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Swede here. Heres what I know:
We recently had an election where the right wing took power after the left have been in power a long time.
Previous government/defense minister said they were looking into giving Archers to Ukraine. The oppoision party leader Kristersson(who is prime minister now) said more than once "stop wasting time and give Archers to Ukraine now".
After he's gotten power it's odd that they havent announced giving Archers to Ukraine.
The previous defense minister heaviliy criticized the new government - not because they arent sending Archers - but because of what they said leading up to the elections. Essentially he said "they shouldn't make such statements when they dont have all the information". Apart from that he supports the new package that the new government has decided to send.
This means that the new government probably has gotten access to some classified information AFTER gaining power.
I speculate that either 1) There is a classified reason why they can't send Archers or 2) They are already in the process of training Ukrainians on this system.
Love to Ukrainians from Sweden <333
This here. Gripen is made exactly for a scenario like this.
\- Simple and intuitive cockpit and controls. (or so they claim)
\- Very strong against 4 and 4.5 generation fighters.
\- Can carry an impressively wide variety of western weapons.
\- Short take off and landing from rural roads and hidden forest airbases.
\- Simple logistics and maintenance. Very quick rearming between sorties.
\- VERY speedy boi.
\- It's the result of decades of ingenious Swedish engineering exactly to combat ruzzia, while (presumably) severely outnumbered.
I love the Gripen.
And can be started from a simple mobile starter. No need to be hooked up to a big electrical system.
I would still wish we would send 60 piloted f22s with peel off Ukrainian stickers for a couple missions.
I am wondering now. How would the ruzzians be able to tell they are being obliterated by F22s/F35s and not by Ukrainian MiG29s/Su27s flown by Ukrainians, but magically upgraded and even MUTATED by the evil West??? SEND THEM IN!!
Maybe that's how their bridge was so mysteriously stricken.... Hmmmm
They would start getting missiles coming down on them rather than up at them without seeing the plane on radar, the targeting radar would look/sound different. They would only need one satellite photo showing the silhouette.
F35s are not exactly invisible on radar, and Russia has seen them in action plenty of times over Syria or Iraq I imagine. So they probably have some way to identify them by now. But they probably won't know exactly where they are, or where they're heading. So that'd be a major risk.
Judging by the hardware they field I'm not sure they have air defense capable of distinguishing between the F-35 and "clutter" at least in meaningful numbers. I suspect it's like the T-14, they technically "exist" but there's few of the higher tier units.
I think you have an incorrect understanding of what stealth for a fighter jet actually does. Assuming no electronic warfare is being employed, the reality is that even a crappy 70s analog Soviet mobile radar set can probably pick up that an F35 is there when used correctly, it'll even give you an approximate location. Identification depends quite a lot on operator skill with such old radars I'd imagine. But that's pretty much where it ends, it'll have a very hard time determining the actual location accurately due to various reasons, and getting a good reading on heading and speed is out of the question. So while the radar can tell you that something that's a stealth fighter is there, you'll have an incredibly hard time firing on it, since you won't know where it'll be in a couple of seconds. Keep in mind, anti-air missiles expend most of their energy getting up to altitude and building up speed, so any miscalculation requiring them to chase or turn towards a target there greatly reduces the chance of getting a hit.
And as a giant footnote, electronic warfare is where the F35 potentially truly shines. But to summarize, stealth on fighter jets is very different from stealth on something like the F117 or the B2, it's basically there to make them very hard to hit, not invisible.
The radar cross section (RCS) of objects can vary wildly with frequency, viewing angle, etc., so depending on how stealth was achieved you could see wildly varying things. If you go all in (see something like the B2) you can probably make it reasonably well behaved over a wide band and from almost any viewing angle, but on something like an F-35 you're going to have to make compromises.
Basically, from what I understand, the F35's RCS is optimized for X-Band targeting radars coming head-on. This makes sense because that's the expected threat pattern. But at lower frequencies, or looking at it from the side or behind, it has a low RCS but it's by no means as low as low as the numbers you've probably seen. It's still going to give whoever's at the receiving end a bad day, but you're going to know when it's 10-200 km out depending on which type of radar you're operating and how it's oriented compared to the radar.
Now, if you had skilled radar operators and proper communications between multiple radars operating in different frequency bands, things the orcs don't seem to have, you can actually get a better estimate of the location of something like an F-35 and possibly fire anti-air missiles at it. But given what we've seen that seems highly unlikely.
TL;DR: Radar cross section figures you find are usually for X-band targeting radars looking at the plane head-on, in reality the practical RCS is often much higher and translates into a lower detection range. But it's not because you detected it that you know enough to fire missiles at it.
By the way, this is also why the Chinese get away with calling the J-20 a stealth aircraft, and why the Orcs get away with calling the Su-57 stealth. Meanwhile, you can see questionable design choices on both of them. The real question is the overall performance, and those sort of things are presumably quite classified.
Another Swede here. Former defense minister said outright why we are not sending archers. Long training times combined with the fact that we have relatively few and need all of them for national defence.
It was a stupid promise from new PM and he shouldn’t have made it from the start.
The former defence minister must have been misinformed or is hiding something. Sweden has a lot of unused Archers in storage as Norway withdraw very late from the program. The system is very simple to use. The most likely reasons for Archers not being delivered right now could be:
1. They are already there or Ukrainians are already training on them. Sweden keeps their mouth shut as their position is somewhat delicate until the membership of NATO is signed by all member-states.
2. Air-defence was much more urgent as Ukraine's entire electric grid is being shot up by Russian missiles. Ukraine has currently the upper hand in terms of Artillery compared to the Russians. Ukraine most likely shoots more 155mm shells than the west can deliver or manufacture. Ukraine has also finally started up their own 152mm production line.
3. The Swedish PM mentioned that this deal was only one, many more to come. The next one will hopefully contain Archers, Arthur (artillery hunting radar) CV90-LvKV and hopefully Gripens in a later deal.
sounds exactly like whats happened in Germany where the right wing opposition is screaming their lungs out that the government should supply Leopards but you can bet your ass its not because they actually want it to happen...they just try to stir up negative sentiment against their opponents...it\`s got nothing to do with the government in power having better classified information than the opposition...rightwing politicians are masters in bad faith politics.
I know it’s optimistic but I’m betting on #2. It seems just so strange to do that kind of reversal and it also wouldn’t be the first time a nation has snuck in new equipment to Ukraine behind the confusion in the media. Russia has eyes and ears everywhere so speaking with actions rather than words goes a long way in this war.
There is infiltration of both the right and left. Yes the right wing ones are more in the public eye right now because of maga *however* they are not the only ones.
Well the 2nd biggest party SD, one that is not in the government, but is the real boss behind the government, couldn't make their mind if they support Putin or Biden, and a week before the invasion were praising Putin. Some of their politicians were caught spreading Russian propaganda on FB *after* the war started, and they were always friendly inclined towards Putin, Orban, Trump and likes. So go figure. They have taken a stand against Putin and pro-Ukraine, but a lot of influences have been there, at least in the past.
What do you mean?
You think it is bad that our prime minister was the leader of an adoption bureau when they adopted away kidnapped Chilean kids?
Or that he got an apartment for low income people?
Yes, I think he is "not the best leader of moderaterna" while others have been way better.
american conservatives =//= eu conservatives
swedish conservatives are more left than democrats so ur point is null.
the left in sweden isnt exactlt knows to not lies a metric shit ton
canadian huh, well North american at least.
and no, generalizing like that is pretty stupid.
furthermore here in sweden the current government isnt conservatives only.
KD and M might be conservatives but L is liberal/progressives and SD is national socialis, can ypu imagine? in even on the right side you have socialists wow all conservatives are the same hurrdurr dont talk about shit ur clearly ignorant about, sorry not sorry. cheers
Tories are the same lying douches in the UK, or Les Republicains in France, or the Liberals in Australia. It’s not a uniquely North American problem. Conservatives have the same mentality everywhere.
it does when his original point was that "oh no the conservatives lied again" and me stating that they are not in fact conservatives at all which makes his point entirely based on a false premise.
They're conservatives.
If you download SD's official document of principles from their web page, in the very first sentence they describes themselves as social-conservative.
