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Visby's naming ceremony - as studies start on new generation of surface combatants
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| 22 June 2000 |
JORIS JANSSEN LOK
Sweden's Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) has awarded an initial SKr8 million (US$900,000) study contract to the country's naval shipbuilder Kockums AB, to start investigating technologies for the next generation of Swedish Navy surface combatants.
The contract was announced by FMV joint procurement director, Rear Adm Bertil Björkman, on 8 June prior to the naming ceremony for HSwMS Visby (K 31). That is the first of the much publicised, SKr10 billion class of six stealth corvettes being built by Kockums.
According to Adm Björkman, the next generation Swedish surface combatant is planned to enter service between 2010-12. He said that it will be designed so it can participate in international operations, and that it would therefore possibly, although not necessarily, be larger in size than the Visby-class ships.
"A length of 110m would be the minimum for blue water operations," he said - the 600-tonne Visby-class corvettes measure only 73m overall.
The future ship would have to be capable of deploying overseas and to be seamlessly integrated within multi-national combined joint task forces.
Adm Björkman said the ship would probably be designed and built in a joint project with one or two other navies.
Senior Kockums officials said that they were pleased with the study contract, which will involve various fields of technology including hull materials, infrared signature, hydromechanics, integrated logistic support and electric power.
"The award gives us the green light to start discussions with potential partners in other nations," said Kockums managing director Hans Hedman. So far, the US Navy has expressed an interest in the Swedish stealth ship concept, while Germany could become involved through Kockums' parent company Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW).
Other interest could come from Chile and France, who were both represented by senior admirals at the Visby naming event.
Visby, which was christened by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, will start its FMV-run sea trials in February 2001 and is expected to enter operational service in the Swedish Navy by the end of 2003. The remaining five ships of the class are to follow Visby at one-year intervals. They will be named after Swedish towns as Helsingborg (K 32), Härnösand (K 33), Nyköping (K 34), Karlstad (K 35) and Uddevalla (K 36).
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| The lead ship of the revolutionary Visby-class of stealth corvettes was christened by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on 8 June at the Kockums shipyard in Karlskrona. (Source: Swedish MoD) |
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| King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (Source: Swedish MoD) |