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DCS: AJS-37 Viggen Discussion


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Brain fart, I meant 1.5 nm. The reason I made the connection is this quote from an old issue of FOI's internal magazine Framsyn (as cited here - I would really like to read the entire article but it's not online anymore):

 

Det var en häftig apparat för sin tid. Målsökaren var så hemlig att värnpliktiga inte fick se den. Roboten kunde ställas in för enkelmål och gruppmål. Vi lät FOA simulera ett anfall mot invasionsflottan med 30 robotar. När vi valde enkelmål gick alla robotar på ett och samma fartyg. När vi valde gruppmål gick de flesta robotarna tvärs igenom hela invasionskakan utan att träffa. Nu hade vi fått en chock. Felet berodde på att vi antagit att skillnaden i avstånd mellan fartygskolonnerna var maximalt 1500 meter. Men den ryska amiralen hade naturligtvis sagt att avståndet mellan fartygen skulle vara en sjömil, det vill säga 1852 meter. Felet gick att rätta till. Man fick skruva och dona i varje målsökare. På den tiden var det mekanik och inte mjukvara som gällde.

Edited by renhanxue
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Right, found where FOI put their magazine on their new new new webpage. The article the quote comes from is in issue 1, 2004, page 20 and on. Highly recommended reading, someone (not me) should translate it.

 

Sample quote:

- Om det verkligen var den stora invasionen och landets ödestimme kanske vi hade fått räkna med att ta större förluster än annars, för då tydde det på att vi skulle börja anfalla långt ut. Det skulle göra det farligare för oss. Då kunde vi riskera att få flyg emot oss. Här hamnade man i resonemang om bränsledueller. Det gick en gräns någonstans på Östersjön, där den ena sidan hade ett bränsleövertag över den andra. Det innebar att den som hade ont om bränsle fick fly. Men det innebär också en risk.

 

På Viggentiden räknade militären med att kunna genomföra fyra anfall mot invasionsflottan.

 

- Den fjärde kunde möjligtvis ske tillsammans med flottan. Men det var inte lätt att samordna dessa attacker. Här fanns militärbefälhavaren i Strängnäs och hans uppgift, som han såg det, var att åstadkomma samverkan. Det innebar att den ena sidan skulle skjuta från vänster och den andra från höger. Och helst samtidigt. Men att hantera två styrkor, där den ena går i 40 knop och den andra i 400 knop, skapade problem. Det gällde att bestämma en framförpunkt för att kunna slå till vid en viss tidpunkt. Om invasionsflottan ändrade kurs ändrades både framförhållningspunkten och tiden. Och så försökte man hitta ett nytt ställe och då svängde invasionsflottan igen. Hela tiden kunde han svänga inom vår beslutscirkel.

 

Flygets primära mål var de fartyg som skulle skydda överskeppningen. Om konvojen inte hade tillräckligt bra skydd skulle den bli ett lätt byte för flottan. Någonstans gick det därför en gräns, där invasionsförsöket kunde avbrytas. Att angripa jagare och korvetter var dock en svår uppgift. Göran Tode säger att det kunde gå hur som helst.

 

- Antingen sänkte vi tillräckligt med fartyg eller också tog våra flygplan slut. I praktiken räknade vi dock med att om invasionsflottan kom nära kusten skulle vår flotta inte behöva bekymra sig så mycket om skyddsfartygen.


Edited by renhanxue
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the warhead is a shaped charge that is focused downwards, so it is supposed to be detonated above the target.

 

This kinda surprised me, how effective is this against any larger ship? Against tanks a top attack shaped charge makes sense to me, with them being so densely packed its hard not to hit some critical/volatile component or crew.

 

Against something as large as a ship it seems there would be a really low chance of doing critical damage with a shaped charge, at least compared to slamming a large HE load straight through the side and detonating it in the interior.

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The missile and the warhead were originally designed in the late 1950's, when the Soviets were still building gun cruisers like the Sverdlovs with armor 100mm thick, or even thicker. You couldn't penetrate that kinetically with a missile like this, so you had to rely on the explosive effect for penetration. I also agree with emg's post - as I've understood it the missile is intended to work like a torpedo does, by breaking the keel of the ship.

