Swedish Navy - History

History

The old Swedish kings (ca. 9th–14th centuries) organised a Swedish Royal Navy along the coastline via an organisation referred to as "ledungen". These would be combined rowing and sailing ships (without artillery). This organisation became obsolete with the development of society and warfare. Probably no later than in the 14th century, the duty to serve in "ledungen" was replaced by tax. In 1427, when Sweden was still part of the Kalmar Union (with Denmark and Norway), Swedish warships did however participate in the naval battle of Öresund (the Sound) against the Hanseatic League. It is unclear how this force was organised and exactly on what basis.

On June 7, 1522, one year after the separation of Sweden from the Kalmar Union, Gustav Vasa purchased a number of ships from the hanseatic town of Lübeck which is often recorded in official Swedish history since the 19th century as the birth of the current Swedish Navy. (The museum ship Vasa in Stockholm was e.g. a 17th-century ship of the Royal Swedish Navy (Kungliga flottan)).

The Amphibious Corps dates back to January 1, 1902, when a separate "Coastal Artillery" (Kustartilleriet) was established, and Marinen came into use as the name of the service as a whole. The last decade of the 20th century saw the abandonment of the coastal fortifications and the force became a more regular marine corps, renamed Amfibiekåren (the Swedish Amphibious Corps) in 2000.

For most of the twentieth century the Swedish Navy focused on the threat of a full-scale invasion of Sweden via the Baltic and protecting commercial shipping. Sweden's location on the Scandinavian peninsula makes it highly dependent of maritime trade: 90% imports and exports enter or leave Sweden through the Baltic. In 1972, the government decreed that non-military measures should be used to protect merchant shipping. The resolution led to the de-commissioning of all the navy's destroyers and frigates, though the non-military measures the government intended to use to protect shipping have never been specified.

The collapse of the Soviet Union diminished the threat of an invasion of Sweden over the Baltic.. However, with the re-armament of Russia, its unstable democratic development, and the potentially increased strategic importance of the Baltic Sea has led to continued support for Swedish naval patrols in the Baltic. In 1995 Swedish mine-clearance units furthermore took the lead in clearing the waters of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania of thousands of mines and other explosives.

The Swedish Navy has four units that are capable of deploying within 30 days. These are a corvette squadron (two Göteborg class) with a support ship, a mine countermeasures squadron (two Landsort class) with a support ship, one submarine, and a forward naval support element. In the near future there will also be an amphibious unit on 30 days standby.

The navy first participated in a UN-led peacekeeping mission in October 2006 when the corvette HMS Gävle began performing coastal surveillance duties for the United Nations Mission in Lebanon. HMS Gävle was relieved by HMS Sundsvall, which returned to Sweden in September 2007.

HMS Malmö, HMS Stockholm, and HMS Trossö took part in the EU-led EUNAVFOR operation off the coast of the Horn of Africa. In 2010, HMS Carlskrona was the EUNAVFOR flagship, housing the fleet headquarters led by RADM (LH)(Flottiljamiral) Jan Thörnqvist.