Swedish navy sends 200 people to hunt for 'foreign underwater activity'

BoJack Horseman

Wibbs wrote: »

Ahh this old meme. You do realise the French have been about the most successful land military in European history?

And in today's context, the only really effective navy left in Europe.

biko

Well, it's around 300 years ago since Sweden invaded Russia. Payback time soon..

BoJack Horseman

biko wrote: »

Well, it's around 300 years ago since Sweden invaded Russia. Payback time soon..

Vladi will settle all scores.

Watch out decedents of Ghengis Khan!

DeadHand

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Watch out decedents of Ghengis Khan!

That's about 25% of the human race.

A ferocious rod man was old Genghis.

The One Doctor

Wibbs wrote: »

Ahh this old meme. You do realise the French have been about the most successful land military in European history? Within the language of the military much of it has French origins. Anyway, slightly off topic... :D

No-one defends the French and gets away with it.

crockholm

biko wrote: »

Well, it's around 300 years ago since Sweden invaded Russia. Payback time soon..

Poltava.....The beginning of the end of the Swedish empire

Fratton Fred

They may not have the largest warships in the world, but the Swedish navy certainly looks cool.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby-class_corvette

crockholm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

They may not have the largest warships in the world, but the Swedish navy certainly looks cool.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby-class_corvette

Design by IKEA? (predictible response,sorry)

Very Po-Mo.:D

BoJack Horseman

Fratton Fred wrote: »

They may not have the largest warships in the world, but the Swedish navy certainly looks cool.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby-class_corvette

The Visby is the most fantastic looking naval vessel going.

Typical of these things though, they spent around €150m building the thing but decided against fully arming it to save a couple of million.

That said, the Swedish military is comparatively small. Why on earth Russia wants to harass a neutral country like this I dont know.

Fratton Fred

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

That said, the Swedish military is comparatively small. Why on earth Russia wants to harass a neutral country like this I dont know.

It may not be, I thought the sub was in trouble so it may have been looking for shallow water.

Iranoutofideas

So what exactly is the evidence that this is a Russian sub?

ThisRegard

Iranoutofideas wrote: »

So what exactly is the evidence that this is a Russian sub?

Apparently radio broadcasts were intercepted on a frequency reserved for emergencies to a place in Russia.

tallus

Not just any place in Russia, but I read somewhere the signal was traced to the headquarters of the soviet Baltic fleet.

Streetwalker

Iranoutofideas wrote: »

So what exactly is the evidence that this is a Russian sub?

The same as the stuff for Russia shooting down the airplane a while back, F all.

DeadHand

tallus wrote: »

Not just any place in Russia, but I read somewhere the signal was traced to the headquarters of the soviet Baltic fleet.

Unless the signal travelled backward through time I doubt it.

ThisRegard

tallus wrote: »

Not just any place in Russia, but I read somewhere the signal was traced to the headquarters of the soviet Baltic fleet.

Yeah, Kaliningrad.

Laois6556

I thought the thread title ended with foreign underwear activity.

Son Of A Vidic

Putin wrote: »

Look up arrogance in the dictionary and you'll see: AMERICA

Well said Vladimir.

The Diabolical Monocle

No fear, Deutschland is on our side.

Vill quickly und efficiently drive through the Moscow and make it into eine really cool techno club ja.

Elmer Blooker

Egginacup wrote: »

More vague bollocks to sway public opinion against Russia. Ukraine and MH17 have faded from memory and the West's lies about Putin have had no effect.
So Sweden has intercepted communications? Well, what were those communications and who was the "trustworthy" source?
Otherwise why is this crap even in the paper? What is the point of this story at all?
The article says absolutely nothing but it's enough to have people saying "Russia up to their old tricks again" ... whatever that's supposed to mean.

....... a well paid "trustworthy" source no doubt!
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/leading-german-journalist-admits-cia-bribed-leaders-western-press.html

ThisRegard

Egginacup wrote: »

More vague bollocks to sway public opinion against Russia. Ukraine and MH17 have faded from memory and the West's lies about Putin have had no effect.
So Sweden has intercepted communications? Well, what were those communications and who was the "trustworthy" source?
Otherwise why is this crap even in the paper? What is the point of this story at all?
The article says absolutely nothing but it's enough to have people saying "Russia up to their old tricks again" ... whatever that's supposed to mean.

In fairness, Putin has in recent years stepped up the amount of air patrols along NATO airspace, particularly with the TU-95 strategic bomber which had ended such patrols for almost 2 decades before he started them again.

There's a list of recent incidents with this particular aircraft alone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95#Present_and_future_status with 16 incursions alone into American and Canadian air defence zones since July.

biko

Tbh, Russia is just playing with Sweden. If they wanted to invade they could take Stockholm in a day.
The last governments have worked hard to dismantle the defence down to almost nothing.

