I saw an article a few years ago on how many tons of depth charges that had been dropped off the Swedish coast during the Cold War, it was a very high number but I cannot recall it.
Going off on a tangent here – Swedish sub-hunters in the 80’s/90’s:
Hkp 4 (Boeing-Vertol KV-107, later upgraded with RR Gnome H.1400 engines).
You can see the drop sonar that was lowered from the chopper by wire into the water. Magnetic search doesn’t work too well in the Baltic, as I understood it there is too much iron ore in the relatively shallow sea floor.
Attachments:
Hkp 4 with an Ericsson PS-8081 radar and empty rails for Sjb 51 depth charges.
Hkp 6 (Agusta-Bell 206A) with three DCs.
Wire-guided Tp 42, could also be carried and launched internally.
Whiskey on the rocks. Captain Juczin on the U-137.
The Kockums crane previously located in Malmö, Sweden, (used to live near Malmö and had some photos of it myself but unfortunately I’ve lost them) now located in South Korea and owned by Hyundai. Built in the early 70’s and 138 metres high.
Dismantled gantry on the Mighty Servant before it got shipped off to South Korea, more images of the dismantling process can be found here: http://www.varvshistoria.se/kranens-webbsida/bilder.htm
Sea Launch commercial sat launch platform and command ship side-by-side, built by Aker Kværner. (Russian/Ukrainian rocket and system integration by Boeing. The project has been somewhat of a failure and the four companies involved have lost a fair amount of money, although they do have some successful launches.)
Through the Suez canal on its way from Russia to Long Beach.
I remember a newspaper sending a reporter to China to ask the people on the streets what they thought of when asked about Norway, and the predominant word was “shipbuilding.”
However, norwegian shipyard activity has been reduced to something like 20% of what it was in the 60’s-80’s (numbers are probably off) as it’s simply not cost-effective to build big ships here.
Aker and some of the other big companies have been able to stay afloat by building their hulls in Romania, then towing them to Norway to complete the ships. Even then they cannot really compete with Spain, S.Korea etc. (German industry wages are also high so I believe their shipyards have been having similar problems.)
The result is that they’re specializing on specialized ships and equipment such as the sea launch vessels above, icebreakers, subsea drilling equipment, offshore supply vessels, building the actual offshore platforms and so on.
Big image of Troll A being towed out to sea, not a ship but it’s built by a shipyard and it floats, so hey 😉
I am not so sure how far the IRIS-T decision goes in that direction, the real issue is whether the IRIS-T gets lock-on after launch capability – the ability to be told to launch, point in a specific direction, then lock on, rather than acquire a target, then launch. This ability is crucial to JSF integration, since any missiles carried internally must have LOAL capability.
I see, thanks!
Actually this is an Aviation Forum with a navy Sub Forum
It’s still the best navy forum I’ve come across. 🙂
Bigvern1966, nice to hear! I know the navy here is still reminiscing about the times they were sailing S-class destroyers with the RN.
Emerson, always cool to see good aircraft pictures! At any rate, it’s a purely political issue as the government budget for the fighter procurement is double that of Lockheed-Martin’s quote for 48 F-35A. Our previous government had a clearly stated intent to go ahead with JSF procurement while the current Labour gov’nt are keeping their options open.
Tom Burbage from LM quoted 3.3 billion USD earlier this year for 48 JSF. (Direct quote at http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/04/03/462702.html if anyone is proficient in the language.)
Eurofighter apparently offered 48 Typhoons for 5.8 billion while claiming that the JSF would definately not come cheaper than that when the cost was finalized. Mind you that last EF quote was a press quote, not direct, so take it with a big load of salt.
On the third hand, there was a recent press release where the government were planning on using 6.6 billion USD on a fighter purchase. I don’t know if this is for 48 or 48+9 planes, though. I also don’t know if this indicates that they’ve been getting signals via US gov’nt channels, saying the actual JSF cost will be a lot higher than Burbage’s quote of 69 million USD per plane.
As for operational requirements… I don’t see us moving in on Murmansk nor spearheading any NATO assault on SAM-infested territory. I would be happy with a 2010 edition of the Gripen with the stuff SAAB has planned to offer. (Ericsson AESA, Meteor, larger engine, range to do the north sea patrols.)
Also partially because I used to live in Sweden and was a SAAB fanboy as a kid, there’s something about that Viggen tail end 😉
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