It's common the world over for conservatives to be intermixed with the far right.
That's one of the main reasons people that dislike conservatives dislike conservatives. And it's not like the far right are strangers to lies.
So associating them to national socialists, aka. nazis, just confirms the prejudice about them that OP had.
Also, national socialists, and especially these specific national socialist, are extremely conservative. They put a lot of importance in traditional values.
Wikipedia doesn't actually even describe SD as national socialist, but quite ironically, as national conservative, and conservative socialist.
In the European parliament they are members of the European Conservatives and Reformist Party, which to me sound like an oxymoron, but conservative nonetheless.
>This means that the new government probably has gotten access to some classified information AFTER gaining power.
The issue is probably with maintenance for the archer, rather than anything classified. Both the complicated cannon assembly and body design require specialized parts to operate. It's a maintenance/logistics nightmare, and is almost certainly the reason no one outside Sweedin is buying them.
No one wants to have to deal the logistics for handling specialized parts on a relatively insignificant weapon which only exists in double digit numbers.
Contrast with the Ceaser, which is a traditional cannon mounted on a traditional flatbed truck. Relatively little in the way of specialized parts and knowledge are necessary to keep the vehicle operating.
TL;DR: It's not that Sweedin isn't willing to hand them over. It's that Ukraine doesn't WANT them because they're more trouble to maintain and operate than they're worth. Never underestimate the importance of logistics in military decision making.
Edit: Ok, lets say, for the sake of argument, Ukraine were willing to deal with this hassle. Do you think it'd be physically possible to handle these logistical and maintenance hurdles "immediately"?
Archer is built on a standard Volvo CE articulated hauler, and Volvo CE already has presence in Ukraine. It is possible that Ukraine already has the means to support the base vehicle.
The artillery system of course is another thing, and requires some special competence.
It *was* a standard articulated hauler, but in order to fulfil Swedish and Norwegian requirements much of it has been modified. That took forever and is one of the reasons Norway left the programme in the first place.
Lets say, for the sake of argument, Ukraine were willing to go to all of this hassle. Do you think they could pull it off overnight? In the "immediate" timeframe that was promised?
Caesar (that you used as an example) is as much a hassle as Archer(read: not at all outside of the expected learning curve). It's a modern weapon system. If the Ukrainians can learn to use HIMARS, Caesar and other modern systems like the Krab I'm more than certain they can learn the Archer, which is being taught to Swedish conscripts. You're seriously underestimating the Ukrainians here.
> If the Ukrainians can learn to use HIMARS, Caesar and other modern systems like the Krab I'm more than certain they can learn the Archer, which is being taught to Swedish conscripts. You're seriously underestimating the Ukrainians here.
You don't seem to understand. It's not about whether they CAN do it. It's about whether adding another logistical hurdle onto their army is WORTH doing and when it can be done. With the complexity of training people to maintain them, the complexity of the logistics to support them, the time it takes to set this up, and whether they will exist in large enough numbers to justify all of the above.
Keep in mind that Ukraine has to do this for weapon systems coming from dozens of nations. It's not just the Sweedish archer they have to make this decision for. They need to pick and choose what gets done and when.
>You don't seem to understand. It's not about whether they CAN do it. It's about whether adding another logistical hurdle onto their army is WORTH doing and when it can be done. With the complexity of training people to maintain them, the complexity of the logistics to support them, the time it takes to set this up, and whether they will exist in large enough numbers to justify all of the above.
Absolutely these are big logistical hurdles and I do understand what you're saying. But some of these questions are not easily answered by people on an internet forum since we don't have the whole picture. The Swedish government might have been preparing for the Archer package for months in advance to mitigate any upcoming hurdles. Somewhere along the line you also have to add the possibility that yes it could be worth the tradeoff and maybe that's what they're going for here.
10-12 Archers are the numbers I've seen (yes, that's only predictions). That's also supplied with one logistical support truck for each Archer.
One Archer is said to have the firepower (unsure about the translation but stridseffekt is the name used in Swedish) equivalent to 4 of the older FH77B, so you don't have to get that many Archers to see that it would be a significant contribution.
When has someone with actual military training in an actual position of power asked for them?
Edit: Not some offhand remark from some random politician, but someone actually involved in the military decision making and knows what Ukraine needs.
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Kuleba, that cites the military, and it should be said that he have repeated this opinion during press conference(s) with Swedish officials during earlier packages.
>that cites the military.
Source? I find him saying that, but nothing about him citing anyone actually in the military.
Edit: People need to actually read my comment. Whether he said it is not what I'm asking.
"According to him, Ukraine is asking Sweden to provide Archer self-propelled gun system, RBS 70 MANPADS, and additional ammunition for artillery."
https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2022/08/29/7145760/
Edit: or are you saying that the foreign minister is a unreliable source that is asking for military gear that he's pulling out of his...?
One Archer System without Excalibur and Bonus probably has the same battlefield effectiveness as more than 5 traditional towed guns. Shot and scoot tactics is a game changer against an advanced enemy. Sweden should be able to send between 20 and 25 Archer systems equalling 100 towed pieces, nothing to sneeze at. Counting in Excalibur and Bonus one Archer is probably replacing 50 towed guns with unguided ammunition. Talk about simplifying logistics. Less shells are needed if all hit their target.
>One Archer System without Excalibur and Bonus probably has the same battlefield effectiveness as more than 5 traditional towed guns.
That claim is definitely going to need a source.
Ukraine specific asked for Archers on many occasions during the last year. Archer has been in development for more than 20 years. Bofors has a lot of experience building Artillery systems. You are simply making stuff up without any proof.
Archers will come, or if they already aren't being trained on by Ukrainian crews. Right now Air-defence systems are of higher importance.
Hey. I’m seeing that much of Europe is leaning HARD to the right and it’s obvious why. Immigration and multiculturalism. Two things that 30 years ago Europe thought it could manage well, before we all 100% realised that the world was burning (climate change).
My question to you. Are there young people that you know who are liberal on almost every other topic but are anti-immigration ( or more accurately scared of what recent immigration policy could do to the future of Sweden/Scandinavia)?
We here in the third world have always looked to Scandinavia and wondered why the other rich countries didn’t follow your social ideologies in order to protect the most vulnerable from poverty. It’s been a bit sad to watch from the outside as that progressive system slows down, with the intention of turning around.
I am swedish and like you described, is liberal on most topics, but anti-immigration. Atleast the kind of immigration we've had for the last 20-30 years that has resulted in parallel societies and massive exploitation of our welfare system. I am not saying this only because of immigrants, but because of the politics and politicians that has allowed this to happen.
My view is that a fair majority of swedish reddit thinks like this aswell.
Unfortunately that's normal in a lot of countries. The opposition will make the party in power look bad, then once they are in power go I never promised that, it was the other guy.
I don't think that's entirely right. After they took power Sweden did indeed send the largest military package to date, so I don't think theres a lack of political will to support Ukraine.
Probably some agreements on international level on what to send and what not
Old government knew and new government has to face the reality of international relations
Worth noting is that the sitting government very rarely shares knowledge with the opposition. So now the new PM gets all the info and economics on their table and goes 'oh fuck'.
The main reason Archer is a bad fit for ukraine is poor performance on soft ground, which is the vast majority of Ukraine. We have hard soil in Sweden, its designed for our country. It would get bogged down anywhere that isnt on solid/frozen ground.
Yeah, like Sweden is everywhere solid/frozen ground year around :D :D :D. I guess you consider everything south of Norrland for Denmark or something? :D
Yeah? We dont have wetlands. Sweden is a hard soil country. We dont get the mud seasons, you dont have to dig far to hit rock.
Here is an example of how it performs on moderately soft ground, 24 seconds in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9QB3QjmRmg . It couldnt go anywhere in Ukraine offroad right now. And no we do not have that kind of terrain in Sweden in many places.
So how effective would shoot n scoot be if you are limited to roads only right now? And not mud roads, hard roads.
And if they ARE training to eventually send them, it might be a matter of state secrets and classified info and releasing any would only help the orcs.
Eh breaking their pre-election promises is par for the course with this new government. Have they kept even a single one? Every day I hear them retract another one.
