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A Buttery Pastry posted:My understanding is that Ukraine has (had) wide-ranging conscription, so a lot of the civilians might have better training than decent chunks of the invading Russian forces, some of whom only joined their military in December. We do have mönstring and värnplikt, and I do believe everyone at least has to show up and do a physical and a brief psych eval and fill out some questions, but they rarely call on people to do it if they really don't want to, or that's my understanding of it, at least. https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/information-och-fakta/var-historia/artiklar/varnplikt-under-109-ar/ Some fun statistics, in the 90's about 50k did the värnplikt, in the 00's it was 16k and 2008 it was down to just 6804 people. 2021 that number was roughly 5800.
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Mar 1, 2022 12:53
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vuk83 posted:There isn't any war. It is a special operation. Hilarious.
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Mar 1, 2022 12:56
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My understanding is that most people who *want* to do värnplikt aren't allowed to because försvaret has like literally no budget.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:00
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McCloud posted:, Yeah, when I mönstrade it was about 15K conscripts being picked out, and it was only mandatory for men at that point, so we're talking about 15% of the male population born that year. Then conscription was ended in various form between 2010 and 2018, but now it's more or less back 5 800 in 2021 would be about 5% of the total population. When you're tasked with weeding out 95% of possible recruits, you pretty much have to remove anyone that's not motivated or have any physical or psychological reason why they would not fit. Compare that to my uncle, who was sent to prison for refusing to mönstra back in the 70's. Things have changed a lot. As for the original question, the Swedish army is very very small now compared to the cold war era, and has mainly been active as a peacekeeping corps. The Swedish army has had extensive experience in that, especially in former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Tchad, Congo and Afghanistan. Basically a small, highly professional army trained for peace keeping actions abroad compared to the big defensive force with lots of conscripts back in the cold war era. The last couple of years the army has been starting to build back up, but it's still not nearly comparable in size and percentage of trained conscripts as a place like Ukraine, for understandable reasons. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 13:02
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Mymla posted:My understanding is that most people who *want* to do värnplikt aren't allowed to because försvaret has like literally no budget. This was true when I was called in for Norway some 20 years ago at least. I can't imagine it's improved now.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:10
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lilljonas posted:Yeah, when I mönstrade it was about 15K conscripts being picked out, and it was only mandatory for men at that point, so we're talking about 15% of the male population born that year. Then conscription was ended in various form between 2010 and 2018, but now it's more or less back 5 800 in 2021 would be about 5% of the total population. When you're tasked with weeding out 95% of possible recruits, you pretty much have to remove anyone that's not motivated or have any physical or psychological reason why they would not fit. It changed pretty fast in the early 90's. In my year of mönstring a couple of people at my gymnasieårskull got physical exemptions and the rest of us, about 95% plus, got drafted and did our military service. Just one year later something like half of that years candidates got placed in the reserve category. I did my military service in 96 and the focus was still pretty much 100% how to counter the russian hordes sure to be rushing over the border pretty much any day now.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:11
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lilljonas posted:Yeah, when I mönstrade it was about 15K conscripts being picked out, and it was only mandatory for men at that point, so we're talking about 15% of the male population born that year. Then conscription was ended in various form between 2010 and 2018, but now it's more or less back 5 800 in 2021 would be about 5% of the total population. When you're tasked with weeding out 95% of possible recruits, you pretty much have to remove anyone that's not motivated or have any physical or psychological reason why they would not fit. There was some noise about increasing the numbers to around 8-9000 for 2022, a few years back, but I don't think they really followed through https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/samhalle/a/e1Qp0l/antalet-som-gor-lumpen-kan-fordubblas-inom-tre-ar This article is from 3 years ago, talking about doubling the numbers, which seems quite unlikely, considering last years crop
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Mar 1, 2022 13:29
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Thanks for all the replies. I am writing a proposal to Mette to beef up the Danish military so we can have a decisive victory against the Swedes, now that you've let your military rot away.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:50
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Skåne will return to its rightful owner.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:50
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Guess we don't have to gräva bort skåne after all.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:53
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TheRat posted:There was a Norwegian researcher/expert on international law on state tv this morning saying that by shipping weapons to an active warzone, Norway is considered an aggressor in international law and Russia would be within legal rights to attack limited targets (weapons factories etc) in Norway without Norway being able to trigger article 5. That's not a very nice thought. Watch out, there's soon going to be a 2000km long Russian convoy blocking the E6 from Kirkenes to Trondheim.
