renhanxue

I haven't found an explicitly defined MTOW in the manuals, what's there is a restriction on what payload alternatives you can carry. Any fuel amount is allowed with any payload. The Swedish air force measured fuel by volume (liters) not by weight (kilograms) - the weight of the fuel varies with temperature. The nominal MTOW at ISA with 16x120kg bombs (the heaviest allowed loadout) is around 18350 kg, but there's a center of gravity diagram that has a line for that payload drawn all the way up to around 18750 kg.

Today I (and probably many other regular posters in this thread) went to the Swedish Air Force 90th anniversary air show. Today was a good day. (I don't have a telephoto lens so go elsewhere for your hot Viggen closeup pics)

This popped up in my feed today: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEyY2Q37sYQ[/ame] Audio is pretty cheesy but that's pilots for you.

If by cleared you mean by-the-book restrictions that are unlikely to be followed in war, then what you're cleared for with various loads is as follows: If carrying autocannon or rocket pods on the wing pylons (V7): Do not exceed M 0.96 below 1000m MSL If any of the following applies: - autocannon or rocket pods carried on V7 - U22 or KB ECM pods carried - Any load on the fuselage pylons (S7) - Rb 75 or rb 05 carried on V7 - Any bomb mount (without bombs) carried Do not exceed 90° bank angle at or above M 0.96 below 2000m MSL If carrying bombs (on any pylon): Do not exceed M 0.96 If carrying rb 24 on the outer wing pylons (R7): Do not exceed M 0.95 No angular velocity around the roll axis is permitted at negative load factors, nor at load factors greater than 4 G If carrying rb 04: Do not exceed M 0.96 Do not apply a load factor greater than 3 G during a roll Do not climb above 7000m MSL Do not fly angles of climb or descent steeper than 60° If carrying rb 05: Do not climb above 12000m MSL Do not fly angles of climb or descent steeper than 60° If carrying rb 75: Do not climb above 12000m MSL If carrying rb 15: Do not exceed M 0.95 Do not apply a load factor greater than 5.5 G Do not climb above 7000m MSL Do not exceed 80° bank angle Do not fly angles of climb or descent steeper than 80°

It doesn't have an APU but you can start it with the onboard battery, no ground power needed. The preferred method is to start with ground power, though. If you start from battery you have to postpone a bunch of checklist items until after the engine is spooled up, though (you can't do them without AC power).

Max allowed speed with gear out is 600 km/h IAS. At low altitude it's also easy to overspeed a relatively light aircraft with gear in; Vne is 1350 km/h IAS (around M 1.1 at sea level).

Rockets: there's HE (or HE-frag rather) and HEAT (plus some fragmentation I guess?) warheads. Actually there are two HE warheads, one older (m/56) and one newer (m/70) but I don't know the difference between them. Additionally there are like three different contact fuzes (no idea what the difference is) and one proximity fuze. You can use the proximity fuze with both HEAT and HE warheads. Bombs: 120kg HE bombs are the only offensive option. 4 are carried per pylon, up to a maximum of 16. They can be dropped with or without a retardation chute and with either contact or proximity fuzing.

Yes it's Krigsarkivet and yes most of the staff knows me by name. Don't kinkshame :( Anyway, here you go, SFI AJS 37 del 2 - checklists, standard procedures, emergency instructions, some performance data, peacetime restrictions, that jazz. Also includes a list of all the nav points and airfields the computer comes preprogrammed with.

Nope, this manual has a heading for it but it just says "information will be published later". I'm still hoping for a pack of errata pages to pop out of the declassification process though.

I'm back from vacation!

