Stockholm class corvette

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K12 HMS Malmö & K11 HMS Stockholm
Class overview
Builders: Karlskronavarvet AB
Operators: Naval flag of Sweden Swedish Navy
In commission: 22 August 1984
Planned: 2
Completed: 2
Active: HMS Stockholm
HMS Malmö
General characteristics
Displacement: 380 tonnes
Length: 50m
Beam: 7,5m
Draft: 2.6m
Propulsion: 2x MTU diesel engines @ 1920kW
1x Allied Signal Gas turbine @ 4715kW
Speed: 30 knots
Complement: 21 Officers
14 Conscripts
Sensors and
processing systems:		 Sea Giraffe 50HC air/surf search
9LV 300 missile control
SS304 Spira HMS
TSM 2642 MF VDS
Electronic warfare
and decoys:		 Rheinmetall Waffe Munition MASS (Multi-Ammunition Softkill) decoy system
Armament: 1 × Bofors 57mm MKII
8 × RBS15 Mk2 AShM
4 × 400 mm tubes for Type 43/45 torpedoes
4x ELMA Antisubmarine grenade throwers
Mines & Depth charges

Stockholm Class Corvette is a Corvette class in the Swedish Navy. Built in Karlskrona 1984–1985, it is armed with eight RBS15 anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, one 57mm cannon and several machine guns. In 1999/2000 the two units in the class were given several upgrades in the Karlskrona shipyard Kockums. The upgrade included new engines, sensors, stealth technology, and navigation system, the goal being to bring the technology up to the same level as the Visby class.

[edit] History

the Stockholm Class Corvette started as a study for a ship with increased endurance, a project called Ytattack-81(Surface combatant-81), which was built on the torpedo boats of Spica and Spica II class, but with an increased displacement from 230t to 350t. The Machinery was to be a CODAG-concept, two diesels and one gas turbine, the class looked to become just another desktop project. But in the early 80ties a series of submarine incidents occurred within Swedish territorial water, the most famous of which is U 137 which ran aground outside Karlskrona 1981. This showed that the Swedish Navy was seriously lacking in its Anti Submarine Capacity, it needed new hulls to devote to anti submarine warfare, and it needed them fast. The decision was to use the Ytattack-81 project and modify it for ASW operations, as designing a completely new ship is a time consuming and costly task. It was given a Towed Array Sonar, ASW Torpedoes and the ELMA Antisubmarine Grenade thrower system. HMS Stockholm was launched 22 August 1984 closely followed by HMS Malmö 23 March 1985, both ships entered service 1 May 1986.

In the middle of the 1990s the ships started to show their age, mainly because of their high mileage and the latest few years explosive development of electronics. The Stockholms class was a successful design and the ships' basic status was good despite a hard life so the Swedish Defence Administration decided to give the ships a second life. HMS Malmö was the first to get modernised in 1999 with HMS Stockholm following suite 2000, the modernisation included new engines, combat control systems, fire control systems, SIGINT and navigational systems. The ships both went through extensive modification of the mast, hull and superstructure to reduce their radar cross-section. A lot of the modification was also made with low maintenance in mind to minimise the need for expensive repairs in the future. The leadstar in the project was to update as much of the systems as possible to the same level as the Visby Corvettes. Both ships are back in operational condition now, attached to the 31st Corvette Division of the 3rd Naval Warfare Flotilla.

[edit] Units

Bow number Ship name Laid down Launched Commissioned Service Status
K11 HMS Stockholm 1 August 1982 22 August 1984 1 May 1986 3rd Naval Warfare Flotilla Modernised 2000, Active
K12 HMS Malmö 14 March 1983 23 March 1985 1 May 1986 3rd Naval Warfare Flotilla Modernised 1999, Active

[edit] References

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