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Right, found where FOI put their magazine on their new new new webpage. The article the quote comes from is in issue 1, 2004, page 20 and on. Highly recommended reading, someone (not me) should translate it.

I had a go at it:

"Attack" - The pilot's daily life is both farce and disaster



Lansen%20attackflygare.jpg?dl=1

A common sight over Sweden in the 1960s - Lansen aircraft on the way to exercise.

Here we see the Lansens from F 6 in Karlsborg with bombs under the wings.

 

The coastal invasion would have been the First Attack* Group's great moment. It was for this they had practised. Many pilots and navigators had sacrificed with their lives. Göran Tode was one of the strike flight's many pilots in the 1960s. During the 1970s, he would lead the assault against invasion ships. The paradox is that the battle would never have taken place. The invasion would not have been possible, unless the strike flight had been knocked out first. The strength of the "Attack" was to exist.

* attack = strike

 

By Jan-Ivar Askelin

 

Swedish summer tranquillity. The sun is blazing and the bumblebees buzzing. The cottage of the nearest neighbour is over three kilometres away. It's the holiday season. On the small forest road there is a scooter rider. He is wearing a red helmet. Cottage owner Göran Tode thinks he looks unusually tanned. It is explained when the scooter rider presents himself as an African student from the University of Warsaw. To supplement his meagre student funds he sells agricultural literature.

 

- I was not a farmer and gave him a dollar for gasoline and forgot the whole incident. A few days later, in (the) Expressen (newspaper), I could read that a flight friend who had his summer cottage seventy kilometres away also received visits. From a black scooter rider with a red helmet. The article was describing that the fighter pilots were being mapped. And then I understood the context.

 

- That's how it was. We were constantly spied on. The Russians kept check on where we lived, where we were on holiday, what car we had and what our families looked like, says Göran Tode. One might think that this thing with Polish salesmen was obvious and amateurishly handled, but the deal was that we should feel the threat. When I was a flotilla manager at F 6 in Karlsborg the pilots made their own evacuation plans for their families, in the event that things should get serious.

 

History says a lot about the Cold War period. It was idyllic in Sweden with red houses and at the same time there were people in this sanctuary who knew the threat very clearly. Farce and disaster can be accommodated in the same story. And so it will be when Göran Tode tells how the strike flight, decade after decade, practised before the country's hour of destiny.

 

G%C3%B6ran%20Tode.jpg?dl=1In the 1960s, Göran Tode was squadron leader at the air force. In the 1970s, he sat as chief operating officer of what was then called the First Attack Group, E 1. In the 1980s, he had high positions at Headquarters before retiring as a colonel in 1998. Göran Tode has been involved in many operational studies since 1972 . After his retirement, he has been engaged as a consultant in the new defence management studies.

 

In the cartoonist Thorwald Gahlin's series, the father gave the following advice to his son: In the hour of danger, the presence of mind is the best property after the absence of body.

 

- It could also be a guiding star for the strike flight. As long as the strike flight could be counted on, the coastal invasion, at least in the 1960s, was almost impossible. So it was up to us to make it through the initial combat. The snag was that in the war games, it was assumed that the flight was going to be knocked out, otherwise the army would have nothing to do.

 

- In the Viggen era we introduced the concept of "Johansson Bases". When the alarm came for the coup*1, the pilots peeled off. They arranged between themselves which small base they would land on. It was not formalized and not written down. If it had been, the information would have reached "the other side" directly. The airmen landed at small places like Arvika and Hede. The pilot called the Home Guard and asked them to guard the plane. He himself would knock at the door of "Mrs Johansson"*2 to get shelter overnight. In the morning he would phone the strike command, called "Björn", and ask if the war had started.

*1 the strategy was meant in the event of a fast assault, a "coup" by the Soviet forces.

*2 Johansson was a common name like Smith, Jones etc.

 

This fast dispersal, according to Göran Tode, was almost impossible to beat, which, as mentioned, created discontent among some people when the war games would be played.

 

- Another method was the so-called vertical dispersal. I once met a French air force officer who had been in the war and had been shot down. He said that the war will only have lasted for five minutes, when you realize that the planes cannot stay on the ground. So I figured that I would try this. My aviators in F 6 was given orders that if there was a coup, they would get in the air as soon as possible, and stay near the Norwegian border. After two hours they had to refuel, and by then we would have had time to arrange rapid refuelling teams and then they could go up again. Next time they have to leave the plane to pee.

