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Hawk Among Sparrows


Scott Ruggels

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If you ever wanted to see what a jump in a tech level (tech tree) looks like, here is the Royal Norwegian Warship Karlstadt in Trondheim harbor during this month’s NATO excercise. Similar angling of Hull plates as the Zumwalt class. It is smaller and probably stealthier than the Americans ship. Contrast it with the 20 plus year old vessels behind it. 

 

https://strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_20181026122859.aspx

 

 

E8237D4E-3285-4E7C-B6BF-8C15511D0703.png

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2 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

Ahem. That's the Swedish corvette  Karlstad. We have a couple of thousand men, eight Gripen strike-fighters, and a couple of ships participating in the exercise mentioned in OP's link.

I remember growing up that int he '60s and '70s Swedish defense contractors had a reputation for building superior weaponry even though they were nowhere close to having a war to fight in the foreseeable future. They didn't sell their tech on a large scale either, which could have brought a lot of money into the nation's coffers.

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6 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

Ahem. That's the Swedish corvette  Karlstad. We have a couple of thousand men, eight Gripen strike-fighters, and a couple of ships participating in the exercise mentioned in OP's link.

 

MLG apologies. My Swedish ancestors would fron at me, and not pass the cookie plate. 

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On 10/27/2018 at 10:34 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

If you ever wanted to see what a jump in a tech level (tech tree) looks like, here is the Royal Norwegian Warship Karlstadt in Trondheim harbor during this month’s NATO excercise. Similar angling of Hull plates as the Zumwalt class. It is smaller and probably stealthier than the Americans ship. Contrast it with the 20 plus year old vessels behind it. 

 

https://strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_20181026122859.aspx

 

 

E8237D4E-3285-4E7C-B6BF-8C15511D0703.png

 

A better comparison might be the US's Independence-class littoral combat ship (shown in the first picture below). The US no longer has corvettes or frigates.

 

Comparing Independence class littoral to the Swedish Visby class corvette.

 

Complement: 40 core crew plus up to 35 mission crew vs 43

Length: 418 vs 237

Displacement: 3,104 metric tons vs 640 metric tons

Draft: 14 feet vs 7.9 feet

Speed: 44 knots vs 35 knots

Range: 4300 nautical miles vs 2500 nautical miles

 

The Independence class carries much better defensive electronic warfare capabilities (decoys and spoofing to prevent being hit by enemy fire) than the Visby, much better armament, and carries up to three helicopters (usually one Seahawk and two Fire Scouts).

 

The Visby is probably the perfect size, capability, and draft for the Swedes. They're protecting their home waters rather than trying to project power abroad. They don't need ships with helicopter capacity because they're operating more often than not within range of their own airbases. And they don't need the range to travel half way around the world.

 

For comparison purposes for those of us who don't have much naval experience, both the Independence class and the Visby class are much smaller than a destroyer, which is what most people think of when they think of small naval ships. A fully loaded Arleigh Burke destroyer in its lightest configuration (first deployed in 1991), for example, is about twelve times the displacement of a full Visby (which is 705 metric tons full and 640 empty). I think that's an Arleigh Burke in the background of the picture of that Visby.

 

You could compare the styling of the Visby to the styling of the US's Zumwalt guided missile destroyer (first deployed in 2016). It's a little longer than a Burke and requires fewer crew members to operate (shown in the second picture below).

 

 

 

300px-USS_Independence_(LCS-2)_at_Naval_Air_Station_Key_West,_29_March_2010_(100329-N-1481K-298).jpg

300px-Future_USS_Zumwalt's_first_underway_at_sea.jpg

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BTW, I really miss "Jane's dot com" being a free resource on the internet. Going behind a paywall has made it a lot more difficult to track what's going on for those of us who are interested in what's happening in military capabilities around the world but who don't feel compelled to spend a lot of money for the information.

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