If you ever find yourself sailing in the waters off Sweden's coast and come upon a Swedish Navy vessel, you are likely to hear a common joke: "Look, there goes the Swedish Navy!"
The joke, of course, being that the Swedish defense has been so gutted that it has been reduced to but one boat. That isn't quite true -- the Swedish Navy is in possession of boats, plural -- but with the country's armed forces currently carrying out a frenetic search for a mystery submarine off the coast of Stockholm, the joke has a ring of truth to it.

After spending the 1980s playing cat and mouse with Soviet submarines, the Swedish submarine defense is now a shadow of its former self. Most importantly, the helicopters critical to submarine hunting were phased out in 2008.

BoJack Horseman

biko wrote: »

Tbh, Russia is just playing with Sweden. If they wanted to invade they could take Stockholm in a day.

The question though is 'Why'?

Why troll a neutral country?

And your right. Sweden (like Europe) is militarily weak & getting weaker...... If there was a Russian sub, I dare say its long gone, they won't find anything.
The Russian navy were very good at making quiet submarines.

biko

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

The question though is 'Why'?

Why troll a neutral country?

Sweden is only neutral on paper. There have always been a close alliance to NATO and recently:

"There is a very sharp difference between being a member and not being a member," the Swedish defence minister, Karin Enström, told the Associated Press. "We are an active partner with Nato and we want to deepen our partnership with Nato."

whereas the Joe Soap wants differently

Opinion polls in Finland and Sweden show majority opposition to Nato membership. Both countries were officially neutral during the cold war.

Not that the governments have listened to the people in a long time anyway.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/finland-sweden-strengthen-ties-nato

SeanW

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

The question though is 'Why'?

Why troll a neutral country?

You could ask the Belgians, (invaded by Germany in both World Wars 1 and 2), or the Baltic States (invaded and almost obliterated as nations by the Soviet Union), or indeed Tibet. "Neutrality" doesn't protect a country from aggression unless that neutrality is backed by enough military force to obliterate any potential invader.

Egginacup wrote: »

More vague bollocks to sway public opinion against Russia. Ukraine and MH17 have faded from memory and the West's lies about Putin have had no effect.

It has not been forgotten. The Germans have released a report confirming that pro-Russian rebels shot down the airliner, but cleared the Russians of direct involvement in so much as the missile they used to kill those on-board was stolen from the Ukrainian military. Whether or not Russia has been assisting the murderers in other ways though, remains an open question.

blackwhite

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

The question though is 'Why'?

Why troll a neutral country?

And your right. Sweden (like Europe) is militarily weak & getting weaker...... If there was a Russian sub, I dare say its long gone, they won't find anything.
The Russian navy were very good at making quiet submarines.

Did Sweden not drop it's stance of neutrality following the end of the Cold War?

I think they are now classified as "non-aligned" (which seems to me to say they reserve the right to pick "sides" - or indeed declare neutrality - if the need arose)

Egginacup

ThisRegard wrote: »

Apparently radio broadcasts were intercepted on a frequency reserved for emergencies to a place in Russia.

Apparently? :pac:

Egginacup

tallus wrote: »

Not just any place in Russia, but I read somewhere the signal was traced to the headquarters of the soviet Baltic fleet.

The Soviet Baltic Fleet? Really? Did you read it in The Evening Press?

Is Super-Trouper still #1

Gatling

Funny it was the swedes who intercepted the original hunt for red October incident back in the 80's

Egginacup

ThisRegard wrote: »

In fairness, Putin has in recent years stepped up the amount of air patrols along NATO airspace, particularly with the TU-95 strategic bomber which had ended such patrols for almost 2 decades before he started them again.

There's a list of recent incidents with this particular aircraft alone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95#Present_and_future_status with 16 incursions alone into American and Canadian air defence zones since July.

In fairness, I'd probably do the same myself if I was leader of Russia and I made a promise to the West to reunify Germany if they [The West] promised not to move NATO further east onto my doorstep.....but then they went back on their promise and shifted their military right beside me. Then they started installing missile batteries on my border but called them a defense shield. Then they trained a bunch of knuckleheads in Israel and then had them attack and kill my fellow countrymen in Georgia and then have these guys invade South Ossetia and try to annex it. Then topple a government in Kiev, unleash neo-nazi thugs to kill civilians and try to draw me into war and if I didn't take the bait then tell the world that I was bullying smaller nations and arming terrorists and shooting down passenger planes and loads of other spurious lies to get people to think I was a terrible chap...then I'd get the feeling that they [The West] weren't people who kept their word and who had the ultimate goal to attack my country which of course is pretty damn sick of foreign invasions, to be honest.

So yeah, I'd patrol my borders too.