Shipbucket

at the moment, the government are considering how the budget for the Norwegian military will be.

Some bases get closed down, and some installation get moved. That is expected, Norway still have 80% of their Cold War bases, for an military of over 300.000 men, something that arent needed today, and cost to maintain. At the moment 6 bases have got the Nail and there are many more to come.

but the most shocking things we have (Brits have... missile problem and they are one of the big boys...?), not all this is within 2025, so there is time for us here in Norway...:

- The Skjold class corvettes will be taken out of service.
3 reasons for this, the government says:
1. The government thinks that our 52 F35 that we are getting, can do the same task as the Skjold class (A commander in the Norwegian Navy says: Skjold class deliver a massive firepower and they do it for a lower cost than F35. F35 can only carry 2 JSM/NSM with them, a skjold class can carry 8 NSM, you need 20 F35 to deliver the same amount of missiles as 5 Skjold class if you want them to have systems with weapons in a combat area at all time)
2. The Money are needed other places.
3. they are taken out of service before there main MLU, that will cost a lot of money.

- Replace the 6 Ula class submarines with 4 new submarines.
Study done by several security companies, says that Norway should operate with minimum 14 submarines in similar size as the Ula class.

-Replace the 6 mine vessel with 4 new robot vessel


- Dassault DA-20 EK electronic warfare and VIP aircraft is taken out of service and the squadron is retired, two other squadrons are moved.
Reason: Norway will work closer with Nato's air force. (we do have a lot of personnel on NATO surveillance plane, but have nothing local....)

- P3 Orion is taken out of service and it's base at Andoya airbase will be decommissioned.
There are planes to replace them with Poseidon, but not confirmed yet and they will be stationed at a different air force base (that will say that it will take Norway 1-4 hour to deploy any plaen to anyplace in Norway)

- The Home guard Naval unit, is to be removed.
The biggest advantage of the Naval unit, is that they can operate from the coast line with light weight missile systems against a threat from the ocean.


The suggested budget put Norway on 1.5% BNP, when NATO demands 2.0% BNP or more.... And Norway says they shall "work in strength through NATO", before it was "to be scary enough to defend our own soil" (something in that tune)

With this already determined "things" from the Government. The Navy would look like this:

5 frigates
4 submarines
and some small vessel
1 support ship (under building in Korea
4 Robot mine vessel

Coast guard would operate with:
4-5 vessel in the outer coast guard and 4-5 vessel in the inner coast guard.

Basicly we will be similar to ...Sweden but using a F*** tone more money to do so!!!!?????

Yeah the need to cut money is spreading and these days do less with less seems to be the mentality.
I guess looking at it rationally, Norway is pretty safe from outside threats except for one, the big bear next door.

Even so, Norway is playing a dangerous game with its 1.5% commitment to NATO, whether Trump would ever carry out his threats regarding the underfunding of NATO is an unknown, but anything could happen there.

The F-35 must be the most hyped weapons system of the modern age, I hope the reality lives up to the hype. Saying that, the F-35 can go places a Skjold can't, I sense a more forward-strike approach behind the move, an F-35 can go deep into Arctic waters or into the Baltic whereas the Skjold is, in reality, a coastal defence asset. You really want to be smacking down the bad guys before they get into visual range of the rugged coasts of Norway. After all, coastal defences did little to stem the German invasion of 1940 despite all their blunting of German naval strength.

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I think most of it is just "wishful thinking", burying ones head in the sand and of course the crossing of ones fingers, which is always a good alternative to a sound defence policy

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The military says they have "good relation" with the Russian military.....

But at the same time Russian commercial captains is getting license to pilot there vessel along the Norwegian coast... alone.


As a former captain of the Norwegian Oslo class frigates said once. "When we was out on exercise and was suddenly attacked by MTB's, 9 out of 10 times we lost, and today with modern missiles, Stealth ships like the Skjold class that can operate close to the coast and also use the Norwegian coast to it's advantage with modern missile..."


But in reality Russia isn't a real danger, in most situation it's created by media. have an understanding with them and everything will go fine. For example Norway have committed a lot of money and specialist to help Russia to clean up... "Nuclear stuff/reactors", we also due to an deal with former-Soviet and now Russia that we shall not have a large military base stationed north for a certain line, but small base camp is okay.


The interesting thing here is that about 80-90% of the Norwegian population want to use more money on the conventional bit of the military. some people also see the military as the way for a boy to become a man. We also have parts of the government that want to strengthening the Home guard, since it's cheap.


But to put thing in perspective, Norway went from a cold war Military during the 80's with around 2-300.000 men and a navy of almost a 100 ships that are armed. to today with barely 60.000 men with reserve and 10.15 ships that are armed. So somewhere they have to cut the line and it will hurt. for going from "thousands" large and small bases to just a handful... and they also close one of our air force bases, thus Norway have only one base for air force left.


I don't have problems with the cuts, but sometimes they are a bit fast when they do so. The only argument for closing one of the air force base, is the cost to upgrade it for P8 poseidon, Government says it will cost 342.200.000 dollar, a local company says it will cost 62.872.000 dollar.... so WTF.