 

The Group was almost eliminated

First Attack Croup E 1, at the time known as "The Supreme Commander's club", had its roots in the defence's rapid armament of the air force. The war organization was then called the group and for a while there were four groups. The only one that remained was E 1, but that nearly disappeared as well. There was always a wrangling for the strike aircraft. The country was divided into military zones each controlled by a military commander. In the beginning he would take care of the army in the area, while the air force and the fleet would manage their own war. This regime failed in the early 1960s in connection with a major exercise, when the air force felt they had more important things to do than to cooperate with the army.

 

- The then Supreme Commander went through the ceiling and said that now there would be operational commands. There should be an end to the armed services staging their own wars. This led to the so-called October Revolution in 1966, which gave military commanders more power and then the E 1 was also about to disappear. However it was managed to convince those responsible, that the flight had an advantage that other parties lacked. The planes could quickly be at one place at the same time, even if the planes took off from different locations. The air force was also able to quickly split up a large coherent force. We introduced the term iso-attacks. You know what isobaric and isothermal is. Everyone does not know, however, that an iso-attack is a line joining locations with the same attack capability. If there's a target, you can draw an iso-attack line for all units that can attack the target within an hour

 

Huge hole in Norrland

The Attack Group's main task was the coastal invasion - Sweden has 2700 kilometres of coast line - but it also had the task of Norrland. The conditions in Finland were studied since a land invasion over the Kalix border required that the Soviet brought troops up through Finland.

 

- Back then there were six main routes, of which four were of decent calibre. Furthermore, there was a railway and that was necessary to fill out a sufficiently big attack front-line. We tried to bomb the roads in Norrland. Once we got a hit, and the hole was so big that it took ten truckloads to fill it out. The roads in northern Sweden are floating on a spruce sprig bed, and if you get penetration there, it will create a huge hole.

 

We transferred our own (simulation) models for mobilization to the countries around us. Then you could see that rail transport was very sensitive to disturbances. It would not have been easier to transport troops in neighbouring countries than it would in Sweden.

 

We got better and worse

Coastal invasion was the dominant task. It was practised, simulated and calculated and during all the years the military kept a constant lookout, as good as possible, on what happened on "the other side". All the vessels that were needed for the invasion were not normally situated in the Baltic Sea, so you had to count the boats that went in and out. It was calculated how much cargo each ship could take. The size of the "invasion cake" had a tendency to grow proportionally with the distance from reality. Those who worked with the issue knew that it was still a fairly limited business. But in war games and in the debate the "invasion cake" grew. It should of course be large enough for the army even deep inside Sweden to have something to do.

 

- In the 1960s, we had plenty of planes and weapons and the Soviet aircraft range was poor. The paradox is that when we got better equipment like the Viggen and the missile 15 we ended up in a worse situation. On "the other side", the quality also increased. But unlike us, it did not reduce the Soviet quantity. The big difference was that now the Soviet aircraft had received the range that they previously lacked.

How was the daily life in the shadow of the coastal invasion?

 

- We watched with radar surveillance how the Russians grouped themselves when they practised coastal invasion. We studied the times, speeds, protection and so on. Once when they started practising, I wanted to call in our strike command to see if we really had time to collect all the intelligence that we needed. It was a very good idea and of course it failed. Due to working hours regulations. Joint Exercises must give notice several weeks beforehand. We should probably not expect that the Russians would have the courtesy to give notice of the invasion that far in advance.

 

The core of a fully staffed strike command comprised of approximately 70 people. Of these, many were civil servants and women.

 

- Without them it would never have worked. It used to be the same show on every exercise. After the first day, they would say that "this is the last time we will attend" and at the termination party they would wonder how long it would be until the next exercise.

 

Cool device

The Attack Group could choose among the best equipment that Sweden could offer - such as the anti-ship missile 04.

 

Lansen%20arsenal.jpg?dl=1

A Lansen with its arsenal. All weapons could obviously not be carried simultaneously.

The main choices were the missile 04, bombs or rockets.