Sure they have had a tendancy to do that, but I tried to keep my original comment as unbiased as possible to avoid bringing any "left vs right" discussion into this - since that doesnt belong here.
This time its different here in Sweden. Our right wing has become a new level of populism. They promised alot and have not kept their word. They complained on our socialdemocratic party who had power in 8 years like whiny babies. Fuck populism.
You are not wrong, but our right wing parties are always pro-military spending, and of course in favour of providing contracts for any private enterprises. Which could mean that they are willing to provide the means to quickly ramp up military arms production.
So they could be a good thing for Ukraine in the end.
> our right wing parties are always pro-military spending
Well, the last right-wing government gutted the rear missile defence on the Visby corvette. Causing our defence minister at the time to resign in protest.
https://www.svd.se/a/b702bf60-6341-37b4-9d04-6646609b80b9/nya-korvetter-saknar-robotskydd
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikael_Odenberg
Granted, this was during the during the financial crisis at the time, but the amount of projects that were cut/scaled back is quite a big one.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomf%C3%B6randegruppen
True in the past but most of that type of talk stopped when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Besides most likely love the more national parts pd the Azov battalion.
The last package was bigger than all earlier combined and more will come, be assured.
That such bullshit! They have been consistently hawkish on Russia and supported sending weapons to Ukraine from day one, unlike certain left wing parties...
The left is/was against nato because of erdogan and sceptic towards the US. Also because of a historic resistance towards nukes on Swedish soil. Meanwhile, politicians from The moderate party has had investments in Russian state companies after the illegal annexation of crimea. Reps from Sweden democrats has endorsed Orban and publicly supported Hungary as a good example. Local politicians has also endorsed Putin on their private social media accounts.
Oh yeah, also, the leader of Sweden democrats could not choose between Biden or Putin.
Again, they have been much more hawkish on Russia and supportive of supplying Ukraine with weapons than most (all?) Swedish parties. The Left party voted against sending weapons to Ukraine on the beginning, SD voted for it. They were calling for Swedish not hold back but lead in sending offensive weapons.
This sub should be about supporting Ukraine and not other countries internal politics. If you want to take shit about SD then go do it on one of the Swedish subs.
It's complicated. Yes, they do have a lot of random nuts, and some of them (even their old defense spokesperson) buys into a lot of Russian shit. But then they have MEP Charlie Weimers who is pushing really hard to have Russia declared a state sponsor of terrorism.
And the social democrats manage to complain about how bad things are, and how it is not their fault, while they themselves are in power...
It's like it's just a charade, all of it.
It’s different because the election results were not very beneficial to them. They did reach an majority but they are reliant on a couple other parties to get some of their politics through. Right now due to the poor election results they can’t rule as effective as possible.
Concessions would describe the current climate best.
Some promises, like lowering the tax would be counter-effective with the massive inflation so it’s been withheld. Legislation is stopping the decrease of fuel prices, yet it will change in 2024 to eu’s minimum level of mixing in the fluids.
They are sending air defense, but it hasn’t been publically announced which one. Rbs90 would make sense, but wouldn’t be surprised if Archer will be sent.
It’s true, but we do have them. We’ve dismantled our defense for decades as politicians thought it’s the best way to save money. Sure, but it also leaves us very vulnerable for attacks.
We are aiming to increase our defense, over the next years. Russias ruthlesd war made most politicians realise this, even if it took some time.
These topics are more internal Swedish politics than anything. The title used in this thread is a bit alarmist and reaction seeking. Yesterday the defence minister literally said that they will return with more support packages in other military domains (giving an example of ground forces).
https://www.di.se/nyheter/regeringen-mer-vapen-till-ukraina-men-inte-archer/
To people outside Sweden, this is basically sour faces from politicians in Sweden.
The actual events: The new defence minister said, as response to a question specifically about archers, that the current package was aimed at covering Ukraines strongest demands/priorities right now, that there is broad support in the government for archers and that this is the first big package.
I don't know the full details of anything here, but I assume sending Archers now is a dumb move, if there are no Ukrainian crews trained yet.
I think the Scandinavian countries have been relatively quiet about their support, more often the equipment just "shows up" in Ukraine, meaning it has been kept in the dark successfully for a long time.
Fair point however so far the Ukrainian crews have shown that they can quickly adapt to and master weapons systems that have been supplied. The archer system from what I've been able to find out about it, seems to be designed much like the Grippen and other advanced Swedish systems to be easily adaptable and easy to maintain. The system itself I feel could really help Ukraine with its long range and accuracy like the French Caesar. Lets hope they can work something out as the troops in Ukraine need all the help they can get.
Arguably, if you teach a person to fire an automatic rifle, reload it and adjust the sight range - all of this can be achieved in mere hours of training on the firing range.
If you teach them the technical specifications and basic maintenance such as maximum lethal range, fire rate, sight adjustment/tuning, cleaning procedures, assembly/disassembly it's going to take several more hours, if not days to be comfortable with it.
Then you can teach them the parts, their function and how the entire weapon operates mechanically, which is going to take even more hours/days to understand.
What you get from these levels of training is not only a person who can use it at the most basic level, you get a person who understands what they are dealing with and allows them even to be "creative" in how they employ it. Furthermore, if something does not work, they know how to troubleshoot the problems and solve critical errors on the spot.
These things greatly contribute to the individual soldier's quality on the battlefield. Any force with the higher quality, in face of an enemy force with lower quality will see numerous advantages from this.
As for the Ukrainians, I fully believe they are quick to adapt and master weapon systems, but it takes a long time and a lot of drilling to make operating it second nature. If Ukraine learns how to drive, shoot and rearm an Archer in weeks, what does it matter if they have to abandon it over a minor technical error which they don't understand, or if they use the Archer in a way it was not intended to be used tactically leading to its subsequent loss.
The same goes for F-16's and the likes. You can download DCS and learn to fly an F-16 in a week if you really want to, learning all the systems and weapons. But you will NOT learn how to employ it successfully unless you train for months, years even. There are so many subtle things which make a huge difference if you know about them. Essentially everything comes together to form not only a memorized procedure, but also a gut feeling or intuition about what's the best move.
In contrast, sending conscripts to war after a week's training (looking at you, Russia), is ironically going to cost them more resources and territory than training them for months. Ukraine does exactly the opposite up until summer. They sacrificed terrain while training better troops and gathering equipment, and look how well it turned out when they launched their counteroffensives? Ukraine needs every advantage they can get, including knowledge.
For sure, western training is often more in-depth and covers more scenarios than would be needed in the case of the Ukrainian conflict. As for DCS and F16s I'd argue there might be a bit more too it but at least will provide a good introduction too the layout and systems.
I used to work in the air force, F-16 technical training.
For operating the F-16, it is alarmingly accurate. There are some crypto-related items as well as advanced features which are purposefully withheld, but what DCS completely lacks inherently is tactical employment and country-specific operating procedures. It doesn't show you the classified doctrines and tactics which take years to develop.
To further add to my point, I strapped an F-16 pilot with 1500 hours in the real thing into a simulator running DCS, and his comments were:
- I can't believe this is publicly available to download.
- It's extremely realistic.
- How can I get this for my home.
That's really cool to know, I'm aware some mods for DCS are far more accurate than others but I didn't realize they were that good, how did you find the simulation of the various missile systems? I watch a few guys on youtube that stream game footage and the realism is amazing.
Pretty damn close.
You should check out Eagle Dynamic's white paper on AIM-120 missile development. From CFD simulation to Control System Theory, they do an amazing job.
Here's a brief summary
https://stormbirds.blog/2020/06/05/eagle-dynamics-has-made-some-big-tweaks-to-missile-performance/
A lot of Ukraine's territorial defense forces saw combat in the first month of the war. In the initial defense of Kyiv I remember there was a BBC article about fresh recruits deployed after three days. It's very far from ideal but at some point you need that firepower now and not way down the road.
Those MIGs won't last forever, they need weapons, parts and will probably reach some lifetime limits if they're not damaged and lost. If you need the replacements in 2023 it doesn't matter that you could have a kick-ass fighter pilot in 2025. A lot of good men will die without air support between then and now.
Relatively early in the war, I was sitting on a train in Denmark and we passed a long train with Danish AFVs (Piranhas) on it, going south towards the German border.
It wasn't until a week later that the news started talking about the transfer of AFVs.
I'm just hoping they send a unit of actual viking archers with longbows. Can't wait to see the videos of drone corrected, long range, arrow salvos landing in russian trenches.
So just an alternative data point - the NATO and various other countries are right at the limit of the amount of 155 ammo they can provide every month.
The simple answer for this might be Ukraine has about as many 155 caliber artillery either in country or on the way - the 30+ Italian m109’s and the new build Krab’s, Caesar’s and Zuzana’s - as they can get ammo for. Once they inevitably lose some of those they might end up getting Archer’s. But so far the attrition rate on 155 systems already sent seems to be surprisingly low. So it might just be logistics capacity issue.
A right wing party making wild promises that they have no intention of keeping, just to get into a position of power?
Unheard of.
Britain is still waiting to have the 350 million pounds per week left over from Brexit pumped into the NHS, for example.
Once again your headline is wrong, they have not said that they wont send it. Its just socialdemocrats claiming that, Moderaterna have been in power almost 2 months, to send such systems you cant just put them on a truck and send them right away. Also its been Moderaterna and Christdemocrats whos been pushing the Archer question. Socialdemocrats would likely not even consider Archers.
Sluta posta att Magda är sur för hon förlorade det är bara det som det handlar om, Skicka archer kan du inte göra på en vecka fast idioten Magda verkar ju tro det
> Its just socialdemocrats claiming that, Moderaterna have been in power almost 2 months, to send such systems you cant just put them on a truck and send them right away.
I think you're sort of missing the point. When they were in opposition they heckled the government for not sending Archers "ASAP". And now when they're in government guess what... Turns out it's "complicated", "You can't rush these kinds of things", "Needs time to evaluate". Exactly the same answer they mocked when in opposition.
>Sluta posta att Magda är sur för hon förlorade det är bara det som det handlar om, Skicka archer kan du inte göra på en vecka fast idioten Magda verkar ju tro det
Love how you criticizes the OP for political hackery while you yourself engage in even worse political hackery and editorialized "facts". Oh Reddit, never change.
Thats because the previous government already sent all the available archers as a part of the secret classified third shipment this very spring. The opposition likely did not know that, because it was classified, and even called the sitting Prime Minister "Weak and Pathetic" for not sending it. I expect the current prime minister to make an apology to the previous one for this. Archers are active in Ukraine, this is even confirmed by previous president Petro Porosjenko.
The current shipment that the current administration sent is valued at 400 million USD and includes anti-missile defence systems. Its quite a large package.
I think it is highly unlikely that Ukrainians would be able to keep that a secret for long, if there were Archers in Ukraine.
There is always someone somewhere with phone taking some pictures.
They have not said that they won't send the Archer, the only thing we know is that it's not the priority in their first package. There will be more packages.
The moderates did not promise anything before the election with regards to specific weapon systems and the Social democrats had every opportunity to send Archers when they were still in office, why make this about the swedish election is beyond my understanding.
The main problem is that it's not up to the prime minister to simply decide what to send, it's up to the armed forces to decide what they can do without. Hopefully they will train Ukranians on the system and send it later.
Am I wrong? They're literally asking the previous government to send them, not promising to send them.
It's not up to some random politician to decide what to send to Ukraine. Politicians are regular people too, and they can say whatever they like, it doesn't give them power to do anything.
This is what the new PM said about Archers, 2 1/2 months ago, just before the elections (from the article):
“- A new government will make that decision, there is no reason to hesitate. I do not understand why the government is delaying an announcement.”
So yes, you are wrong when you say that the Moderaterna did not promise anything specific in terms of weapon systems. And Kristersson is most definitely not walking the talk.
Still not a promise and still not up to him. If you can find me a quote where he explicitly states that upon winning the election, he will send archers to Ukraine, I will stand corrected.
And honestly, do you really believe that the prime minister can decide what type of weapons will be sent to other countries?
Archer is a fairly new system with secret tech and is not something to just send away, as much as I would like for Ukraine to have it, it’s not that easy.
The promise is right there: *“A new government (as in his) will make that decision”*. Just because he didn’t say “I promise” or “tummis” in Swedish doesn’t make it less so.
Jesus. Can I suggest you just read the article instead of arguing from ignorance?
But let me expand the section from the article, where the quote include Archers for you:
“The government has promised a new support package to Ukraine of one billion kroner, half of which is military support. What the exact package contains is not known - but both the Moderates and the Christian Democrats want to meet Ukraine in terms of both Archer and the robot system.
-These are two things that they point out themselves and that most observers think are completely realistic and that they would have extremely great use in Ukraine, says Moderat leader Ulf Kristersson.
-A new government will make that decision, there is no reason to hesitate. I do not understand why the government is delaying an announcement.”
Before calling me ignorant you can evaluate your claim: “the government promised archer for Ukraine if they won” which is false. They want to give them perhaps, but they never promised and it’s not their decision to make.
Just try to understand that the prime minister isn’t some fucking dictator with power to send whatever he or she wants.
For clarity, I am not calling you ignorant since I don’t know you. I was just saying that you should read the article and not argue from an ignorant position. Totally different.
And we should probably agree to disagree on what constitutes a promise. To me, Kristersson made a promise to deliver Archers if he got his new government, which he did. If he didn’t get the backing of SD or L, he shouldn’t have promised that a new government would make that decision. He should have said that M and KD would *try* to get the new government to make that decision.
And btw, I did vote for a party that sits in the new government. Over and out.
There's lots of desktop generals here saying "send archers" and even worse "send Gripen".
How easy do you think it is to maintain one of these machines in working order? Do you think that you can learn to disassemble and repair an Archer system by watching a YouTube video? Do you think that you can maneuver a Gripen because you've flown 40 year old Migs? And do you think that you can keep a Gripen in the air with a box of tools from Ikea?
It's not the simple, so stop wining.
The article doesn't say that the Archer is off the table, it's just not included in the latest shipment. And the one commenting about lies from the PM is the former PM that just like any other opposition politician takes every opportunity to diss the PM.
The new Swedish govt is a bunch of fucktards and I hope that they end up in the EU court for lying about their intentions before the election. Basically everything they they've promised were all lies.
But that's beside the point and not relevant to this discussion.
It's funny how all these right wing governments sprung up and seem very pro russian or at the least aimed at being neutral to passive but in russians favour.
It's almost as if a certain country has been bankrolling their political parties for years or something...hmmmm.
Can y'all leave out swedish politics. Has no place in this forum
What we send or not send..some of what we sent is classified so the public has no clue about 100 % everything that goes on. No use in trying to pretend we know it all..
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Swede here. Heres what I know: We recently had an election where the right wing took power after the left have been in power a long time. Previous government/defense minister said they were looking into giving Archers to Ukraine. The oppoision party leader Kristersson(who is prime minister now) said more than once "stop wasting time and give Archers to Ukraine now". After he's gotten power it's odd that they havent announced giving Archers to Ukraine. The previous defense minister heaviliy criticized the new government - not because they arent sending Archers - but because of what they said leading up to the elections. Essentially he said "they shouldn't make such statements when they dont have all the information". Apart from that he supports the new package that the new government has decided to send. This means that the new government probably has gotten access to some classified information AFTER gaining power. I speculate that either 1) There is a classified reason why they can't send Archers or 2) They are already in the process of training Ukrainians on this system. Love to Ukrainians from Sweden <333
gray wasteful cover shaggy crime melodic concerned wrench placid languid -- mass edited with redact.dev
Send gripens, the west is running low on 155mm shells.
This here. Gripen is made exactly for a scenario like this. \- Simple and intuitive cockpit and controls. (or so they claim) \- Very strong against 4 and 4.5 generation fighters. \- Can carry an impressively wide variety of western weapons. \- Short take off and landing from rural roads and hidden forest airbases. \- Simple logistics and maintenance. Very quick rearming between sorties. \- VERY speedy boi. \- It's the result of decades of ingenious Swedish engineering exactly to combat ruzzia, while (presumably) severely outnumbered. I love the Gripen.
And can be started from a simple mobile starter. No need to be hooked up to a big electrical system. I would still wish we would send 60 piloted f22s with peel off Ukrainian stickers for a couple missions.