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Mar 1, 2022 13:54
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Thanks for all the replies. I am writing a proposal to Mette to beef up the Danish military so we can have a decisive victory against the Swedes, now that you've let your military rot away. The Swedish army might be rotten away but it still has roughly twice the budget of Denmark (60 billion SEK vs 32 billion DKK) and we actually produce military stuff instead of only buying overpriced NATO stuff, so that money lasts a little longer. If you want your mind blown: Russia's war is right now probably burning about four times Sweden's yearly military budget. Every single day. And that's not including replacing any losses, just purely to keep the army running. That's why freezing 3/4th of their war chest is such a big deal. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 14:11
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Modern warfare requires common soldiers to handle delicate and expensive equipment. Equipment that tends to break a lot around soldiers who don't want to be there. They also demoralize the rest of their unit. Hence, the military doesn't want anyone who doesn't want to be there
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Mar 1, 2022 14:31
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Thanks for all the replies. I am writing a proposal to Mette to beef up the Danish military so we can have a decisive victory against the Swedes, now that you've let your military rot away. Antigravitas posted:
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Mar 1, 2022 14:37
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Nikolaj Villumsen confirms it's no longer EL policy to reject NATO membership. Says we should stand with NATO if it is attacked, even though it "could" be the last thing we do and a war between these two nuclear powers "could" destroy Denmark, but we should try to prevent it from getting that far. That's why EL is supporting the weapons shipments.
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Mar 1, 2022 16:24
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McCloud posted:, I mönstrade in 2005 when I was at uni since I got my citizenship at 20. Didn’t even get a physical, doctor looked at my goony rear end and was like “you don’t want to do this, right???” The only options that day were airbase security forces, or score well enough and volunteer for jägare so that was fine by me
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Mar 1, 2022 16:28
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luminalflux posted:I mönstrade in 2005 when I was at uni since I got my citizenship at 20. Didn’t even get a physical, doctor looked at my goony rear end and was like “you don’t want to do this, right???” When I did it a few years earlier, the need of recruits was at least big enough that scrawny rear end goons were sent to be NCOs. Half our squad leader boot camp was made up of nerds, we even had an Eon group going during downtime. All our grunts had at least 20 kg of muscle mass on us.
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Mar 1, 2022 16:45
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lilljonas posted:The Swedish army might be rotten away but it still has roughly twice the budget of Denmark (60 billion SEK vs 32 billion DKK) and we actually produce military stuff instead of only buying overpriced NATO stuff, so that money lasts a little longer.
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Mar 1, 2022 17:16
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I once saw a flowchart of the whole Swedish military. And the Home guard companies made it look like someone was playing solitaire in the corner because numbers wise the home guard is so huge compared to the rest of the military. But I can't find that chart online. It's not used a lot because the rest of the military likes to downplay the home guard, even though the soldiers overwhelmingly has the same training as the regular military. Just not as modern support equipment. (as if assaulting a home guard position guarded with AK4s and KSP58s would be less daunting) Feliday Melody fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 17:21
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I think the cold war slogan "allt för anfallsbrigaderna" still lives on in the army; there's this mindset (I believe) that dismounted infantry doesn't have a lot of value on the modern battlefield and that it'll just get encircled by the Soviet motor rifle regiments. As an armchair strategist I don't think that's really true though, and probably even less true now than it was during the cold war (man-portable AT weapons are much better and more widely available now, for one thing). Even disregarding that though, what is true is that the home guard doesn't have any heavy equipment except 12 cm mortars, no organic AA, no long-range AT weapons and no battlefield mobility to speak of (the cold war infantry brigades at least had a company of ikv 91's). The home guard can defend but not really attack. That is still very useful though since it frees up the mechanized brigades to do just that. The home guard can also mobilize extremely quickly and since it exists everywhere it doesn't have to be transported all over the country. The army doesn't really want to invest in the home guard though since what it really wants is more mechanized forces. Which does make sense since the army's job is to counterattack and drive an invasion force back into the sea, but without the home guard to slow things down and e.g. attempt to contain beachheads this job gets a lot harder. Back in the cold war days there was also lokalförsvaret which was sort of a middle ground between the first line brigades and the home guard. It consisted of older conscripts and in some ways had a bit more equipment than the current home guard does, but it had no strategic mobility to speak of. It was really intended to defend specific strategic locations and in many cases manned fortifications and fixed gun emplacements too (e.g. old tank turrets). TheFluff fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 18:04
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The way it was explained to me was that the army can push forward like a spearhead. And the home guard can secure and fortify those positions. Since the regular army doesn't have the manpower to keep their gains and still attack. Not sure about the mobility part, though. Insattskompanierna are fully motorized (no tanks obviously) Our medic group alone has two PV8's on 5 medics.
