U.S. Navy Is Hunting For a Swedish Submarine

The U.S. Navy has been hunting a Swedish submarine (HMS Gotland) in the Pacific Ocean since June 27 2005. They haven´t found her yet. The search is a bilateral exercise. The sub has some advanced equipment to make it easier to hide. A unique propulsion system which allows her to stay submerged at sea for weeks without having to come up to recharge the batteries or snorkel for air. No other sub have this propulsion system yet and the U.S. Navy is very interested in it. Sweden is not a member of NATO. She has been hiding well for almost a year now...

HMS Gotland

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Jo A. Wilbourn Sims

Related Links:
Navynews: Swedish Submarine HMS Gotland Arrives in San Diego (6/30/2005)

Wouldnt their stores have run out within a month or two at sea? I mean like foods and toiletries and such. Is it missing or just eluding the USN in a 9 month exercise.
Looks rather conventional to me by the pic's.

It is not missing, it is eluding the USN in a 12 month exercise. They have just made a deal to extend the exercise with another year. I don't know what they do about food. Maybe they are fishing?

Originally posted by Hellmutt
The U.S. Navy has been hunting a Swedish submarine (HMS Gotland) in the Pacific Ocean since June 27 2005. They haven´t found her yet.

No where in the article is the above indicated, Hellmutt.

If so please indicate such, because as it stands, your making an assumption based upon an article that has been out since 6/30/05. Furthermore, your assuming that since 6/30/05, no other reports have surfaced concerning this bilateral exercise? The article only talks of the 'Gotland' arriving to participate in the bilateral exercise, the 'Gotland' crew getting their boat ready for the bilateral exercise, and how they are looking forward to the exercise. You cannot infer or assume that the 'Gotland' has not been found when it arrived in NAS North Island on June 27, 2005. I guess it was safe to assume that the bilateral exercise started on the very same day, huh?

The Swedish attack submarine HMS Gotland arrived at Naval Air Station North Island, Calif., June 27 to begin a one-year bilateral training effort with the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces.

“We have been waiting for this day,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jan Westas, commanding officer of Gotland, which was shipped on a container ship from Sweden while the crew traveled separately. “We have all missed Gotland. Everyone is motivated, ready and eager to go to sea and get back to work.”

Before beginning the yearlong training here, Gotland’s crew has to complete a lot of work to make the boat ready for sea.

seekerof

[edit on 18-4-2006 by Seekerof]

Seekerof,
It was an article in Norwegian so I didn't include it here. The Norwegian article is here: Dagbladet: USA jakter paa svensk ubaat, and it has a few more pictures as well. They say Australian and Canadian ships also has searched for the sub without any luck...

hah. If you go back and look, every Pacific deployment in 2006 has featured an ASW exercise off of Pearl Harbor.

Reagan CSG in January:
www.nctimes.com...

Peleliu ESG in February:
www.navytimes.com...

Lincoln CSG in March:
starbulletin.com...

As for the results of those exercises, nobody knows while they remain classified. The lease agreement prohibits the Gotland Sailors from giving details of any operational information regarding the Gotland while under lease of the US Navy, so anything in that article is most likely fabricated, unless Sweden is breaking the agreement.

Sorry, I find that extreamly unlikely, I have met many Swedish sailors, and my first and last impression was that of professionalism.

I'm curious apart from teh issue of food, what baout oxygen ? Nuke subs are able to prodice oxygen through electrolosys of the sea water using the power of their reactors, where does this sub get it's oxygen from - carrying O2 tanks for weeks of air would take up a hell of a lot of space.

BTW, the shape of the Gotland looks almost identical to the Australian Collins Class subs, which I believe are of Swedish design themselves.

Here is a Wikipedia article about this sub. Looks like the exercise started July 18, 2005 and not June 27th which I initially thought...

Wikipedia: HMS Gotland (Gtd)

In 2004 the Swedish government received a request from the United States of America to lease HMS Gotland with crew – Swedish-flagged, commanded and manned, for a duration of at least one year for use in anti-submarine warfare exercises. The Swedish government decided in October 2004 to grant this request. On March 21, 2005 the United States Navy and the Swedish Navy signed a memorandum of understanding regarding this.

HMS Gotland was loaded on board the Norwegian MV Eide Transporter, a semi-submersible heavy-lift ship on May 10, 2005 to begin a month-long voyage over the Atlantic Ocean and through the Panama Canal to Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California where it arrived on June 27, 2005.

After a couple weeks of getting accustomed to the new environment, the exercises with United States 3rd Fleet began on July 18, 2005, and will continue for at least 12 months.

[edit on 2006/4/18 by Hellmutt]

Originally posted by mad scientist
I'm curious apart from teh issue of food, what baout oxygen ? Nuke subs are able to prodice oxygen through electrolosys of the sea water using the power of their reactors, where does this sub get it's oxygen from - carrying O2 tanks for weeks of air would take up a hell of a lot of space.

I would think this sub has an oxygen generator as well.
You don't need nuclear power to employ one.
I was on a Los Angeles class but our o2 generator ran off of the regular
ship's electrical power. So I'm sure an AIP sub would have one too.