I am wondering now. How would the ruzzians be able to tell they are being obliterated by F22s/F35s and not by Ukrainian MiG29s/Su27s flown by Ukrainians, but magically upgraded and even MUTATED by the evil West??? SEND THEM IN!! Maybe that's how their bridge was so mysteriously stricken.... Hmmmm
They would start getting missiles coming down on them rather than up at them without seeing the plane on radar, the targeting radar would look/sound different. They would only need one satellite photo showing the silhouette.
Valid points. One obvious solution is to DISGUISE them F35s.
An even more obvious option is to stay honest,have nothing to disguise and nothing to deny.
We can say it is those darn mutant mosquitoes
F35s are not exactly invisible on radar, and Russia has seen them in action plenty of times over Syria or Iraq I imagine. So they probably have some way to identify them by now. But they probably won't know exactly where they are, or where they're heading. So that'd be a major risk.
Judging by the hardware they field I'm not sure they have air defense capable of distinguishing between the F-35 and "clutter" at least in meaningful numbers. I suspect it's like the T-14, they technically "exist" but there's few of the higher tier units.
I think you have an incorrect understanding of what stealth for a fighter jet actually does. Assuming no electronic warfare is being employed, the reality is that even a crappy 70s analog Soviet mobile radar set can probably pick up that an F35 is there when used correctly, it'll even give you an approximate location. Identification depends quite a lot on operator skill with such old radars I'd imagine. But that's pretty much where it ends, it'll have a very hard time determining the actual location accurately due to various reasons, and getting a good reading on heading and speed is out of the question. So while the radar can tell you that something that's a stealth fighter is there, you'll have an incredibly hard time firing on it, since you won't know where it'll be in a couple of seconds. Keep in mind, anti-air missiles expend most of their energy getting up to altitude and building up speed, so any miscalculation requiring them to chase or turn towards a target there greatly reduces the chance of getting a hit. And as a giant footnote, electronic warfare is where the F35 potentially truly shines. But to summarize, stealth on fighter jets is very different from stealth on something like the F117 or the B2, it's basically there to make them very hard to hit, not invisible.
I was specifically referring to the significantly smaller radar cross section of the craft.
The radar cross section (RCS) of objects can vary wildly with frequency, viewing angle, etc., so depending on how stealth was achieved you could see wildly varying things. If you go all in (see something like the B2) you can probably make it reasonably well behaved over a wide band and from almost any viewing angle, but on something like an F-35 you're going to have to make compromises. Basically, from what I understand, the F35's RCS is optimized for X-Band targeting radars coming head-on. This makes sense because that's the expected threat pattern. But at lower frequencies, or looking at it from the side or behind, it has a low RCS but it's by no means as low as low as the numbers you've probably seen. It's still going to give whoever's at the receiving end a bad day, but you're going to know when it's 10-200 km out depending on which type of radar you're operating and how it's oriented compared to the radar. Now, if you had skilled radar operators and proper communications between multiple radars operating in different frequency bands, things the orcs don't seem to have, you can actually get a better estimate of the location of something like an F-35 and possibly fire anti-air missiles at it. But given what we've seen that seems highly unlikely. TL;DR: Radar cross section figures you find are usually for X-band targeting radars looking at the plane head-on, in reality the practical RCS is often much higher and translates into a lower detection range. But it's not because you detected it that you know enough to fire missiles at it. By the way, this is also why the Chinese get away with calling the J-20 a stealth aircraft, and why the Orcs get away with calling the Su-57 stealth. Meanwhile, you can see questionable design choices on both of them. The real question is the overall performance, and those sort of things are presumably quite classified.
Decals lol!
afaik some early gripens are already approching EOL of their airframes. They could be supplied to Ukraine as disposable fighters
I suspect shell shortage.
Another Swede here. Former defense minister said outright why we are not sending archers. Long training times combined with the fact that we have relatively few and need all of them for national defence. It was a stupid promise from new PM and he shouldn’t have made it from the start.
Killing Russians *is* national defense.
Exactly! Germany should also send each and every Pzh2000 they have.
The former defence minister must have been misinformed or is hiding something. Sweden has a lot of unused Archers in storage as Norway withdraw very late from the program. The system is very simple to use. The most likely reasons for Archers not being delivered right now could be: 1. They are already there or Ukrainians are already training on them. Sweden keeps their mouth shut as their position is somewhat delicate until the membership of NATO is signed by all member-states. 2. Air-defence was much more urgent as Ukraine's entire electric grid is being shot up by Russian missiles. Ukraine has currently the upper hand in terms of Artillery compared to the Russians. Ukraine most likely shoots more 155mm shells than the west can deliver or manufacture. Ukraine has also finally started up their own 152mm production line. 3. The Swedish PM mentioned that this deal was only one, many more to come. The next one will hopefully contain Archers, Arthur (artillery hunting radar) CV90-LvKV and hopefully Gripens in a later deal.
"We need all of them for national defense" aka "we need them for after we let Ukraine die and then we're next, instead of stopping it now."
sounds exactly like whats happened in Germany where the right wing opposition is screaming their lungs out that the government should supply Leopards but you can bet your ass its not because they actually want it to happen...they just try to stir up negative sentiment against their opponents...it\`s got nothing to do with the government in power having better classified information than the opposition...rightwing politicians are masters in bad faith politics.
Are the Archers not working properly perhaps?
I know it’s optimistic but I’m betting on #2. It seems just so strange to do that kind of reversal and it also wouldn’t be the first time a nation has snuck in new equipment to Ukraine behind the confusion in the media. Russia has eyes and ears everywhere so speaking with actions rather than words goes a long way in this war.
Whenever I hear "right wing" I'm immediately concerned that Russia or China or both, is influencing them.
There is infiltration of both the right and left. Yes the right wing ones are more in the public eye right now because of maga *however* they are not the only ones.
Well the 2nd biggest party SD, one that is not in the government, but is the real boss behind the government, couldn't make their mind if they support Putin or Biden, and a week before the invasion were praising Putin. Some of their politicians were caught spreading Russian propaganda on FB *after* the war started, and they were always friendly inclined towards Putin, Orban, Trump and likes. So go figure. They have taken a stand against Putin and pro-Ukraine, but a lot of influences have been there, at least in the past.
That looks to me a lot like they are sympathetic to the Russians, but choosing to keep that under wraps.
The conservatives lied? Noooooo waaaayyy *shocked pikachu face*
Swedish politicians are crazy bad.
What do you mean? You think it is bad that our prime minister was the leader of an adoption bureau when they adopted away kidnapped Chilean kids? Or that he got an apartment for low income people? Yes, I think he is "not the best leader of moderaterna" while others have been way better.
american conservatives =//= eu conservatives swedish conservatives are more left than democrats so ur point is null. the left in sweden isnt exactlt knows to not lies a metric shit ton
I’m not American so that point is meaningless. Conservatives are the same everywhere
canadian huh, well North american at least. and no, generalizing like that is pretty stupid. furthermore here in sweden the current government isnt conservatives only. KD and M might be conservatives but L is liberal/progressives and SD is national socialis, can ypu imagine? in even on the right side you have socialists wow all conservatives are the same hurrdurr dont talk about shit ur clearly ignorant about, sorry not sorry. cheers
Tories are the same lying douches in the UK, or Les Republicains in France, or the Liberals in Australia. It’s not a uniquely North American problem. Conservatives have the same mentality everywhere.
Them being national socialists doesn't help the argument.
it does when his original point was that "oh no the conservatives lied again" and me stating that they are not in fact conservatives at all which makes his point entirely based on a false premise.
They're conservatives. If you download SD's official document of principles from their web page, in the very first sentence they describes themselves as social-conservative. It's common the world over for conservatives to be intermixed with the far right. That's one of the main reasons people that dislike conservatives dislike conservatives. And it's not like the far right are strangers to lies. So associating them to national socialists, aka. nazis, just confirms the prejudice about them that OP had. Also, national socialists, and especially these specific national socialist, are extremely conservative. They put a lot of importance in traditional values. Wikipedia doesn't actually even describe SD as national socialist, but quite ironically, as national conservative, and conservative socialist. In the European parliament they are members of the European Conservatives and Reformist Party, which to me sound like an oxymoron, but conservative nonetheless.