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Mar 1, 2022 18:15
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Feliday Melody posted:The way it was explained to me was that the army can push forward like a spearhead. And the home guard can secure and fortify those positions. Since the regular army doesn't have the manpower to keep their gains and still attack. Yeah the strategic mobility is there*, you don't have to get on a bicycle and get towed by a tractor like back in the cold war, but I meant tactical mobility on the battlefield. With e.g. IB77 the brigade commander could relatively quickly respond to threats with the ikv 91 company (plus potentially a bunch of guys riding on the engine decks of the vehicles), but AFAIK the home guard has to walk on its own two feet if it wants to go off road. Or I guess at least some companies might have bv 206's? That's still not splinter protected though, but at least it has excellent cross-country mobility. * although I wonder about the logistics... I think the TO&E is unclassified? no need to respond to it anyway, I can research the nerd minutiae on my own time.
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Mar 1, 2022 18:24
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Sorry about the armchair general poo poo, but would you even want to fortify a conquered enemy position? Seems like a good way of eating an artillery shell or cruise missile. Homeguard seems most suited for guarding.
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Mar 1, 2022 18:43
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A Buttery Pastry posted:That's why I said she should beef it up! This is funny because it reminds me of that australian Simpsons episode where like everyone in Australia is on a first name basis to the prime minister
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Mar 1, 2022 18:44
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thotsky posted:Sorry about the armchair general poo poo, but would you even want to fortify a conquered enemy position? Seems like a good way of eating an artillery shell or cruise missile. Homeguard seems most suited for guarding. So that you have a secured position to pull back to and the enemy can't cut you off.
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Mar 1, 2022 18:49
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The only thing Sweden should ever try to do if it goes up against a giant nation is to do guerilla warfare. I feel like any and all armor we'd field would get annihilated pretty immediately
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Mar 1, 2022 19:07
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TheRat posted:This was true when I was called in for Norway some 20 years ago at least. I can't imagine it's improved now. i got conscripted despite not wanting to serve. i waffled in the sesjonsintervju, though, saying "yeah i don't think i'd mind too much" when the officer pressed me on it which probably got me written up as "lol gently caress this dweeb"
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Mar 1, 2022 19:11
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Feliday Melody posted:So that you have a secured position to pull back to and the enemy can't cut you off. Yeah, but can't you create that position somewhere the enemy does not have forewarning of your arrival and the exact coordinates for?
