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Phantom ships - Swedish navy's Visby class waits in post-construction wings
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| 04 December 2006 |
Phantom ships - Swedish navy's Visby class waits in post-construction wings
By Joris Janssen Lok
Ten years after construction of the first of five Visby-class stealth corvettes started, the Swedish defence materiel administration (FMV) is the proud owner of a fleet of four, soon to be five, of these futuristic surface combatants. It will be a few years, however, before these phantom ships, built almost entirely of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP), are fully operational in the hands of the Royal Swedish Navy's two Surface Warfare Flotillas. First, all five will go back to the shipyard for an internal reconfiguration and stealth optimisation programme that is to start in late 2007.
The stealth upgrade will involve the design and implementation of the "ultimate configuration" for a variety of sensors, lights and other fixtures that are now mounted on the mast aft of the bridge or elsewhere on the superstructure and that are in a less than optimal position in the context of the overall stealth profile of the ship.
As an example, the Terma Scanter 2001 surface search radar, for the time being mounted outside on the very top of the mast, will be relocated from this interim location to probably two positions inside the forward and aft parts of the superstructure (mounted on retractable arms that can fold out if the radar needs to be operating and that can be retracted if the ship needs to assume its full stealth posture).
Mats Elofsson, FMV programme manager for the Visby corvette programme, told Jane's: "Everything that is now sticking out will be folded into the ship so that it is no longer compromising the optimum stealth design.”
Jane's understands that another item under consideration is to add a stealth railing around the elevated deck aft of the bridge, in which certain retractable pieces of equipment (including remotely controlled weapon stations or traditional machine-gun mounts for ship self-defence against asymmetrical threats) could be incorporated.
Even without the stealth optimisation planned for the SP project, Elofsson added, it can be said that the signature reductions achieved on the Visby class have been impressive. "The crew of Helsingborg experienced this during their transit through the English Channel when they were contacted by the UK radar surveillance centre at Dover who picked up the ship's AIS transponder signal, but did not see the corvette on radar despite the fact that Helsingborg did have some radar reflectors deployed to artificially enhance its radar cross-section." In order not to compromise safety, the ship decided to put up additional radar reflectors, Elofsson claimed, while Dover issued a radio warning to all ships in the area about the presence of the stealth ship.
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© 2006 Jane's Information Group
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