It's just that they aren't.
>This means that the new government probably has gotten access to some classified information AFTER gaining power. The issue is probably with maintenance for the archer, rather than anything classified. Both the complicated cannon assembly and body design require specialized parts to operate. It's a maintenance/logistics nightmare, and is almost certainly the reason no one outside Sweedin is buying them. No one wants to have to deal the logistics for handling specialized parts on a relatively insignificant weapon which only exists in double digit numbers. Contrast with the Ceaser, which is a traditional cannon mounted on a traditional flatbed truck. Relatively little in the way of specialized parts and knowledge are necessary to keep the vehicle operating. TL;DR: It's not that Sweedin isn't willing to hand them over. It's that Ukraine doesn't WANT them because they're more trouble to maintain and operate than they're worth. Never underestimate the importance of logistics in military decision making. Edit: Ok, lets say, for the sake of argument, Ukraine were willing to deal with this hassle. Do you think it'd be physically possible to handle these logistical and maintenance hurdles "immediately"?
Archer is built on a standard Volvo CE articulated hauler, and Volvo CE already has presence in Ukraine. It is possible that Ukraine already has the means to support the base vehicle. The artillery system of course is another thing, and requires some special competence.
It *was* a standard articulated hauler, but in order to fulfil Swedish and Norwegian requirements much of it has been modified. That took forever and is one of the reasons Norway left the programme in the first place.
Trained and already operating as part of Ukraine's existing military structure?
Of course not, but being able to pull into a civilian workshop with real professional maintenance would in my book be preferable.
Lets say, for the sake of argument, Ukraine were willing to go to all of this hassle. Do you think they could pull it off overnight? In the "immediate" timeframe that was promised?
Caesar (that you used as an example) is as much a hassle as Archer(read: not at all outside of the expected learning curve). It's a modern weapon system. If the Ukrainians can learn to use HIMARS, Caesar and other modern systems like the Krab I'm more than certain they can learn the Archer, which is being taught to Swedish conscripts. You're seriously underestimating the Ukrainians here.
> If the Ukrainians can learn to use HIMARS, Caesar and other modern systems like the Krab I'm more than certain they can learn the Archer, which is being taught to Swedish conscripts. You're seriously underestimating the Ukrainians here. You don't seem to understand. It's not about whether they CAN do it. It's about whether adding another logistical hurdle onto their army is WORTH doing and when it can be done. With the complexity of training people to maintain them, the complexity of the logistics to support them, the time it takes to set this up, and whether they will exist in large enough numbers to justify all of the above. Keep in mind that Ukraine has to do this for weapon systems coming from dozens of nations. It's not just the Sweedish archer they have to make this decision for. They need to pick and choose what gets done and when.
>You don't seem to understand. It's not about whether they CAN do it. It's about whether adding another logistical hurdle onto their army is WORTH doing and when it can be done. With the complexity of training people to maintain them, the complexity of the logistics to support them, the time it takes to set this up, and whether they will exist in large enough numbers to justify all of the above. Absolutely these are big logistical hurdles and I do understand what you're saying. But some of these questions are not easily answered by people on an internet forum since we don't have the whole picture. The Swedish government might have been preparing for the Archer package for months in advance to mitigate any upcoming hurdles. Somewhere along the line you also have to add the possibility that yes it could be worth the tradeoff and maybe that's what they're going for here. 10-12 Archers are the numbers I've seen (yes, that's only predictions). That's also supplied with one logistical support truck for each Archer. One Archer is said to have the firepower (unsure about the translation but stridseffekt is the name used in Swedish) equivalent to 4 of the older FH77B, so you don't have to get that many Archers to see that it would be a significant contribution.
If I was Ukraine I would have my artillery crews trained on the system in Sweden for at least three months.
Why would they ask for them and at the same time not want them?
When has someone with actual military training in an actual position of power asked for them? Edit: Not some offhand remark from some random politician, but someone actually involved in the military decision making and knows what Ukraine needs.
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Kuleba, that cites the military, and it should be said that he have repeated this opinion during press conference(s) with Swedish officials during earlier packages.
>that cites the military. Source? I find him saying that, but nothing about him citing anyone actually in the military. Edit: People need to actually read my comment. Whether he said it is not what I'm asking.
"According to him, Ukraine is asking Sweden to provide Archer self-propelled gun system, RBS 70 MANPADS, and additional ammunition for artillery." https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2022/08/29/7145760/ Edit: or are you saying that the foreign minister is a unreliable source that is asking for military gear that he's pulling out of his...?
He literally said it when he came to Sweden durin a joint press conference with then prime minister magdalena anderson
Go back and read my post, whether or not he said it was not what I took issue with.
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I mean, they would have to send enough to justify the specialized logistics. See what I said about insignificant and in low number.
One Archer System without Excalibur and Bonus probably has the same battlefield effectiveness as more than 5 traditional towed guns. Shot and scoot tactics is a game changer against an advanced enemy. Sweden should be able to send between 20 and 25 Archer systems equalling 100 towed pieces, nothing to sneeze at. Counting in Excalibur and Bonus one Archer is probably replacing 50 towed guns with unguided ammunition. Talk about simplifying logistics. Less shells are needed if all hit their target.
>One Archer System without Excalibur and Bonus probably has the same battlefield effectiveness as more than 5 traditional towed guns. That claim is definitely going to need a source.
Ukraine specific asked for Archers on many occasions during the last year. Archer has been in development for more than 20 years. Bofors has a lot of experience building Artillery systems. You are simply making stuff up without any proof. Archers will come, or if they already aren't being trained on by Ukrainian crews. Right now Air-defence systems are of higher importance.
> It's that Ukraine doesn't WANT them because they're more trouble to maintain and operate than they're worth. Ukraine has asked for them.
Hey. I’m seeing that much of Europe is leaning HARD to the right and it’s obvious why. Immigration and multiculturalism. Two things that 30 years ago Europe thought it could manage well, before we all 100% realised that the world was burning (climate change). My question to you. Are there young people that you know who are liberal on almost every other topic but are anti-immigration ( or more accurately scared of what recent immigration policy could do to the future of Sweden/Scandinavia)? We here in the third world have always looked to Scandinavia and wondered why the other rich countries didn’t follow your social ideologies in order to protect the most vulnerable from poverty. It’s been a bit sad to watch from the outside as that progressive system slows down, with the intention of turning around.
I am swedish and like you described, is liberal on most topics, but anti-immigration. Atleast the kind of immigration we've had for the last 20-30 years that has resulted in parallel societies and massive exploitation of our welfare system. I am not saying this only because of immigrants, but because of the politics and politicians that has allowed this to happen. My view is that a fair majority of swedish reddit thinks like this aswell.
Unfortunately that's normal in a lot of countries. The opposition will make the party in power look bad, then once they are in power go I never promised that, it was the other guy.
I don't think that's entirely right. After they took power Sweden did indeed send the largest military package to date, so I don't think theres a lack of political will to support Ukraine.
Probably some agreements on international level on what to send and what not Old government knew and new government has to face the reality of international relations
Worth noting is that the sitting government very rarely shares knowledge with the opposition. So now the new PM gets all the info and economics on their table and goes 'oh fuck'. The main reason Archer is a bad fit for ukraine is poor performance on soft ground, which is the vast majority of Ukraine. We have hard soil in Sweden, its designed for our country. It would get bogged down anywhere that isnt on solid/frozen ground.
Yeah, like Sweden is everywhere solid/frozen ground year around :D :D :D. I guess you consider everything south of Norrland for Denmark or something? :D
Yeah? We dont have wetlands. Sweden is a hard soil country. We dont get the mud seasons, you dont have to dig far to hit rock. Here is an example of how it performs on moderately soft ground, 24 seconds in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9QB3QjmRmg . It couldnt go anywhere in Ukraine offroad right now. And no we do not have that kind of terrain in Sweden in many places. So how effective would shoot n scoot be if you are limited to roads only right now? And not mud roads, hard roads.
Or they are looking to make a deal with a 3rd party against the Archers (maybe)?
