"Russian Pilot Shot Flares at Swedish Jet" Topic

"Sweden's top military commander says Russian fighter pilots are behaving in an increasingly aggressive manner in northern Europe, flying dangerously close to Swedish Air Force jets and in some cases even releasing flares at them.

Supreme Commander Sverker Goransson told a seminar on the Swedish island of Gotland on Monday that the Russians are breaking the normal rules of conduct for when military aircraft meet in the air.

He said examples include Russian planes breaking formation, flying at unsafe distances and using "countermeasures" that "nearly bounce off the metal" of the Swedish aircraft.

The Swedish military on Tuesday confirmed he was talking about decoy flares designed to divert incoming missiles…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Game on!

My money's on the Swedish pilots.

Where there is instability, Putin's Russia gains. Therefore, where things are stable, their goal is to create instability.

Now, I'm not quite up to speed on Baltic aviation. How do the Swedish front line fighter squadrons compare to Russia's naval aviation?

Swedes have 62 GripenCs in service with 50 earlier models in storage.

I'm going to guess the pilot quality is a lot better than the Russian average so they should be able to handle the threat.

Finns can add in another 54 F18Cs even before one looks at NATO.

The actual number of aircraft is a bit of a complex issue, formaly the Swedish Airforce has 97 Gripens in it's inventory but only 72 of those are part of the war time organisation. In additon 67 older Gripens are mothballed while the remainder of the origanly 204 are mostly leased to other nations.

Pilot quality is not what it once was though the average is still probably better than that of the Russians. Budget restrictions and problems with recruitment has caused problems compared to the Cold War period when pilot quality was very high indeed.

Main problem is however not the quality of the pilots but the lack of ground crews and a shortage of missiles. Ground crew shortage may be so bad that only some 16-24 could be used sustained operations with peaks of some 30-40 aircraft if corners are cut/maxmimum effort made. It could be that the ground crew shortage could be made up by calling up former conscripts and people who have left the service but neither category will have fresh training and skills.

Missiles is a huge problem as Sweden only purchased 100 AMRAAMS and the replacement missilie (the Meteor) has yet to enter active service which causes significant problems at BVR range. Short range missilies is less of a problem with 400 IRIS-T in service and there might even be old Sidewinders sitting in storage.

Bases are another problem with several of the Baltic bases within S-400 or Iskander range even without adding the threat of air lainched weapons. The number of bases is also only a fraction of what was available during the Cold War period and the inovative network of road bases has been decomissioned. A surprise first strike could seriously damage the Swedish airforce as long as the current conditions are in place.

Time for the Swedes to start loading ball bearings in their decoy dispensers …

Agree!.

Amicalement
Armand

"Brilliant" move by Russia. Putin doesn't want Sweden to join NATO so he craps all over them which can only encourage them to join NATO. I'm beginning to seriously wonder about the man's sanity!

"Brilliant" move by Russia. Putin doesn't want Sweden to join NATO so he craps all over them which can only encourage them to join NATO. I'm beginning to seriously wonder about the man's sanity!

I agree, I don't see what he can gain by this other than to move Sweden closer to NATO. All that he can hope is that the Swedes are so frightened that they sign on with him but I really don't think this is the way to do that.

True, but then he still controls the discussion, and while we're all discussing the very unlikely possibility of Sweden joining NATO, we're not discussing the Crimea or Eastern Ukraine.

Thanks for the input, Daniel. Very interesting.

Sometimes when people and nations are threatened, they get their back up and respond with strength. Sometimes they cave. I believe this is peace in our time.

Then the British and French went back to sleep. They did not hold exercises in Poland. They did not enter into negotiations with Sweden or other nations to form a solid wall against Germany.

Even if Sweden woke up tomorrow and said, we want to join NATO as soon as possible, how long would that take? Years?

Then you play with Russian invasion of Sweden with the wild card that NATO might intervene, if you roll three sixes on two D6. Not likely.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

See some of us can tell that Russia will never ivnade Sweden in a month of Sudnays because it has precisely zero reason to do so.

Surprised we've not had someone on saying this is the sort of thing both sides do, that's what usually happens when we hear about an encounter with a Russian aircraft.

Ascent,

Funnily enough I was going to say that in the first post, but just thought I'd sit here and wait… It's what usually appears, but the posters then go strangely quiet when asked to provide examples… Perhaps they've got the message at last?

Daniel S-

The limited info I can find on the road bases shows some of them still in use for training or so this commentary says:

link

Old article, a lot have changed in the 8 years since it was written and not for the better.

The runways still exist in some places but all the other supporting infrastructure such as fuel dumps, weapons bunkers, operations rooms and so on have been rendered unfit for operations or outright torn down. And the "Bas 90" battalions which serviced the road bases with ground crews and other staff no longer exist.

So could certainly be reactivated with enough money but that won't happen as none of the political parties are willing to spend the money needed to make the outdated and far too small "IO 2014" operational.

mentioned above s300 and iskander, what kind of dedicated sead capability has Sweden got