OOB 066 Sweden [WIP]

[wulfir]

- The Army -

The army was the largest branch of the defence force during the cold war.
It had a peacetime structure devoted to “producing” wartime formations.
The army was entirely dependent upon mobilisation to reach any strength.
Although it had readiness formations there were no standing units. All the gear were stored in dispersed locations known as mobilisation depots where the conscript/reservists would go to be kitted out.

At various training establishments, commonly known as regiments, the conscripts were given their recruit training. Following this they would be called up for refresher training after a few years with their wartime unit. At a certain age they were generally transferred to local defence units and a new set of conscripts had to be trained for that particular unit.

The army was organised in fördelningsförband (fördelning is a division size unit), brigadförband, (brigade size units) and försvarsområdesförband (Defence Area units – included various battalion size formations, local defence and Home Guard).




The branches of the army were:
Infantry
Cavalry*
Armour
Artillery
Army Air**
Anti Air
Engineers
Signals
Supply

*In the Swedish army, horses were used well into the 1960s. Following the de-horsing the cavalry regiments generally produced war time units of light infantry character.

**Army Air (Arméflyget) operated the helicopters of the army.