OOB 066 Sweden [WIP]

[wulfir]

OOB 066 SWEDEN

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this thread is to store details of the Swedish Armed Forces, especially the Army, during primarily the Cold War era, but also later. My aim is to eventually expand the Swedish WinSPMBT OOB with correct formations, weapons etc – within the limits of the game.

Hopefully it will also provide some interesting reading for those that are unfamiliar with the history of a small neutral nation in the north of Europe.

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Units changed

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New units

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Formations changed

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New formations

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New weapons/weapons changed

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- BASICS -

During the Cold War the Swedish armed forces prepared to meet ‘the Invasion’.
The one potential enemy was the Soviet Union, often known by the term Stormakten –Swedish for ‘The Great Power’.

It was believed ‘the Great Power’ in times of conflict might have wanted grab Swedish territory or be able to use Swedish airspace in a war against the western powers, especially the northern and southern parts of the country.

The Swedish armed forces were meant to have such strength that a successful Soviet invasion would demand unreasonable resources and be much too costly to seem worthwhile.

Neutrality was a sacred concept and endorsed by the population at large. No political party would seriously question it, officially, as it was akin to political suicide. In secret Sweden had a lot of contact with the western powers, much of it something that the USSR was probably aware of.

Following the demise of the Soviet Union the Swedish armed forces were, over a period of years, subject to massive downsizing. Focus shifted steadily from “facing the invasion” to “international missions”. Today the aim of the Swedish armed forces is primarily being able to deploy smaller number of troops (from small detachments to battalion/battlegroup size) to various hotspots in the world, generally in a peacekeeping/peace-enforcing role.

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- The Swedish Air Force -

Following the end of the second world war the Swedish Air Force – Flygvapnet – was greatly expanded. No longer was the Swedish air space to be defended by obsolete aircraft, but the best that could be found. Eventually a strong airplane industry producing high performance military aircraft was developed. In the early 1950s it was considered to be the 4th largest Air Force in the world. Although it did not retain this “rating” very long, for most of the cold war era the Air Force enjoyed being a prioritised branch. In numbers it was larger than all other Nordic countries combined.

Most of the Air Force strike aircraft were pooled in a unit known as E1 (1a Attackeskadern), sometimes nicknamed “the Supreme Commander’s heavy club”. Their primary mission was to attack the supposed Soviet invasion fleet during its passage in the Baltic. During the early stages of the cold war the Soviet naval forces had limited shipping resources and limited range on their fighters. It was not believed the Soviets would be able to mount a coastal invasion while E1 existed. However, during the later stages of the cold war Soviet weapons and aircraft became better. And unlike the Swedes they did not lessen their numbers.

In the age of the AJ37 Viggen it was expected E1 would be able to deliver four sorties on the invasion fleet. The priority targets being the Soviet escort vessels. If enough destroyers and corvettes were sunk the Soviets would have to abort or the Swedish navy and coastal artillery would slaughter the Soviet transport ships as it came close to the coast.

The secondary mission of E1 was to destroy roads in the north. A land invasion of northern Sweden would have to pass through Finland. There were six main roads (of which four were especially good) and one railway necessary to supply a broad invasion.

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- The Swedish Naval Service -

During the Cold war the Swedish Naval service had two main branches; one was the Navy and the other the Coastal Artillery.

The Navy
Following the Second World War Sweden had a conventional navy. The prospect of nuclear war and the threat from enemy aircraft led to the navy transforming to a coastal fleet of small fast attack craft along with submarines. The navy was entirely geared to meet the Soviet invasion, something known as “the curse of the Red Arrow”. There was a very limited understanding of any other maritime task than that of sinking Soviet transport ships in a total war environment. Only the submarines had the capability of offensive action. The surface attack craft would have to wait for the Soviet invasion fleet – “the Red Arrow” to come close to the Swedish coast before joining the battle. The navy also lacked an anti-ship missile for quite some time which was a great problem. During the 80s this changed, due to two main factors – one was the possibility of a surprising strategic assault (the navy was less dependent on mobilising forces than the army), the second factor was the supposed Soviet submarine activity in the Baltic. For a decade the hunting of Soviet submarines transformed the navy to a force in near constant readiness with much experience of anti-submarine service in the tricky conditions of the Baltic Sea. New weapons, including anti-ship missiles were also introduced. By the end of the Cold War the navy had swung from “the Curse of the Red Arrow” to contest a Soviet dominance of the sea, a first line of defence. Ironically by that time the Soviet Union fell apart.


The Coastal Artillery

The Costal Artillery had been established in 1902. It included an elaborate string of artillery fortifications, mine stations and mobile coastal artillery units eventually with both field artillery and missiles established along sensitive areas of the Swedish coast, mostly in the southern parts. The Coastal Artillery also operated smaller naval vessels.

Although the primary mission was to engage enemy shipping it was also to work, when necessary, in conjunction with the Army.

The Coastal Artillery also included the Coastal Ranger formations established in the late 1950s – a sort of light infantry operating in the archipelago areas. They were and remain one of the more fabled groups in the entire Swedish armed forces, although today their mission has changed somewhat.

The Coastal Artillery was disbanded in 2000 and replaced with the much smaller Amphibious Corps. Virtually all of the artillery emplacements and fortifications were taken out of comission.

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- 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.