Nah. Field army brigades had target mobilization times of 36-48 hours for most of the formation, with some of the more unwieldy parts (logistics and maintenance companies, field engineers and such things that needed to get a hold of a lot of civilian equipment like trucks, earth movers and the like) going up to 72 hours. Usually one battalion plus some support elements (AA, artillery) was earmarked for quick mobilization (within 24 hours). The formations that had longer mobilization times than 72 hours were mostly higher level (division or milo level) support and logistics ones - I think the longest mobilization time I've seen was 144 hours (6 days). Local defense formations that defended things like ports, airports, bridges and other infrastructure using the fixed fortifications in place had - on paper - 12 hour mobilization times, but since almost all of the personnel were locals, they usually mobilized within 6 hours or even faster on exercises. The national guard (hemvärnet) usually mobilized more or less instantly since they had their equipment at home. For the air force, readiness was high even before the mobilization order was given. In the 60's, the lowest level above peacetime readiness, "lystring" meant that a quarter of the air force formations should be ready for takeoff within two hours, dispersion to wartime bases should be possible to start within 6 hours and the squadrons should be fully manned within 12 hours. The next step, "givakt" (probably familiar to you if you've read Operation Garbo) meant that most of the air force would disperse to wartime bases with a quarter of the aircraft at highest readiness (ready for takeoff within minutes) and the rest in one hour readiness. All of this was done without mobilization, using only the conscripts that were doing their service at the time. (See Med invasionen i sikte, p 32.) It is, at least for me, difficult to grasp just how enormous the mobilization plans were. I've seen documents in the joint headquarters (försvarsstaben) archives that are just endless lists of mobilization bus routes for each county. In the event of mobilization, the civilian administration in each county (länsstyrelser) was responsible for stopping almost all regular bus traffic and rerouting it just in order to get the military personnel to where they were going. All of this was pre-planned with stops and timetables and everything. Similar plans existed for the national railroads. See here for some more discussion about mobilization and readiness etc.

That looks really low, and furthermore you also have to consider the Polish and East German forces. An excellent summary of Warsaw Pact forces available in the Baltic in the late 80's in Swedish is available here - it's too long to translate, but I'll sum up a few interesting tidbits: Or, about 25-30 years earlier: 1961 total: 6 cruisers 2 missile destroyers 29 destroyers 8 frigates 86 submarines 80 sub hunters 170 torpedo boats/gun boats 60 larger minesweepers 80 smaller minesweepers Of course, you can't exactly assume that all of these would be concentrated against Sweden...

I think that does sound a bit far-fetched. First, nuclear weapons were already well on the way to dying in 1966, especially as far as the air force was concerned, but you don't even need to use that for an explanation. E1 was a strategic resource before the reform and remained so afterwards - nothing changed in that regard. The purpose was always force concentration against a strategic target (like the invasion fleet). The rest of the air force simply didn't have that need for force concentration and it made more sense to decentralize. Quoting the paper:

Yep. And those missions would not be flown much more carefully, to minimize losses. There was no sense in throwing aircraft and pilots away if the decisive moment wasn't there. But still, E1 in the 1960's and 70's was very much a strategic resource - it simply didn't do tactical strike missions like CAS. The army had no forward air controllers and E1 didn't train for that kind of missions. It was all about attacking important strategic targets like infrastructure (bridges, ports, airfields), command posts, logistics centers etc, and maybe bridgeheads if the opportunity was there and there was little to no AA . By the time the AJS 37 rolled around in the 90's this extreme focus on anti-shipping work had been reduced a bit and it was at least conceivable to attack other targets, but things like the GBU-39 SDB and other precision ground attack weapons were not acquired until after 2000, the dismantling of the old invasion defense and the retirement of the Viggen system.