 

- It was a cool device for its time. The seeker device was so secret that servicemen were not allowed to see it. The missile could be set for single target and group. We let FOA* simulate an attack against the invasion fleet with 30 missiles. When we chose single target all the missiles went for the same vessel. When we chose group target the missiles went through the whole invasion fleet without hitting anything. Now, this came as a shock to us. The error was because we assumed that the difference in distance between the columns of vessels was a maximum of 1500 meters. But of course, the Russian Admiral had said that the distance between the vessels should be a nautical mile, ie 1852 meters. The error was possible to correct. You had to screw and fiddle in each seeker device. At that time, it was mechanics and not software that was the order of the day.

* FOA = The Defence Research Institute

 

The calculations also included how large losses Sweden could accept.

 

- If it really was the great invasion and the country's hour of destiny, perhaps we would have had to expect to take more losses than otherwise, because it indicated that we would start attacking at long distances. That would make it more dangerous for us. Then we could risk getting aircraft against us. Here you would get into considerations about "fuel duels". There was a limit somewhere on the Baltic Sea, where one side had a fuel advantage over the other. That meant that whoever was short of fuel had to flee. But it also involved a risk.

 

In the Viggen era the military counted on carrying out four attacks against the invasion fleet.

 

- The fourth attack could possibly be done in conjunction with the Navy. But it was not easy to coordinate these attacks. Here the military commander was in Strängnäs and his task, as he saw it, was to achieve synergy. This meant that one side would shoot from the left and the other from the right. And preferably at the same time. However handling two forces, one travelling at 40 knots and the other at 400 knots, created problems. It was important to determine a forward point to be able to strike at a certain time. If the invasion fleet changed course both the forward point and the time changed. And so they tried to find a new point, and then the invasion fleet turned again. The whole time, he could move within our decision circle.

 

The flight's primary targets were the ships that would protect the shipping. If the convoy did not have enough protection it would become an easy prey for the navy. Somewhere therefore, there was a limit where the invasion attempt could be interrupted. However, attacking destroyers and corvettes was a difficult task. Göran Tode says it could go either way.

 

- Either we would sink enough ships or else we would run out of aircraft. In practice, however, we estimated that when the invasion fleet arrived near the coast, our fleet would not have to worry very much about the protecting vessels.

 

A high-risk profession, even during peace

Bomb drops was a matter of seconds before the air defences were able to home in on the aircraft. All this was practised and rehearsed in such a way that today's pilots, according to Göran Tode, have doubts that it is possible to fly in this manner.

 

- Illuminating flares drop was the most eerie thing I was involved in. In that case four planes flew towards the enemy and one plane broke out and dumped illuminating flares behind the ships. The other three would then attack. We got there in the darkness of the night and tried to see the ships silhouettes against the black water. At the same time, we had a number of flares that shone in our faces. And then we had to do the regular bombing attack.

 

At night flights four planes would fly so that there were only one wingspan of separation.

 

- We would sit and follow the other aircraft's position lights on the wing tips. It was the only thing you saw. All the while the planes were moving in the formation, but one could not deviate too much because then there was a big chance that the guy who flew outermost was lost. And then he would suddenly be alone. The two so-called "number twos" in each group of four had neither radar nor navigator. There was simply not enough money for it. When Lansen arrived in the late 1950s, the Air Force also no longer had any tradition of having navigators.

 

Military flights in the 1960s was a high-risk profession. Some years over 20 pilots and navigators were killed. Göran Tode was involved in several near misses, but survived.

 

- In relation to my total flight time my survival chance was like playing Russian roulette with two bullets in the magazine, he notes.

 

To conclude his reflection on the flight, Göran Tode recites the following memorable words of the great poet of Grönköping, Alfred Vestlund (A:lfr-d V:stl-nd):

 

I stand here one evening at the Bergska lake's shore

There the sea begins and there the land ends

Nature wisely separated these two elements

But above is flown as if nothing happened.

 

Jan-Ivar Askelin is editor of Framsyn.

 


Edited by Sporg
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Nice work. But "Första Flygeskadern" doesn't translate into "First Attack Squadron", it would translate into something like "First Air Group" or "First Attack Group".

Thanks for the correction. :)

 

I corrected it, and now it makes more sense: Göran Tode started as squadron leader and then proceeded to become group or wing commander.