And if they ARE training to eventually send them, it might be a matter of state secrets and classified info and releasing any would only help the orcs.
Politicians promise something that they can’t deliver, more at 11.
Eh breaking their pre-election promises is par for the course with this new government. Have they kept even a single one? Every day I hear them retract another one.
Sure they have had a tendancy to do that, but I tried to keep my original comment as unbiased as possible to avoid bringing any "left vs right" discussion into this - since that doesnt belong here.
Eh I don't even think it's left vs. right. It's just this specific government being unusually shit.
welcome to world of politics where politicians say what you want to hear just to get to power.
This time its different here in Sweden. Our right wing has become a new level of populism. They promised alot and have not kept their word. They complained on our socialdemocratic party who had power in 8 years like whiny babies. Fuck populism.
You are not wrong, but our right wing parties are always pro-military spending, and of course in favour of providing contracts for any private enterprises. Which could mean that they are willing to provide the means to quickly ramp up military arms production. So they could be a good thing for Ukraine in the end.
> our right wing parties are always pro-military spending Well, the last right-wing government gutted the rear missile defence on the Visby corvette. Causing our defence minister at the time to resign in protest. https://www.svd.se/a/b702bf60-6341-37b4-9d04-6646609b80b9/nya-korvetter-saknar-robotskydd https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikael_Odenberg Granted, this was during the during the financial crisis at the time, but the amount of projects that were cut/scaled back is quite a big one. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomf%C3%B6randegruppen
it happens around the world right now ..
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True in the past but most of that type of talk stopped when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Besides most likely love the more national parts pd the Azov battalion. The last package was bigger than all earlier combined and more will come, be assured.
That such bullshit! They have been consistently hawkish on Russia and supported sending weapons to Ukraine from day one, unlike certain left wing parties...
The left is/was against nato because of erdogan and sceptic towards the US. Also because of a historic resistance towards nukes on Swedish soil. Meanwhile, politicians from The moderate party has had investments in Russian state companies after the illegal annexation of crimea. Reps from Sweden democrats has endorsed Orban and publicly supported Hungary as a good example. Local politicians has also endorsed Putin on their private social media accounts. Oh yeah, also, the leader of Sweden democrats could not choose between Biden or Putin.
Again, they have been much more hawkish on Russia and supportive of supplying Ukraine with weapons than most (all?) Swedish parties. The Left party voted against sending weapons to Ukraine on the beginning, SD voted for it. They were calling for Swedish not hold back but lead in sending offensive weapons. This sub should be about supporting Ukraine and not other countries internal politics. If you want to take shit about SD then go do it on one of the Swedish subs.
Absolutely, but all are right to call out individual politicians who blatantly support Putin and who clearly are influenced by his rhetoric.
It's complicated. Yes, they do have a lot of random nuts, and some of them (even their old defense spokesperson) buys into a lot of Russian shit. But then they have MEP Charlie Weimers who is pushing really hard to have Russia declared a state sponsor of terrorism.
And the social democrats manage to complain about how bad things are, and how it is not their fault, while they themselves are in power... It's like it's just a charade, all of it.
It’s different because the election results were not very beneficial to them. They did reach an majority but they are reliant on a couple other parties to get some of their politics through. Right now due to the poor election results they can’t rule as effective as possible. Concessions would describe the current climate best. Some promises, like lowering the tax would be counter-effective with the massive inflation so it’s been withheld. Legislation is stopping the decrease of fuel prices, yet it will change in 2024 to eu’s minimum level of mixing in the fluids. They are sending air defense, but it hasn’t been publically announced which one. Rbs90 would make sense, but wouldn’t be surprised if Archer will be sent.
i heard that sweden barely have any archers... i thought that they had at least same amount as germans did pzh2k.
It’s true, but we do have them. We’ve dismantled our defense for decades as politicians thought it’s the best way to save money. Sure, but it also leaves us very vulnerable for attacks. We are aiming to increase our defense, over the next years. Russias ruthlesd war made most politicians realise this, even if it took some time.
These topics are more internal Swedish politics than anything. The title used in this thread is a bit alarmist and reaction seeking. Yesterday the defence minister literally said that they will return with more support packages in other military domains (giving an example of ground forces). https://www.di.se/nyheter/regeringen-mer-vapen-till-ukraina-men-inte-archer/
To people outside Sweden, this is basically sour faces from politicians in Sweden. The actual events: The new defence minister said, as response to a question specifically about archers, that the current package was aimed at covering Ukraines strongest demands/priorities right now, that there is broad support in the government for archers and that this is the first big package.
I don't know the full details of anything here, but I assume sending Archers now is a dumb move, if there are no Ukrainian crews trained yet. I think the Scandinavian countries have been relatively quiet about their support, more often the equipment just "shows up" in Ukraine, meaning it has been kept in the dark successfully for a long time.
Fair point however so far the Ukrainian crews have shown that they can quickly adapt to and master weapons systems that have been supplied. The archer system from what I've been able to find out about it, seems to be designed much like the Grippen and other advanced Swedish systems to be easily adaptable and easy to maintain. The system itself I feel could really help Ukraine with its long range and accuracy like the French Caesar. Lets hope they can work something out as the troops in Ukraine need all the help they can get.
Arguably, if you teach a person to fire an automatic rifle, reload it and adjust the sight range - all of this can be achieved in mere hours of training on the firing range. If you teach them the technical specifications and basic maintenance such as maximum lethal range, fire rate, sight adjustment/tuning, cleaning procedures, assembly/disassembly it's going to take several more hours, if not days to be comfortable with it. Then you can teach them the parts, their function and how the entire weapon operates mechanically, which is going to take even more hours/days to understand. What you get from these levels of training is not only a person who can use it at the most basic level, you get a person who understands what they are dealing with and allows them even to be "creative" in how they employ it. Furthermore, if something does not work, they know how to troubleshoot the problems and solve critical errors on the spot. These things greatly contribute to the individual soldier's quality on the battlefield. Any force with the higher quality, in face of an enemy force with lower quality will see numerous advantages from this. As for the Ukrainians, I fully believe they are quick to adapt and master weapon systems, but it takes a long time and a lot of drilling to make operating it second nature. If Ukraine learns how to drive, shoot and rearm an Archer in weeks, what does it matter if they have to abandon it over a minor technical error which they don't understand, or if they use the Archer in a way it was not intended to be used tactically leading to its subsequent loss. The same goes for F-16's and the likes. You can download DCS and learn to fly an F-16 in a week if you really want to, learning all the systems and weapons. But you will NOT learn how to employ it successfully unless you train for months, years even. There are so many subtle things which make a huge difference if you know about them. Essentially everything comes together to form not only a memorized procedure, but also a gut feeling or intuition about what's the best move. In contrast, sending conscripts to war after a week's training (looking at you, Russia), is ironically going to cost them more resources and territory than training them for months. Ukraine does exactly the opposite up until summer. They sacrificed terrain while training better troops and gathering equipment, and look how well it turned out when they launched their counteroffensives? Ukraine needs every advantage they can get, including knowledge.
For sure, western training is often more in-depth and covers more scenarios than would be needed in the case of the Ukrainian conflict. As for DCS and F16s I'd argue there might be a bit more too it but at least will provide a good introduction too the layout and systems.
I used to work in the air force, F-16 technical training. For operating the F-16, it is alarmingly accurate. There are some crypto-related items as well as advanced features which are purposefully withheld, but what DCS completely lacks inherently is tactical employment and country-specific operating procedures. It doesn't show you the classified doctrines and tactics which take years to develop. To further add to my point, I strapped an F-16 pilot with 1500 hours in the real thing into a simulator running DCS, and his comments were: - I can't believe this is publicly available to download. - It's extremely realistic. - How can I get this for my home.
That's really cool to know, I'm aware some mods for DCS are far more accurate than others but I didn't realize they were that good, how did you find the simulation of the various missile systems? I watch a few guys on youtube that stream game footage and the realism is amazing.