Surely everyone who can read Swedish and has any interest in the Viggen has read the excellent doctrine analysis paper Med invasionen i sikte, but for the benefit of the linguistically impaired, a few tidbits from it may be of interest. Farks summed the most important points of E1 up, but I'll start off with some background information to help you understand the context it was supposed to work in. The structure of the Swedish military and defense planning, as it developed in the 1950's, was highly decentralized - a feature that would remain intact until the end of the Cold War. The planners greatly feared a 1940 scenario where the mobilization either never got started or the central command was decapitated early on, and this was only increased by the possibility of nuclear strikes on important command centers. For this reason, the mobilization was designed to be impossible to stop once it had started (hence all the propaganda that said "every message that claims that the mobilization has been cancelled is false", and its later variant on the same tune that said "every message that claims that the resistance has ended is false"). All equipment storage was highly decentralized in order to prevent sabotage or surgical strikes on important locations. With mobilization covered, the next step was to make lower levels of the chain of command so autonomous that they could handle themselves even if the top staffs got nuked, sabotaged or were otherwise unreachable. The country was divided into seven military districts (militärområden, milo), which were then subdivided into smaller pieces (försvarsområden, fo) that mostly corresponded to the counties of the civilian administration. A commander of a military district effectively had the command of all forces in his district, including fighter squadrons, which he could use at his own discretion. The Swedish army of the later cold war didn't have army divisions; the brigades were directly under military district commanders instead. The exception to this structure was E1. E1 was not part of the regular chain of command - instead all six squadrons were under their own staff that answered only to the commander-in-chief and the joint headquarters. In other words, it was a strategic resource, not a tactical one. Under special circumstances a military district commander could be assigned a number of sorties from E1 per day to do something, but before the expected naval invasion, E1 could not be jeopardized on lesser tasks. In a decisive situation that could determine the course of the war like a naval invasion, however, E1 was to be used completely without regard for losses. Quoting directly from a formerly top secret 1963 doctrine document as cited in the paper mentioned: (The underlining is from the original text.)

In the original AJ 37 configuration, the most similar aircraft in role and weaponry is probably the Super Étendard, or as mentioned the West German Marineflieger F-104's. In the AJS 37 version, perhaps the A-4 Skyhawk in its later variants comes close-ish? If the Soviet navy were even half as bad at dealing with ASM's as the Brits were at the Falklands in 1982, then an invasion would have fared rather poorly indeed.

The notion that the strv 103 had a role or purpose different from any other tank is a myth. It's extremely widespread to the point that I can't think of any book in which it is debunked, and even Swedish museum curators and other people who are extremely knowledgeable about the tank don't seem to care enough to attempt to debunk it (probably because it requires a pretty long military nerd explanation that will get people's eyes to gloss over), but it's still a myth. I've written my own attempt at a debunking essay if you care enough to read a few thousand words about the thing. Also, I'm going to go experience nature and stuff for the next two weeks or so. Don't you dare release the AJS 37 before I'm back, ya hear me Leatherneck? (i'm trying reverse psychology here ok)

As far as the J 35 goes I can contribute at least one other document, namely all four formerly classified parts of the flight manual for the J 35F - the final form of the 60's Drakens, and the only one to have a fully Swedish radar. The radar is described in detail in part 2. If you're familiar with the radar in the MiG-21bis I think that's a fair comparison, but I'm not so I really can't say much. It doesn't have the MiG-21's reliance on cooling medium, at least. For some quick summary points, it can be used to slew the seeker head for the rb 28 (IR-Falcon) and has a max detection range of 40 km (or is it lock range? there's a distance scale switch for it that has two settings, 16 km and 40 km). Really, the main problem with the Draken is that it never really got any good missiles. It was toting around Falcons and the original AIM-9B until 1977. Only then was the rb 24J (close enough to AIM-9J/AIM-9P) introduced, and that was the best weapon available until the aircraft was retired in the 1990's. I think the winner in that department is the MiG-21 with all its upgrades, but the Mirage III isn't far behind. e: at least the Swedish license-produced Falcons had proximity warheads. Praise be unto Kungl. Flygförvaltningen. edit the second: link to SFI didn't work properly, should be fixed now.