I think the OP misunderstood the article. The exercise may have been planned to last a year. But that doesn't mean the sub and its adversaries
were at sea the whole time. Probably go out for a week or two. Come back into port for a week, go back out for 10 days. Come back in for 2 weeks etc...

It all depends on the parameters of the exercise. I can tell you even a nuclear submarine is very hard to detect without an idea of where it could be, or until after it attacks and reveals itself. So if this AIP sub has not been detected yet by the BG, it wouldn't surprise me.

If there is a battegroup operating out in the ocean and a sub has been tasked to make practice attack runs against it, 99 out of 100 times, any competant sub will make a successful attack before getting counter detected.

Originally posted by Hellmutt
... A unique propulsion system which allows her to stay submerged at sea for weeks without having to come up to recharge the batteries or snorkel for air. No other sub have this propulsion system yet and the U.S. Navy is very interested in it. ...

Yes, but the Germans have 2 more effective AIP systems that already have been sold...

I had problems with that Swedish link, Hellmutt, and I appreciate you linking--after the fact --so I did some hunting around (which I did not have the time for when I previously posted) and ran across this article: US Navy to continue hunt for Swedish sub

I will admit that some of my conclusions were wrong, thus I apologize to you, Hellmutt.

Having said that, I do believe that, all-in-all, this is something that the US Navy needs experience in, especially after reading this article: US Navy Struggles to Recapture, Keep ASW Proficiency and this: U.S. Navy puts new emphasis on anti-submarine training

ASW is a very difficult field and I have read where a Los Angelos Class sub was able to do as the HMS Gotland has done. With Iran buying like submarines as the HMS Gotland, me'thinks that this bilateral training will be good for both countries, but mainly the US Navy ASW areas against coastal waters and diesel submarine warfare. Obviously, this speaks well for the Swedes and their respected submarines and submariners.

Btw, the HMS Gotland utilizes liquid oxygen for air.





seekerof

[edit on 18-4-2006 by Seekerof]

Perhaps the new technology like the Acoustic Daylight Imaging would help to detect diesel electric boats with less difficulty. Hope the technology comes on time soon.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Perhaps the new technology like the Acoustic Daylight Imaging would help to detect diesel electric boats with less difficulty. Hope the technology comes on time soon.

I think the US Navy's Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) Task Force approach has been pretty interesting so far.

An example is the LCS:

ADS – Advanced Deployable Systems
ALFS – Airborne Low Frequency Sonar
LFS – Low Frequency Dipping Sonar
EER – Explosive Echo Ranging (SSQ-110 family of Sonobuoys)
MFTA – Multi-function Towed Array
MSOBS – Multi-Static Offboard Source
RTAS – Remotely Towed Active Source
UTAS – USV Towed Array System

Basically 1 LCS will deploy 2 USVs, 2 UUVs, and 3 UAVs which combine ADS nets, up to 3 towed arrays at once, multiple active/passive sonobouy fields, capability to field active source from onboard systems which allows mapping of areas and triangulation of 'black holes', all datalinked with the helo and UAVs with offboard weapons.

I think that is a pretty good start for the US Navy, which was clearly way behind ASW capabilities all of last decade. It helps that the 5 countries best at ASW in the world are strategic partners, specifically the UK, Canada, Singapore, France, and Australia.

The Gotland class uses a stirling engine to provide the AIP propulsion system (it was the first vessel with an operational AIP system btw). It has the added bonus of having extremly low noise and vibration compared to the usual systems. Combine that with the small size (1500 dwt at full submergence) and thet are very useful boats.

According to the Wikipedia article she apparently manage to "sink" the USS Ronald Reagan...

According to online sources, the HMS Gotland managed to snap several pictures of the USS Ronald Reagan during a wargames exercise in the Pacific Ocean, effectively "sinking" the aircraft carrier.

careful: if you say things like that, you'll open the whole 'what does it take to sink a carrier' can of worms again.

Can o' Worms already open...
Check the 'USN Unbeatable' thread for that..

i know, thats what i ment!

Originally posted by Hellmutt
According to the Wikipedia article she apparently manage to "sink" the USS Ronald Reagan...

According to online sources, the HMS Gotland managed to snap several pictures of the USS Ronald Reagan during a wargames exercise in the Pacific Ocean, effectively "sinking" the aircraft carrier.

NOt exactly hard to do, Australian submarines have "sunk" US Carriers in several times in exercises over the last couple of years. And that's even with these Collins Class ubs which are notorious for breaking down - Swedish designed as well, lol.

The Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes are the masters of submarine detection, from what I understand. Their position as gatekeepers of the Baltic and Barents gave them lots of practice finding Soviet subs. Wouldn't seem hard to take that experience and turn it the other way around.

I'm curious about the crew's morale. This may be a stupid question- Do they get breaks, or are the crews rotated? I know submariners are a professional and disciplined lot, but it seems a lot to ask to have them remain on their sub for two whole years for an exercise. If they get rotated out, wouldn't that provide an opportunity for the US to find them?

[edit on 19-4-2006 by koji_K]