Farks

The invasion fleet in that picture consists of 36 ships total. E1 during this period consisted of 12 squadrons, if I'm not mistaken. Even if you take into account potential losses before they'd even left the ground (sabotage, assasinations, commando raids, etc) and aircrafts lost to enemy air defence before they could get their missiles off, you still have more than enough of the force left to completely devestate that fleet. And after that they'd still have the navy and coastal artillery to get through. The soviets would most certainly have had their work cut out for them if they had decided to cross the Baltic Sea.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. On to something different then: any good estimates of what would a soviet invasion fleet heading towards Sweden would consist of in the late '80s or early '90s (considering it's the relevant time period for this module)? We've got this picture, but it's about the late '60s and I don't know how reliable the information in it is.

Speaking of E1: would it be far-fetched to assume that one of the reasons E1 was kept intact while the other three air groups were disbanded in 1966 had to do with nuclear weapons? They were still on the table when that happend, as far as I can tell.

If I remember correctly, that document suggests that the secondary mission for E1 would be interdiction missions in northern Sweden, Finland and even Russia. But that would problary only happen if the naval threat was no longer considered realistic, if for example the WP had depleted their Baltic naval forces on attacking West-Germany and Denmark.

The west-german Marinefliegers Starfighter and later Tornado would problary be the closest in terms of role/capabalities. Through the entire duration of the cold war, all six AJ 37 squadrons were organized into a single unit called "Första Flygeskadern" (1st Air Group), or E1 for short. E1 was seperate from the regular air force and was directly commanded by the swedish commander-in-chief. While E1 was capable of a variety of strike missions, the main focus was anti-ship operations on the Baltic Sea (just like the Marineflieger), since a naval invasion from the giant bear in the east was highly likely in case WW3 broke out. And the plan was to fly so frequently and aggresively that E1 was expected to be depleted as a fighting unit within the opening stages of the war.

None of those aircrafts had targeting pods either, but that's to be expected since they're both '50s and '60s designs and the type of air-to-ground missions that would require such equipment was never was never part of their intended operational doctrine.

Sån jävla välfärd! Speaking of air force exchanges, I remember finding an article on a forum a few years back (either SoldF or Skalman) about showcasing the JA 37 and its datalink for british or american pilots in the late '80s. They couldn't believe that a puny northern european country already had a fully operational datalink while theirs was still on the drawing board. Do you know what article I'm talking about?

It's also the JA 37, not the AJ/AJS 37.

Info movie about the BK 90 (aka DWS 39):

"Med invasionen i sikte" Not specifically about the Viggen, but about swedish air force operational doctrine and strategy during the cold war. It goes through how the AJ 37 would be used in the attack role as part of E1, etc. The essay is in swedish, but there's a presentation in english on page 3. [ame]http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:426549/FULLTEXT01.pdf[/ame]

From different angle.

I think that's a "kortbana" (short strip) at one of the bases in Norrland, not a road base.

Just explaining the swedish doctrine, since you mentioned it.

E1's mission was to hit targets of high strategic importance, so infantry and light armor was out of the question. It's more likely that the 120 kg bombs was to be used on supply lines, artillery batteries, radar stations, command posts, etc. All relatively unprotected targets that don't require heavier bombs to destroy or damage. And I suppose that's why the 250, 500 and 600 kg bombs were retired with the Lansen.

If my knowledge is correct: Rb 04C = ~15 km Rb 04E = ~30 km The Rb 75 was just a plain AGM-65B Maverick. Which also came in second version with a heavier warhead called Rb 75T, where the T stood for "tung" (heavy).

I went ahead and made a map of all the bases in Sweden ca 1985-1995. Link As before: Blue = air wings and their main base Green = air strips (light green is for short strips near the main runway) Red = road strip The letter for the air wings stand for: F = fighter S = strike/attack R = reconnaissance F6 and F13 closed in 1994, but I decided to keep them anyway for awsomeness. I haven't sorted the bases by what air wings or air groups they belonged to, perhaps next time. Feedback on what should be added or removed is of course welcome. :)

Thanks for the info. And, yes, like I said these were the "home" bases for the AJ 37 throughout most of the cold war, where they would deploy initially in case of war. There were other bases for the AJ 37 on top of these, but I haven't figured out which ones yet. I guess someone here might know?

I made a map over E1's bases in western Sweden, as an example of Swedens base system during the cold war (Bas 60/90). This is where the AJ 37 (and later AJS) would mainly be operating from, but there were other bases as well. F15 wing up in Söderhamn housed another two (?) AJ 37 divisions, and other bases in both southern and northern Sweden could accommodate the AJ 37 as well. But these bases were the main home for the aircraft. Both F6 and F7 housed two divisions each if I remember correctly. Link Blue markers = air wings and their main base Green markers = air strip Red markers = road strip If you look along the side of the strips and roads in the area you can see the "pockets" where aircraft would be parked for preparation and maintenance. Some are located 1-2 km from the actual air strip, and can be a bit tricky to spot. It would be interesting to try and find and map out all of the old Bas 60/90 bases and strips someday.