The Swedish Navy () is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet () – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps ().
Founded under King Gustav I in 1522, the Swedish navy is one of the oldest continuously serving navies in the world, celebrating its 500th anniversary in 2022.
History
Early Swedish kings ( 9th–14th centuries) organised a Swedish Navy along the coastline through . This involved combined rowing and sailing ships (without artillery). This system became obsolete with the development of society and changes in military technology. No later than in the 14th century, the duty to serve in was replaced by a tax. In 1427, when Sweden was still part of the Kalmar Union (with Denmark and Norway), Swedish warships did however participate in the naval battle of Öresund against the Hanseatic League. It is unclear how this force was organised and exactly on what basis.
On 7 June 1522, one year after the separation of Sweden from the Kalmar Union, Gustav Vasa purchased a number of ships from the Hanseatic town of Lübeck. Official Swedish histories since the 19th century have often recorded this day as the birth of the current Swedish Navy. The museum ship in Stockholm was a 17th-century ship of the Royal Swedish Navy ().
The Amphibious Corps dates back to 1 January 1902, when a separate "Coastal Artillery" () was established, and came into use as the name of the service as a whole. The last decade of the 20th century saw the abandonment of the coastal fortifications and the force became a more regular marine corps, renamed Amphibious Corps () in 2000.
For most of the twentieth century, the Swedish Navy focused on the threat of a full-scale invasion of Sweden via the Baltic Sea and on protecting commercial shipping. Sweden's location on the Scandinavian peninsula makes it highly dependent of maritime trade: 90% imports and exports enter or leave Sweden through the Baltic. In 1972, the government decreed that non-military measures should be used to protect merchant shipping. The resolution led to the de-commissioning of all the navy's destroyers and frigates, though the non-military measures the government intended to use to protect shipping have never been specified.
The navy first participated in a UN-led peacekeeping mission in October 2006 when the corvette began performing coastal surveillance duties for the United Nations Mission in Lebanon. HSwMS Gävle was relieved by , which returned to Sweden in September 2007.
, , and took part in the EU-led EUNAVFOR operation (2008– ) off the coast of the Horn of Africa. In 2010, was the EUNAVFOR flagship, housing the fleet headquarters led by RAdm (LH) Jan Thörnqvist.
Organization
Until recently, the Navy was led by the Chief of the Navy, who was typically a vice admiral. This office has been eliminated, and the highest officer of the Navy is now the Chief of Navy, Rear Admiral Ewa Skoog Haslum, who is the senior representative of the Swedish Navy's combat forces.
The Marine units use the same system of rank as the Army.
Naval units
1st Submarine Flotilla (1. ubflj) located in Karlskrona
3rd Naval Warfare Flotilla (3. sjöstridsflj) located in Karlskrona
4th Naval Warfare Flotilla (4. sjöstridsflj) located at Berga
Amphibious units
1st Marine Regiment () located in Berga
4th Marine Regiment ()located in Gothenburg
Bases
Muskö naval base, located at Muskö island in the Stockholm archipelago. The base serves as the headquarters of the Swedish Navy since September 2019. Karlskrona naval base (MarinB), located at Karlskrona with detachments at Berga, Gothenburg and Skredsvik.
Training units
Swedish Naval Warfare Centre (SSS) located in Karlskrona
Equipment
In the decades following World War II, the Swedish Navy was organised around three light cruiser groups (, and ). In the early 1960s, a decision, known as Navy Plan 60 (), was made to scrap the cruisers and move towards a larger fleet of smaller vessels. The last cruiser, Göta Lejon, was sold in 1970 to Chile, where she was renamed Almirante Latorre. The fleet at the time comprised some 24 destroyers and frigates for surface warfare (mainly in the Baltic Sea) and anti-submarine warfare.