October 31, 2018

A Swedish Mini-submarine or Minesweeping ROV operating near Stockholm?

This article below is now wrong - and has been superseded/corrected by a later Submarine Matters article of November 8, 2018 - that is "Mystery Swedish "not a foreign submarine" Revealed as a "SEAL Carrier""

Why would the Swedish military cover up yet another mystery submarine or robot underwater drone seen near Stockholm, the Swedish capital? Could it be that the Swedish military, is unwilling to confirm its undersea / inlet SOSUS sensors (like the ones at Malsten station which is near Stockholmhave long detected Russian underwater activities? 

When there are confrontations the overbearing political and military power of Russia often scares the small, neutral, Swedish political and military establishment into being quiet. 


Part based on Kyle Mizokami’s October 30, 2018 article in Popular Mechanics comes this tale. On June 28, 2018, off the Boson peninsula on Lidingö island (see red marker on map above) a group of Swedish children and teenage instructors at a sailing camp near Stockholm saw and filmed (see Youtube below) an unidentified underwater vehicle surface in the waters near Stockholm. 




9 seconds in see blurry image of the mysterious submarine (or UUV?) filmed in June 2018. This Swedish language Youtube was uploaded in late October 2018.
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[Pete comment: A major impediment is that there were no scale (ideally a crewman in the fin/sail) to indicate scale/size of the black watercraft in the Swedish student photography. Was the "submarine" 5m long (surface measurement) or 15m long?]

The kids “observed large air bubbles, then a huge black object rose from the depths, heading east.” The sub disappeared after about 20 minutes. Only a short blurry video recorded the event when 2 or 3 high quality phone/camera images would have been more authoritative.

The Swedish military appeared very unwilling to publicise the student's camera work other than reporting there were no Swedish or foreign submarines operating in the area at the time of the sighting. If no submarine what about a very large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) (aka Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)?

Possibly, but very unlikely, the small submarine photographed may be a Russian Project 1851 Paltus-class. These “nuclear-powered subs are just 180 feet long, displace 720 tons, and have a top speed of six knots.” But one would expect a Paltus would use its nuclear endurance for deepwater cable-splicing (electronic intercept) missions. Was it splicing a shallow cable for practice?

A little more likely the submarine may have been a conventional modern variant of the Russian Losos/Piranha minisub. Readers of Submarine Matters will recall that Swedish observers spotted mysterious submarine activity in waters close to Stockholm in October 2014 (see here for the Losos/Piranha theory) and also this 2015 article here).  



Also a little more likely is that it was a joint Russian/Iranian developed Nahang class small sub of around 375 tons, diesel electric (see photo above) filmed in Persian Gulf-Arabian Sea.  

Alternatively and more likely the "submarine" filmed may actually be a very large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) (aka Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)) being tested and revealed in error. As well as reconnaissance UUVs/ROVs can be used for slow, methodical, minesweeping. This activity may hold arms business sensitivities especially near capitals of neutral countries. 

ROVs are not necessarilly orange. They may come in camouflage black for some missions. Many  companies/countries market and foreign test underwater ROV minesweepers.

Pete

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like Swedish Military needs some more money against the "Russian thread". And Lasse Westren wrights Swedish history again. Last time he got in the News with his "Russian Submarine", the A26 program was suddenly pushed Forward after years of Stagnation. Everyone in charge knew it was him, but Funding was needed soooo badly. Which program is it going to be this time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdyNPyqLkA

BTW. There were a Russian Navy Veteran who eplained an anecditoc situation: In the 70's or 80's it were actually Russians, who left tank tracks at the Bottom of the Baltic Sea off Swedish coast. But it was just a routine test. The towed "Seliger" deepsea Observation and espionage chamber used a piece of a continuous track from a tractor for buoyancy Control when Floating near bottom. It works just like an anchor chain: put a link on a ground - gain buoyancy, ascend a link - loose buoyancy. They tested this system on their way from Baltic Sea to a secret Mission in the Atlantic Ocean and... Voila! Russian tanks on the Bottom of the sea!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdyNPyqLkA

Pete said...

Hi Anonymous

I think just about any country building or planning submarines would want to justify the high sub costs with reference to foreign country threats. Also subs are an asymmetric solution of little Sweden vs big Russia and little Australia versus China.

In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdyNPyqLkA a female journalist entering a Scandi mini sub is inherently risky...

Actually actual land tanks can cross underwater on river beds if the tanks are "buttoned down" stopping all leaks and have a snorkel system to allow their diesels and crews to "breathe". This occured with selected British Centurion tanks in West German rivers in the 1960s.

Regards

Pete

Anonymous said...

Sorry for extremely questionable grammar last time. I was in the hurry :-)

Well, looking for an asymmetric solution against a threat is not bad. Bad is when you are not playing fair. I don't like Russians as well, but I won't prefer to lie to justify my high acquisition costs for submarines and other weapon systems. Lying about the "Russian-threat" in 2013 or now and spreading mass hysteria about "Russians are coming" while knowing it better, is not the way to go in my opinion, despite Sweden was given enough reasons to do so (see the Whiskey class stranding off Karlskrona in 1981 - "Whiskey on the rocks incident" for example).

We had enough female journalists on our home built submarine as well (despite it is not Scandinavian). Everyone left unharmed. :-) But still it is a shock or the crew. We knew Madsen personally, you know...

I'm not talking about real tanks crossing rivers with a snorkel on it. I'm talking about awesome Swedish pictures of "Russian" tanks with a single track (why would a normal tank left a single track). The sowjet guys, who caused this incident were pretty happy, that the KGB dudes looking after them were not the same who analysed western journals and magazines, where this "tracks on the bottom" incident have been described. Otherwise they would get a lot of problems. :-)