Romeo Squared

Defense with a Baltic edge

Finland

Unmanned technology will soon be cheap enough for small countries

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Corporal Frisk has an interesting discussion about unmanned autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence over on his blog. It is actually a report from the Finnish Naval Defense Day 2018, so there is a nice status summary of current projects in the Finnish Navy. But the most interesting bit for me was the discussion about unmanned technology in naval operations:

While drones currently are sub-systems rather than main systems, their revolutionary nature shouldn’t be underestimated. In the naval domain, getting a lightweight synthetic aperture radar up in the sky aboard a lightweight drone is suddenly a serious alternative to the traditional mast-mounted surface search radar, providing both over-the-horizon range and having the added benefit of letting the host vessel’s sensors remain silent. An interesting example is Israel who has retired manned maritime patrol aircraft and completely replaced them with remotely piloted ones.

These systems are approaching a price point where they are a realistic option for a country like Finland.

Estonia leaves UNIFIL because Finland does

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Estonia has to discontinue its deployment in UNIFIL because Finland has chosen to leave the joint Irish/Finnish battalion. UNIFIL is the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon.

This leads Tony Lawrence from ICDS to comment:

The end of the Irish/ Finnish/Estonian partnership illustrates one of the arguments deployed against greater cooperation among Europe’s armed forces – that in delivering defence capability it is risky to be bound to the policies of another nation. The counter argument – that while there are risks, capability simply could not be delivered without cooperation – seems to be the stronger one here. Estonia would not have been able to deploy a platoon to a UN mission other than within a Finnish framework company, and Finland would not have been able to gain the battalion-level command experience it requires for training and force development other than within the Finnish/Irish battalion. Peacekeeping is, of course, not national defence. But similar cases where nations face the choice of relying on others or not having a capability at all may be found at the harder end of the defence spectrum too – for example the Netherlands is only able to sustain the tank battalion it considers necessary for defence by closely integrating its armoured capability with that of Germany.

The argument is good. Cooperation about international operations is an important enabler, and the experience gained from such missions is essential. And Estonia needs to be out there and show that they are also a provider of security and not only a consumer.

But there is a certain irony to the fact that other countries use the same arguments to explain what they get out of sending their soldiers to Estonia.

K9 Thunder howitzers delivered to Finland

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Finland has received the first K9 Thunder self-propelled howitzers from South Korea. That announced Finnish defense minister Jussi Niinistö on Friday. Finland has ordered a total of 48 K9 Thunder howitzers, and judging by the images from the Vuosaari docks at least four of them have arrived.

The K9 Thunder is a 155 mm self-propelled howitzer produced by Samsung Techwin. Finland signed the €146 million deal in February of 2017, and the vehicles will be produced for Finland between 2017 and 2024. They will replace the old Soviet produced 2S1 Gvozdika howitzers that Finland has.

Finland is the first Scandinavian country to receive deliveries of the K9 Thunder. In addition to Finland, also Estonia and Norway have bought the howitzer. Estonia has purchased 12 howitzers, and Norway has purchased 24 with an option for another 24.

Finland chooses Harpoon and ESSM for new corvettes

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Last updated: 31 August 2018

The U.S. State Department has approved two missile sales to Finland. This includes Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles for the new multipurpose corvettes and [Harpoon missiles] for the Hamina class, the new corvettes, and for coastal batteries.

Evolved Sea Sparrow is a medium range air defense missile developed by Raytheon. It is a well established brand which is used in many nations. Finland will apparently buy 68 ESSMs and an inert training missile. Finland also buys 17 quad pack canisters and eight shipping containers. The price of this is estimated at $112.7 million.

Harpoon is an anti-ship missile which is widely used. However, Finland will buy the new Extended Range (ER) version which has a range of almost 250 kilometers. This is also known as Harpoon Next Generation, and Finland is the first buyer of the missile since it was unveiled by Boeing in 2015. In total Finland will buy 112 Harpoon missiles and eight exercise missiles. The price of the Harpoon package is estimated at $622 million.

The announcement comes as a surprise as earlier rumors said that Finland was considering the Saab RTS-15 or Kongsberg NSM missiles.

Finland’s four new multipurpose corvettes are constructed under the name of Flotilla 2020. Their costs are estimated at €1.2 billion which does not include the missiles. They will have a displacement of around 3000 tons, a length of 105 meters, a breadth of 15 meters, and a draft of 5 meters.

Update: I was wrong on this one. Finland actually decided to acquire the Israeli anti-ship missile system Gabriel. So they bought neither Harpoon, nor Saab RTS-15, nor Kongsberg NSM.