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Mar 1, 2022 19:16
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Collapsing Farts posted:The only thing Sweden should ever try to do if it goes up against a giant nation is to do guerilla warfare. I feel like any and all armor we'd field would get annihilated pretty immediately Geographic facts guarantee that any invader that isn't Norway, Finland or Denmark has to come either over the sea via landing craft or through the air via paradrop. The amount of tanks you can get into the country that way is fairly limited, at least in the short term. It is well within the realm of possibility for the Swedish army to defeat such an enemy. Air strikes and tactical ballistic missiles are of course a problem though, but that's why we have the air force and recently bought Patriot missiles too.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:24
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Collapsing Farts posted:The only thing Sweden should ever try to do if it goes up against a giant nation is to do guerilla warfare. I feel like any and all armor we'd field would get annihilated pretty immediately It's very useful early on. Russia will have to start any war with infantry and light vehicles. Until they can dock ships and land cargo aircraft with heavier equipment. And challenging those with armour will delay the invasion a lot. Like whatever first amphibious forces try to land on Gotland.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:27
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V. Illych L. posted:i got conscripted despite not wanting to serve. i waffled in the sesjonsintervju, though, saying "yeah i don't think i'd mind too much" when the officer pressed me on it which probably got me written up as "lol gently caress this dweeb" I was dumb enough to say "yes, I'd like to serve abroad" as a 16 year old kid. Thankfully they figured out my eyes werent good enough when I showed up to actually serve and sent me back home.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:30
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TheFluff posted:Geographic facts guarantee that any invader that isn't Norway, Finland or Denmark has to come either over the sea via landing craft or through the air via paradrop. The amount of tanks you can get into the country that way is fairly limited, at least in the short term. It is well within the realm of possibility for the Swedish army to defeat such an enemy. Air strikes and tactical ballistic missiles are of course a problem though, but that's why we have the air force and recently bought Patriot missiles too. Yep. There is a reason as to why the airforce, anti air regiments and coastal artillary are all bathing in cash right now.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:41
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When I was called in, the doctor said I needed to lose weight, I replied "well, that'll take care of itself if get drafted, won't it?". I managed to avoid it though, which was good since I already had a job lined up, and I really didn't feel like rolling around in the mud going "pew pew" at imaginary soviets. E: Hah, I posted basically the same thing back in January. Well, waddayaknow. KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Mar 1, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 19:44
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People have all these tricks to get out of serving. But for the past 30 years, you could just say "I don't want to" and it would suffice.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:48
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I'm in Finland and the alternative to 6 months military service was ~18 months civilian service. So I went for the 6 month option. I lost 20kg during that time, never been as fit since, but I never gained it all back either. Basically all we did was take rolls of signal wire for communications purposes between artillery and command and such, we'd probably carry 40-60kg each of wound up spools and we'd just walk through the woods rolling it out, then roll it back up again.... drat good exercise though. I did enjoy shooting the stägä, 7.62x39mm is a nice caliber. The year after I left we where basically obsolete and replaced with something more modern.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:53
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Feliday Melody posted:People have all these tricks to get out of serving. But for the past 30 years, you could just say "I don't want to" and it would suffice. I wanted to serve, and I wanted to be a dumb little soldier in a foreign country. My trick was that my eyes were smarter than my stupid teenage brain.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:54
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Feliday Melody posted:People have all these tricks to get out of serving. But for the past 30 years, you could just say "I don't want to" and it would suffice. I tried that in 2002 and it didnt work! I was probably kind of meek about it tho.
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Mar 1, 2022 19:57
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TheRat posted:I wanted to serve, and I wanted to be a dumb little soldier in a foreign country. My trick was that my eyes were smarter than my stupid teenage brain. Most anyone with glasses still get told no, unless they really insist. At least as of five-six years ago.
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Mar 1, 2022 20:09
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https://twitter.com/egyptenguiden/status/1498634722175557634?t=Zc4EQyhI5P7JnbfEDXr2cA&s=19
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Mar 1, 2022 20:11
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Threadkiller Dog posted:I tried that in 2002 and it didnt work! I was probably kind of meek about it tho. Well, in 99 you didn’t have to do it if you were born late in the second half of the year since the spots were taken by then. Collapsing Farts posted:The only thing Sweden should ever try to do if it goes up against a giant nation is to do guerilla warfare. I feel like any and all armor we'd field would get annihilated pretty immediately MekB was called pansardynga with expected life expectancy of 4 s. The usual bullshit military lingua in other words. Guerilla warfare or Fria Kriget was an actual thing that was practiced. Or well, you get to experience not eating for 3 days and just moving at night. Feliday Melody posted:Modern warfare requires common soldiers to handle delicate and expensive equipment. Equipment that tends to break a lot around soldiers who don't want to be there. They also demoralize the rest of their unit. Are we talking about the same military that drives Tgb30/40 if the pictures from Visby were accurate? They were 30 year old when I drove one 20 years ago?
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Mar 1, 2022 21:46
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