People love to compare fighters and other military hardware, and I've certainly gotten in on the fun myself on occasion. I don't want to get into that kind of discussion without a caveat, though: ultimately, such comparisons just aren't very meaningful in the real world. Individual fighter performance matters a lot in very small engagements with only a few aircraft on each side, but in a bigger near-peer conflict with a ton of aircraft involved, a fighter of one particular "generation" (don't like that word either) is about equal to any other fighter of that "generation", and other, strategic level factors are going to be more important. In the end, what matters most is having local superiority at the right place at the right time, and you get that by having such boring things as good intelligence, good logistics, good aircraft availability, good command & control, good average training levels among your pilots etc etc. Having a better fighter that can win even when slightly outnumbered still helps, of course, but it's definitely not all-important. People just focus on it because fighter jets are really cool and logistics isn't. The reason the US tends to completely dominate all aerial conflicts it gets itself into is because it is superior in all these strategic areas (just having AWACS and aerial refueling is an incredible luxury few nations can afford), not because it has the F-15. You also have to consider that all air forces design or attempt to procure aircraft that suit their doctrine, or if that isn't possible, they adapt their doctrine to suit their aircraft. tl;dr: I believe fighter aircraft aren't as much "better" as they are different. With all that out of the way... the later 60's marks of the Draken (J 35D and J 35F) are definitely comparable to other interceptors of the era, like mattebubben mentioned. In terms of pure aerodynamic performance it was nothing special, it had its strengths and weaknesses just like the others. Not as fast as the Starfighter, rolled better than the MiG-21, etc etc. Just like the others it relied heavily on ground-controlled intercepts, but what set it apart was the ground-to-air datalink which I don't think any other aircraft of the era used to anywhere near the same extent. In a J 35B cockpit (as well as in later Swedish Draken versions) there are two vertical instruments to the right of the radar named AVST (distance) and HÖJD (altitude) as well as a compass-like instrument below - an intercept controller on the ground could, without speaking a word on the radio, instantly tell the pilot where his target was, in addition to sending one of about a dozen pre-defined messages (like "new target", "abort and RTB", "climb" etc), using a narrow-band tone signalling system. How much does that matter in a real situation? It's impossible to say, it was never tried. It definitely made the Drakens more resistant to radio jamming, but how much that would've been used by the Soviets is beyond my knowledge. There's an Australian evaluation of the J 35B available online via the Australian national archives, check here if you're interested (jump to page 74 for the start of the Draken documents, page 87 if you want to get into the test pilot reports). In the same file there's also an evaluation of the Mirage III with the same test pilot so you can compare them directly. As far as the A 32 Lansen goes, I think the closest equivalent is probably the A-4 Skyhawk. Nobody else in the west used radar-guided aircraft-launched ASM's in the 1950's as far as I know though so it's kinda hard to compare that, but at least as far as bombs go they were similar. The Lansen never got the capability to carry Mavericks and such things though, it was dumb bombs/rockets and the rb 04 and that was it. The AJ 37 in its original incarnation was, simply put, unique. There are no direct equivalents anywhere. It was designed around the anti-ship role plus the short-field requirement, and no other air force had similar requirements in the 1960's. The closest you get in role I think is the Super Étendard, but that was introduced in service in the late 1970's and I don't know a lot about it. As far as the avionics go, I think it is kinda comparable to the original F-14 with its mix of digital and analog systems, but again the AJ 37 had a completely different purpose. The JA 37 has (almost) the equivalent of the F-15C's avionics in a less aerodynamically capable airframe with a smaller radar, plus again the unique Swedish focus on datalinks - I don't think there was anything quite like the Swedish mid-80's fighter-to-fighter datalink in any other aircraft in the world before the F-22 entered the scene. While I agree that it's remarkable how Sweden can win the first prize in any category of "fighter jets produced/designed per capita", I think there's another thing that's even more remarkable. After the embarrassing J 21R, Saab has never had a failed project, and never produced a jet that was kind of a "dog". Sure, there's been paper projects like the B3LA, but nothing that made it all that far. What we have succeeded at better than anyone else is deciding on exactly what we want (even when that is nothing like what anyone else wants), setting the bar high but only just high enough to still make it achievable (letting engineers adjust it up or down where needed) and then having the guts and political determination to pull through. Not only that, but also the good sense to see what wouldn't work and abandoning it in time. We could have jumped on the hype train in the 1960's and made the Viggen VTOL, or swing wing - the options were studied, and rejected as too limiting, too expensive and too complex. In retrospect, I think it was the correct decision. Look at the Americans and their dozens of failed and cancelled projects, look at the Brits and the TSR2, look at the French and their weirdo VTOL Mirage IIIV, at the Canadians and the Arrow. Look at the all the different interests pulling the Eurofighter in different directions raising costs to astonishing heights, look at the Super Hornet which was plan B for the plan B; an aircraft that nobody really wanted. We have never been there, and that is truly remarkable. Good project management is very hard, and an underrated skill.

