Swedish Navy commissioned "invisible" ships

12.02.2010 Royal Swedish Navy commissioned new-gen warships. Visby-class stealth corvettes are hardly detectable by radars and sonar equipment. New ships will be part of Swedish rapid response force and be based at the Baltic Sea, where Russian stealth corvette Steregushy is deployed.

Two Visby-class corvettes – HMS Helsingborg and HMS Harnosand [HMS is for Swedish Hans Majestats Skepp which means His Majesty Ship] – were delivered to Swedish Navy late 2009. They started to take the sea since Jan 2010. Those ships are result of cooperation between Swedish armed forces, defense procurement authority, Swedish defense research agency, and shipbuilding company Kockums. The primary orderer is Royal Swedish Navy, although some foreign clients have shown interest to the ships.

Visby-class corvette is produced under stealth technology. Her hull is made of multilayered carbon fiber. According to designers, the ship is light, solid and has high load capacity. The ship structure makes it difficult to detect the ship by radars or sonars. As for designers, building terms of the ships have been postponed many times as it was problematic to find optimal combination of three components – composite hull, antiradar system and two sensors (surface and underwater ones).

The ship is capable to accomplish various tasks like sea patrols, antisubmarine warfare, mine-sweeping, and SR operations. The corvette has a heliport. Armament comprises missiles and automatic gun. Ships of that class can interact with various maritime security agencies like coast guard, air force, frontier service, maritime police. According to the military, the ship can temporarily step out of stealth mode to demonstrate military presence and then "disappear" again.

"Invisible" corvettes were delivered to 3rd Naval Warfare Flotilla located at Karlskrona. Most likely, Visby-class corvettes are to take part in international operations. So far, their main task is patrolling of littoral zones of the Baltic Sea.

Many sea powers are going about development of stealth ships. US Navy is expecting to have the whole series of LCS [Littoral Combat Ships]. French Navy possesses La Fayette frigates also made under stealth technology. Russia intends to have "phantom ships" as well. Corvette Steregushy is currently in service at Baltic Fleet. Russian Navy awaits four more corvettes of project 20380 – Soobrazitelny, Boiky, Sovershenny and Stoiky are scheduled to be completed within 2010-2012.

Source: Inbox.Ru, photo: corvette Helsingborg (uglyships.wordpress.com)