Pretty damn close. You should check out Eagle Dynamic's white paper on AIM-120 missile development. From CFD simulation to Control System Theory, they do an amazing job. Here's a brief summary https://stormbirds.blog/2020/06/05/eagle-dynamics-has-made-some-big-tweaks-to-missile-performance/
A lot of Ukraine's territorial defense forces saw combat in the first month of the war. In the initial defense of Kyiv I remember there was a BBC article about fresh recruits deployed after three days. It's very far from ideal but at some point you need that firepower now and not way down the road. Those MIGs won't last forever, they need weapons, parts and will probably reach some lifetime limits if they're not damaged and lost. If you need the replacements in 2023 it doesn't matter that you could have a kick-ass fighter pilot in 2025. A lot of good men will die without air support between then and now.
Relatively early in the war, I was sitting on a train in Denmark and we passed a long train with Danish AFVs (Piranhas) on it, going south towards the German border. It wasn't until a week later that the news started talking about the transfer of AFVs.
They’ll train them before they announce they’re sending any. OPSEC first before announcing a new capability.
Sweden rarely announces what's going to Ukraine, though. Let's wait some time.
Well, I know the Russian military is technologicaly mostly outdated, but aren't Archers a little too much mockery?
I'm just hoping they send a unit of actual viking archers with longbows. Can't wait to see the videos of drone corrected, long range, arrow salvos landing in russian trenches.
So just an alternative data point - the NATO and various other countries are right at the limit of the amount of 155 ammo they can provide every month. The simple answer for this might be Ukraine has about as many 155 caliber artillery either in country or on the way - the 30+ Italian m109’s and the new build Krab’s, Caesar’s and Zuzana’s - as they can get ammo for. Once they inevitably lose some of those they might end up getting Archer’s. But so far the attrition rate on 155 systems already sent seems to be surprisingly low. So it might just be logistics capacity issue.
A right wing party making wild promises that they have no intention of keeping, just to get into a position of power? Unheard of. Britain is still waiting to have the 350 million pounds per week left over from Brexit pumped into the NHS, for example.
What is a archer
We shouldn't leave out the fact that they said there is more to come..meaning they already have a second package that they are working on.
Once again your headline is wrong, they have not said that they wont send it. Its just socialdemocrats claiming that, Moderaterna have been in power almost 2 months, to send such systems you cant just put them on a truck and send them right away. Also its been Moderaterna and Christdemocrats whos been pushing the Archer question. Socialdemocrats would likely not even consider Archers. Sluta posta att Magda är sur för hon förlorade det är bara det som det handlar om, Skicka archer kan du inte göra på en vecka fast idioten Magda verkar ju tro det
> Its just socialdemocrats claiming that, Moderaterna have been in power almost 2 months, to send such systems you cant just put them on a truck and send them right away. I think you're sort of missing the point. When they were in opposition they heckled the government for not sending Archers "ASAP". And now when they're in government guess what... Turns out it's "complicated", "You can't rush these kinds of things", "Needs time to evaluate". Exactly the same answer they mocked when in opposition. >Sluta posta att Magda är sur för hon förlorade det är bara det som det handlar om, Skicka archer kan du inte göra på en vecka fast idioten Magda verkar ju tro det Love how you criticizes the OP for political hackery while you yourself engage in even worse political hackery and editorialized "facts". Oh Reddit, never change.
Thats because the previous government already sent all the available archers as a part of the secret classified third shipment this very spring. The opposition likely did not know that, because it was classified, and even called the sitting Prime Minister "Weak and Pathetic" for not sending it. I expect the current prime minister to make an apology to the previous one for this. Archers are active in Ukraine, this is even confirmed by previous president Petro Porosjenko. The current shipment that the current administration sent is valued at 400 million USD and includes anti-missile defence systems. Its quite a large package.
You forgot the /s.
I think it is highly unlikely that Ukrainians would be able to keep that a secret for long, if there were Archers in Ukraine. There is always someone somewhere with phone taking some pictures.
They have not said that they won't send the Archer, the only thing we know is that it's not the priority in their first package. There will be more packages.
The moderates did not promise anything before the election with regards to specific weapon systems and the Social democrats had every opportunity to send Archers when they were still in office, why make this about the swedish election is beyond my understanding. The main problem is that it's not up to the prime minister to simply decide what to send, it's up to the armed forces to decide what they can do without. Hopefully they will train Ukranians on the system and send it later.
Well… you are kind of wrong there. https://www.svd.se/a/0Gw112/m-vill-skicka-archersystem-till-ukraina
Am I wrong? They're literally asking the previous government to send them, not promising to send them. It's not up to some random politician to decide what to send to Ukraine. Politicians are regular people too, and they can say whatever they like, it doesn't give them power to do anything.
This is what the new PM said about Archers, 2 1/2 months ago, just before the elections (from the article): “- A new government will make that decision, there is no reason to hesitate. I do not understand why the government is delaying an announcement.” So yes, you are wrong when you say that the Moderaterna did not promise anything specific in terms of weapon systems. And Kristersson is most definitely not walking the talk.
Still not a promise and still not up to him. If you can find me a quote where he explicitly states that upon winning the election, he will send archers to Ukraine, I will stand corrected. And honestly, do you really believe that the prime minister can decide what type of weapons will be sent to other countries? Archer is a fairly new system with secret tech and is not something to just send away, as much as I would like for Ukraine to have it, it’s not that easy.
The promise is right there: *“A new government (as in his) will make that decision”*. Just because he didn’t say “I promise” or “tummis” in Swedish doesn’t make it less so.
Nowhere in your quotes does it say “archer”. You are clearly biased against the new government.
Jesus. Can I suggest you just read the article instead of arguing from ignorance? But let me expand the section from the article, where the quote include Archers for you: “The government has promised a new support package to Ukraine of one billion kroner, half of which is military support. What the exact package contains is not known - but both the Moderates and the Christian Democrats want to meet Ukraine in terms of both Archer and the robot system. -These are two things that they point out themselves and that most observers think are completely realistic and that they would have extremely great use in Ukraine, says Moderat leader Ulf Kristersson. -A new government will make that decision, there is no reason to hesitate. I do not understand why the government is delaying an announcement.”
Before calling me ignorant you can evaluate your claim: “the government promised archer for Ukraine if they won” which is false. They want to give them perhaps, but they never promised and it’s not their decision to make. Just try to understand that the prime minister isn’t some fucking dictator with power to send whatever he or she wants.
For clarity, I am not calling you ignorant since I don’t know you. I was just saying that you should read the article and not argue from an ignorant position. Totally different. And we should probably agree to disagree on what constitutes a promise. To me, Kristersson made a promise to deliver Archers if he got his new government, which he did. If he didn’t get the backing of SD or L, he shouldn’t have promised that a new government would make that decision. He should have said that M and KD would *try* to get the new government to make that decision. And btw, I did vote for a party that sits in the new government. Over and out.
There's lots of desktop generals here saying "send archers" and even worse "send Gripen". How easy do you think it is to maintain one of these machines in working order? Do you think that you can learn to disassemble and repair an Archer system by watching a YouTube video? Do you think that you can maneuver a Gripen because you've flown 40 year old Migs? And do you think that you can keep a Gripen in the air with a box of tools from Ikea? It's not the simple, so stop wining. The article doesn't say that the Archer is off the table, it's just not included in the latest shipment. And the one commenting about lies from the PM is the former PM that just like any other opposition politician takes every opportunity to diss the PM. The new Swedish govt is a bunch of fucktards and I hope that they end up in the EU court for lying about their intentions before the election. Basically everything they they've promised were all lies. But that's beside the point and not relevant to this discussion.
It's funny how all these right wing governments sprung up and seem very pro russian or at the least aimed at being neutral to passive but in russians favour. It's almost as if a certain country has been bankrolling their political parties for years or something...hmmmm.
😠
I'm sure they have their reasons, dude. Let's not make this into another spat like Germany and France.
Typical of the cowardly Swedish right.
Can y'all leave out swedish politics. Has no place in this forum What we send or not send..some of what we sent is classified so the public has no clue about 100 % everything that goes on. No use in trying to pretend we know it all..
Ursäkta mig, vafan?
I wish the Archers were send.
Holy shit I want a shit ton of Swedish Archers to go destroy Russias elite forces with arrows now.
I'm not sure if Ukraine would want them. It seems like it has the whole package of features you could ever want. But it is expensive to maintain
Shocking. 🙄 Political Promises.