Nerdic Defence
@nerdicdefence
Following Nordic defence and security matters, mostly technical, and am myself based in the Nordics. Yes, I'm aware the pun is stupid ;). He/him.
Vintage Friday: RNoAF F-5 landing on Rygge Air Base while deploying a brake chute.
The keel of the fourth Pohjanmaa-class multi-role corvette was laid at the Rauma shipyard on Tuesday 4 August 2026. puolustusvoimat.fi/en/-/1951215...
I went for this Fractal Design one, looks like it actually belongs among the furniture:
Vintage Friday: The Swedish Navy's coastal defence ship Dristigheten was commisioned in 1901 and was the sole ship of her class. Converted to an seaplane tender in 1927, she spent WWII mostly static, and in 1960 she ended her career as a target ship.
Swedish Defence Materiel Administration to purchase target drones from Spanish supplier Sener. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
In case you wondered why it's pretty quiet from us Nordic security accounts lately, it's because the summer holidays are upon us, and the whole region has taken a few weeks off. Please hold any attacks on us, hybrid or conventional, until everyone's back in August sometime.
Aliens is 40 years now, and I remember thinking back in the day that the M41A pulse rifle was certainly the future of small arms. So I got a bit exited when FN was showing their new SMARTCORE shot counter at Eurosatory. Alas, it was a bit less sexy than the M41A rounds readout. Sorry, FN!
As a good Nordic citizen, I'm off to enjoy my summer holidays (one of the things worth defending). I'm going super-Nordic and am going to enjoy a bit of midnight sun. So don't expect too much in the way of posting for a little while. 😎
The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration has signed a framework agreement with Tekonf for the delivery of maintenance systems for the Armed Forces' small arms. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
Vintage Friday: The French Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighter in Finnish service during WWII was becoming obsolete. In 1942, they decided to re-engine their obsolete Moranes with captured Soviet Klimov M-105P V-12 engines, but the programme went slowly and only 3 saw combat.
As part of the A26 submarine deal, Polan will also lease the Södermanland to get started in educating Polish crews on the Swedish submarine system. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
A tangent, but brought to mind when Charles II of England took a rather dim view of the then-new coffee houses, because it turned out that people were discussing politics in them! He would much rather prefer that they didn't, and even organized an astroturf organisation of women against them...
Vintage Friday: Here's a Swedish Pbv 302 IFV in KFOR markings. Developed during the 1960, in service until 2014, and the remaining stock now donated to Ukraine. The 20mm were taken from the J29 Tunnan then going out of service, giving it a rather unusually high rate of fire for an IFV.
Sweden to receive their overhauled Leopard 2s, to be called Stridsvagn 123A locally. The first unit just rolled out of KMW facilities in Germany. They have also ordered 44 new production units, to be named Stridsvagn 123B. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration and the Netherlands are deepening their cooperation in radar technology and future defense capabilities through a new agreement between SDMA and the Dutch materiel authority COMMIT. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration are handing over new Iveco logistics vehicles to the armed forces. They are based on a militarised Iveco Daily, and are initally purchased in flatbed, troop transport and ambulance version. So far the orders total 500 units. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
Also spied the Strikemaster at #eurosatory last week. Interestingly combo, and also interesting that there are _two_ different NSM carriers in this class, the USMC's Nemesis being the other.
#eurosatory 2026's most affordable vehicle was presumably this offering from VW.
Finland's Savo Defence showed up with a couple of vehicles, the most Nordic of these being the Sisu GPT in ambulance configuration.
They also brought along a K9A2, but neither Nordic operators have any plan on procuring or upgrading to this configuration AFAIK.
Hanwha brought a Chunmoo to #eurosatory, a nice preview of what is going to be delivered for the Norwegian Army. I'm not sure which carrier is decided on for Norway, but they showed a couple of alternatives in model form.
Here's the operator console for the RS4. Seems to be armed at the moment, but I could not see any ammo in the chute so presumably not that dangerous. 😅
On neither Kongsberg's or Patria's stands at #eurosatory but over at Renk's was this unmanned TRACKX vehicle with an RS6 turret with a cluster of rockets. You can also see Kongsberg's new C-UAS radar on the front.
Kongsberg were showing a C-UAS vehicle at #eurosatory, with an RS4 with Kongsberg's new in-house radar. They were also pushing Rusty Dagger from their recent Zone 5 accusation, as well as NSM and the in-development S3M for which is reportedly slated for the ELSA programme.
I visited Patria's stand at #eurosatory. They had the CAVS 6x6 there, with a Kongsberg RS4 RWS, and a AMV with an unknown-to-me Turra 30 turret from the Slovak contract. The TRACKX was present here, and on the Renk stand as well. I hadn't seen either the CAVS or the TRACKX in real life before.
The Swedish Defence Material Administration has signed with W5 Solutions for training systems to the tune of 700 million SEK. www.fmv.se/aktuellt--pr...
Vintage Friday: The VL Humu was a Finnish attempt to produce a domestically built fighter, but it was obsolete by the time the first prototype flew in 1944. It was powered by a licence-built version of the Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial engine (used in the Buffalo). Picture shows the single prototype.
We in the Nordics have got your back - at least if you're child-sized... Behold, the Ikea Lömsk: