Swedish Visby-class Warship

Sounds futuristic huh? If only it was a starship. Turns out that it’s not. It’s a ship, on the water. It’s the Swedish Visby-Class corvette, the first operational stealth ship in the world. By the looks of it, it’s amazing. I guess the concept is pretty much like the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, also known as the “Stealth Bomber”.

B-2

The corvettes are powered with silent waterjets and made with non-magnetic composite materials. It is a sandwich design made with a PVC core and carbon fire and vinyl laminate. However, my question is: is it going to be good enough to withstand weapons fire? Anyway, let’s talk more about this ship. From the photos, it’s a beauty. They are said to be “electronically undetectable at more than 8 miles in rough seas and at more than 13.5 miles in calm seas“. The corvettes were created to deal with foreign submarines in Swedish waters during the mid-eighties. I know the US is having the same type of problem with drug smugglers. The US Coast Guard has captured a couple of submarine-like vessels with sophisticated navigation equipment stuffed with drugs, most notably cocaine. These makeshift submarines are potential problems because they can be hard to detect by sight, although some are built by amateurs. However, they are fairly easy to see by air.

Anyway, back to the corvettes. They are designed to travel quietly at around 35 knots, approximately 40.3 miles per hour, due to the special waterjets created by Rolls-Royce, reducing draft. They are going to be on patrol, looking for submarines and ships. It’s design was all in part to minimize the ship’s optical and infrared signature, both above water and it’s hydroacoustic signature, making it harder for submarines to detect it. It’s 57 mm cannon barrel can also be folded into the turret so that it’s cross section signature is reduced.

Let’s go into some cool details. The ship doesn’t have any missile capabilities, but can be equipped with a air defense system if required. The corvettes will also be equipped with Mk3 anti-ship missiles. These missiles will be installed below deck and fired through special hatches to reduce it’s profile. Everything about this ship spells stealth. I like it. They are also each equipped with ASW 127 mm rocket-powered grenade launchers, depth charges, and torpedoes to defend against subs. It’s incredible. It seems like it’s going to be a multi-function warship. The visby will also carry Saab Bofors Underwater system ROVs for mine detection and Elektronik Seafox ROVs for the disposal of the mines. Incredible! I think they’ve pretty much thought of nearly everything.

The corvettes even have cool countermeasures, as described by Naval-Technology.com. This is what the site has to say:

“Visby Class vessels will be equipped with the MASS (multi-ammuntion softkill) decoy system from Rheinmetall Waffe Munition (formerly Buck Neue Technologien) of Germany.

MASS can launch up to 32 omni-spectral projectiles in a time-staggered configuration against anti-ship missiles and guided projectiles. The MASS decoy covers radar, infrared, electro-optic, laser and ultraviolet wavebands.”

Alright, I’ll end with a couple of neat simple facts and a couple of pictures. I’ll put up a video too. Enjoy!

The corvette displaces 650 tons, is 72.6 m long, 10.4 beam, 2.5 m draft, 27 Officers and 16 Conscripts, Ceros 200 Fire control radar system, Condor CS-3701 Tactical Radar Surveillance System, Hull-mounted sonar, Towed array sonar system, Variable depth sonar, Mines & Depth charges, and a Helicopter pad.

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