FLEETS #28: Royal Swedish Navy, Royal Norwegian Navy, Argentine Navy and Royal Canadian Navy in WWII

The following images illustrate the most important classes of warships that were in service with the navies of Sweden, Norway, Canada and Argentina during the World War II. All the images are created by www.naval-encyclopedia.com. In that page you can read some excellent naval history articles, to download other graphs or you can purchase the same graphs in high resolution in the online shop! More posts will follow for your collection of current naval fleets but also of fleets from the past.

Royal Swedish Navy (Svenska marinen) in WWII

Click to enlarge and save the image to view the details - Royal Swedish Navy in WWII

PHOTO GALLERY #21: Otra, minesweeper of the Royal Norwegian Navy

Otra, minesweeper of the Royal Norwegian Navy, alongside HMS Ramsey

This is the fourth photo gallery (see previous posts) from my visit to Kiel, on the first weekend of the 136th Kiel Week. The Kiel Week (German: Kieler Woche) or Kiel Regatta is an annual sailing event in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The first weekend of the Kiel Week, the famous Naval Base of Kiel, opens its gates for just four hours per day, for thousands of tourists who are eager to visit the German Navy warships and dozens of foreign warships which visit the city of Kiel, to honor the Kiel Week. Τhe Royal Norwegian Navy was represented by the Μ351 Otra, an Alta class minesweeper with mine hunting capabilities. The Alta class was built by Kværner Mandal during 1996 and 1997; a total of 5 vessels were built but currently only three are active. The 400-ton Alta class vessels are air-cushioned vehicles of catamaran design. The catamaran hull is built in a fibre-reinforced plastic sandwich of very low magnetic signature. Two large fans located on each side create an air cushion between the two hulls and a front and aft rubber skirt, lifting the vessel, giving small drag and a high cruise speed, as well as low susceptibility to the shock of exploding mines since only a small portion of the hull is actually exposed in the water. Propulsion by water jet, again one in each hull, gives a low acoustic signature. A degaussing system gives the vessels extremely low electromagnetic signature. The vessels of the class are armed with two MH2B 12.7mm heavy machine guns, four to six MG3 machine guns and a Simbad Mistral SAM launcher. Enjoy photos from my visit aboard HNoMS Otra, a very interesting design!

NAVAL FORCES #5: Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collection ships of European Navies

Dupuy de Lôme, the most advanced SIGINT ship in any
European Navy today (2015)

Signals intelligence (often abbreviated as SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence - abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence - abbreviated to ELINT). The data gathered are typically pertinent to the electronics of an opponent's defense network, especially the electronic parts such as radars, surface-to-air missile systems, aircraft, etc. ELINT can be used to detect ships and aircraft by their radar and other electromagnetic radiation; commanders have to make choices between not using radar, intermittently using it, or using it and expecting to avoid defenses. COMINT, as it was mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is a sub-category of signals intelligence that engages in dealing with messages or voice information derived from the interception of foreign communications. Modern navies use naval vessels with sophisticated equipment for this purpose, the so-called spy ships.

FLEETS #7: Royal Netherlands Navy, Royal Norwegian Navy and Italian Navy today

Written by D-Mitch

This is the fifth article about various countries' navies today. In these articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by providing a nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs, depollution vessels and training ships.