leatherneck please

The Norrköping/Ystad class look amazing and sound amazing. That long, low hull makes them look even faster than they are, and the acceleration is unreal. They were never the biggest or the most powerful ships but they were an icon of the Swedish Cold War navy. They are the closest you get to a Viggen on the sea and were designed for similar tactics - run out, shoot a lot of ASM's and/or torpedoes, run away. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned a Viggen at the altitude of the bridge of his ship. This isn't quite that low, but it's a really cool air force/navy hi-five photo.

It was designed to operate in groups, after all. Buy one for a friend and you have a rote. Find another pair and you can go långflank vänster to really get the job done.

I think this bit of weirdness is a result of the way they upgraded the computers and interfaces - or rather how they didn't upgrade the old interfaces. Rb 75 is one of the original weapon systems from before the upgrade and uses the old (most likely analog) interfaces made with vacuum tubes and wizardry - that is to say, it can't really "talk" to the computer. The rb 15 and bk 90 are new, post-upgrade weapons which talk to the computer using this wonder of modern technology called a serial bus - kinda like the one you might have used to plug your 14.4k modem into your computer back in the 90's (internally the computer actually uses RS232, but to talk to weapons it's the serious business NATO compatible MIL-STD-1553B). Just put them on a bus-enabled station (so any of the S7 and V7 ones) and it'll self-identify to the computer and they can figure out together on which weapon station it is and if it's working properly etc etc. Combining new weapons is (and now I'm speculating) probably not an issue as far as the computer goes, you just put them there and the computer will figure out what's there and how to fire it. The problem is that the old weapon selector switch combines all the modern weapons into one choice (04/15/BK).

Exactly! Speaking German is a good start if you want to learn Swedish (and vice versa). Really, though, I have a hard time thinking of a more difficult text to get started on ;) Inställn is shorthand for "inställning" = setting. Klaff = flap (in aeronautical context). Not a bad guess, but not right either. The switch says "1:A VAL RB05/75, RB 15, BK". 1:a val is short for "första val" = first choice (compare English "1st"). V and H are short for vänster and höger = left and right respectively. It determines which weapon is fired first, so that's why you see it set to H in case of asymmetric loadouts with something else on the left pylon. The "default" setting is V. Also, weapon options in parantheses indicate you can choose yourself if you want to fill that station or not - no extra preflight button pressing necessary.

I think you got the 9L and the 9J mixed up. Rb 74 (AIM-9L) can only be carried on the S7 pylons (under the fuselage) and on the V7 pylons (inner wing stations). Or, well, at an airshow you can mount whatever dummy weapons in whatever configuration you want to confuse people (I'm pretty sure this has actually happened), but they can only be fired from there. The only weapon that can be carried on the R7 pylons (outermost wing pylons) is rb 24J, which is similar to (but not the same as) AIM-9J. Not all possible weapon combinations implied by the image in the OP actually work in reality; the combinations that are possible to configure and are cleared for flight are listed in Speciell klargöringsinstruktion fpl AJS, AJSH, AJSF 37: vapen/spaning: klargöringsdel (or in plain English: the "preflight manual" for the ground crew). I've photographed the relevant pages (but nothing else from that manual; it's not really relevant to pilots). The bk 90 is not listed for some reason - maybe it wasn't in service yet in 1995 when this was published? Basically though, in general you're stuck with carrying one main weapon system and to that you can add Sidewinders and/or countermeasures to taste. The only exception to this seems to be that you can combine rb 05 and the autocannon pods. Interestingly, a few configurations involving rb 15 mandate the drop tank, presumably for center of gravity and/or lift reasons, while if you want 16 bombs and Sidewinders you'll have to let the drop tank go, or fly it empty (presumably for MTOW reasons).