 

(Disclaimer: I am neither native Swedish nor native English speaker, so doing the best I can. ;) )

 

:thumbup:


Edited by Sporg
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By the way, Göran Tode seems like a nice and humorous guy.

There are a lot of tongue in cheek remarks and quotes in the article.

 

For instance I interpret the quote: "In the hour of danger, the presence of mind is the best property after the absence of body" as a humorous "Run away first and then stay smart". ;)

 

Also the last poem as I understand it, is from a fictional and satirical wannabe poet figure in Swedish literature.

So should not be taken all that seriously. :)

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Thanks for the correction. :)

 

I corrected it, and now it makes more sense: Göran Tode started as squadron leader and then proceeded to become group or wing commander.

 

(Disclaimer: I am neither native Swedish nor native English speaker, so doing the best I can. ;) )

 

:thumbup:

 

That's another one of the weird Swedish military aviation terms. A division in Swedish is a squadron, a flottilj is an air wing, and an eskader is not the equivalent of an "escadrille" in French, it's a larger formation made up of several wings. "Air group" is one possible translation, but a grupp is not a group, it's a flight (of four aircraft). Originally the Swedish air force had four eskadrar but the other three disappeared in the 60's. E1 was retained because it was considered necessary with a unified command to achieve sufficient concentration of force.

 

By the way, what's a good word for translating rote? Pair?


Edited by renhanxue
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That's another one of the weird Swedish military aviation terms. A division in Swedish is a squadron, a flottilj is an air wing, and an eskader is not the equivalent of an "escadrille" in French, it's a larger formation made up of several wings. "Air group" is one possible translation, but a grupp is not a group, it's a flight (of four aircraft). Originally the Swedish air force had four eskadrar but the other three disappeared in the 60's. E1 was retained because it was considered necessary with a unified command to achieve sufficient concentration of force.

 

By the way, what's a good word for translating rote? Pair?

Thanks for the explanation.

It's a funny system. :)

 

It seems the Swedish eskader corresponds with the French escadron and this is a Group or Wing.

 

Rote seems to be a two-ship or pair.

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Is Viggen the module that comes with the free map?

 

It does come with a map, but I'm not sure if it will be included in the module.

Intel i7-12700K @ 8x5GHz+4x3.8GHz + 32 GB DDR5 RAM + Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 (8 GB VRAM) + M.2 SSD + Windows 10 64Bit

 

DCS Panavia Tornado (IDS) really needs to be a thing!

 

Tornado3 small.jpg

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Just as a side note, regarding the command post Björn (bear) mentioned, there is a mini exhibition about it right now at the museum in Skara (Sweden).

 

http://vastergotlandsmuseum.se/utstallningar/ledningsplats-bjorn/

Nice. :)

 

If one follows the link, there are a few pictures from excavation of the command post and a 3D reconstruction here:

http://vastergotlandsmuseum.se/nyheter/halsningar-fran-ledningsplats-bjorn/

(page is in Swedish)

 

nyhet_ledningsplats_bjorn_01.jpg

 

nyhet_ledningsplats_bjorn_05.jpg


Edited by Sporg

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A short summary of the command post Björn history:

From the beginning there was a secret airbase built during WWII alongside E20 in south west of Sweden. Actually the E20 road was used as the landing strip (according to my uncle that once flew Lansen in E1 by the way) at some times.

In the 50’s there was as decision to use the existing facilities to accommodate the E1 command on this secret war base. However this location was considered to be revealed for the Warsaw pact as a part of the Stig Wennerström spy scandal in the early 60’s. A new location was built in a mountain somewhere and the old was only used for training, until 1995 when E1 was disbanded.

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I agree that "rotetvåa" is wingman, but is "rotetrea" even a thing? Never heard of it.

 

I honestly don't know. Perhaps I have made it up? Sounded right in my mind, but it might just be me assuming the third pilot would be the "rotetrea". I'm sorry if I caused any confusion.

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Not directly Viggen Related.

 

But the up coming Free A-4E Mod released a video yesterday of its Air-Ground Radar functioning.

 

So sadly the Viggen will no longer be the first aircraft to show the air-ground radar capabilities =(.

 

Just a little something we've been working on in October... the AN/APG-53A radar!

 

s2SBQ5kdvSU


Edited by mattebubben
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