are all that matter.
The Vietnam war was never fought as a war of invasion, but rather one of propping up an anti-communist ally. They are not the same.
That will happen in any case, because the enemy is overwhelmingly stronger and larger. Does that mean they should give up?
> My concern is that they basically just develop expensive military stuff because they want to feed the industry. A political dance with money.
That's every military exporter.
The Swedish Gotland class was the world's first purpose-built AIP sub.
If everything could be automated to video-game easy so that you didn't need someone to chuck more rods in the nuclear reactor or do things with bilge pumps, what would be the minimum complement for a submarine that played the deterrent role, lurking under the waves for months at a time?
The problem (allegedly) with submarines is remote control drone submarines that are clever enough to know how to communicate. Apparently it is possible to program one submarine to follow another without having to carry 24 people plus their lunches, dinners and oxygen supply. There is a danger that mutually assured destruction assured by submarines with nuclear weapons could end.
Choose your rate, choose your fate.
then again, IANAGeneral ;)
If you were ordering submarines around you'd more likely be an Admiral :P
This sub was shipped to the Pacific in another ship for the war games, indicating that it is not practical for it to travel that far on its own.
The size of the sub doesn't allow for battery storage sufficient for propulsion and using chemical fuel cells in a sub that small is likely to be too risky.