Sweden and Finland buy new torpedoes together

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Sweden and Finland have announced a joint procurement of torpedoes of the type New Lightweight Torpedo (NLT). This torpedo is produced by Saab Dynamics and is also known by the Swedish name of Torpedsystem 47 or Tp 47.

The hope is that the coordinated purchase will lower the costs of sustaining and further developing the torpedo system. It is also anticipated that this opens other possibilities for cooperation within anti-submarine warfare. …Continue reading

Finland will buy large corvettes

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Finnish chief of defense general Jarmo Lindberg to Defense News:

[In] the defense report that was finalized in June last year, the government stated that they are willing to fund strategic procurement programs first to the Navy, where six ships are going away, and they’re going to be replaced by four multipurpose corvettes of about 100 meters. And the anticipated cost of that is €1.2 billion.

As I wrote the other day, ocean capable corvettes are a very interesting class of ships.

Finns like NATO less and Russia more compared to last year

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Every year the Finnish Advisory Board of Defence Information conducts a survey of the public opinion on defense related issues. Pauli Järvenpää from ICDS has found a few interesting results:

[M]ore and more Finns seem to believe in common defense through the country’s EU membership. This year, as many as 70 per cent of those polled supported that position. In 2016 this opinion was held by only 62 per cent of the polled. In 2015, just 56 per cent agreed with that claim. In the same vein, defense cooperation with the Nordic countries, Sweden in particular, gets a strong support from the Finns.

Support of NATO membership is way down to 22 percent. Interesting that there is so big difference.

Also noteworthy:

[I]n 2017 Finns hold a more positive opinion of Russia than in previous years. This year, just 37 per cent of the polled considered the Russian influence in world affairs as a negative development, while in the previous year that figure was as high as 50 per cent. Additionally, while in 2016 just 6 per cent of the Finns considered Russia as having a positive influence in the world, in 2017 that figure has climbed to 14 per cent. It is interesting that this change of opinion is happening against the political and military background of Russia continuing to occupy Crimea, to foment aggression in Ukraine, and to meddle in other countries’ national elections.

Historic procurement of Nordic Combat Uniforms reaches prequalification

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The Nordic Combat Uniform (NCU) project is moving ahead with an official invitation to possible candidates for prequalification. The goal is that Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden will buy new combat uniforms together, albeit with national variations in colors and camouflage patterns.

By making the procurement together the Nordic countries hope to attract big players that are able to provide higher quality uniforms for less money. The expected value of the contract is between 290 and 425 million euros.

The project is run in a NORDEFCO group that was established in February 2016. Since then the countries have worked out legal and technical details regarding the combat uniform system. There have been some different preferences among the countries with some focusing on Arctic features while others had wishes regarding uses in tropical weather conditions. Overall, though, the countries had very similar requirements to a combat uniform system.

The tender process is officially coordinated by the Norwegian defense. If you are interested in selling a uniform system to the Nordic countries, you can find the procurement documents here.

Finland will buy 64 new fighter jets

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Finland’s Ministry of Defense has announced that they expect to buy 64 new fighter jets. That means that the country’s F/A-18 Hornets will be replaced on a one to one basis.

Manager of the acquisition program Lauri Puranen says to yle.fi that since the new jets are not faster than the old ones, and they can’t stay longer in the air, Finland needs the same number of jets to maintain the performance of the air defense. And 64 fighter jets is according to Puranen the minimum number to defend a country of Finland’s size.

Finland expects to make a purchasing decision in 2021, and the new fighters must be in place by 2030 when the current fleet of Hornets are due for retirement. Five aircraft are in the competition:

  • F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
  • F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
  • Eurofighter Typhoon
  • JAS 39 Gripen E
  • Dassault Rafale

As Corporal Frisk points out, Finland has a tradition of buying defense equipment that is just a little behind the cutting edge, aiming for the sweet spot where the R&D work is done and the costs are known but the product is still modern. Finland expects to spend €7-10 billion on the purchase, of which 10-20 percent is dedicated to the weapons’ package.

Finland’s inclination to buy well tested equipment means that the choice of fighter jet is less obvious than in Norway and Denmark where the F-35 seemed the inevitable winner. The Finnish Ministry of Defense has hinted that they expect their new fighter to be able to launch long-range ground attack cruise missiles, and that they are not willing to participate in development work. It may be difficult to get this fully developed for the F-35 before 2030, so that may put other manufacturers at an advantage. (Corporal Frisk’s post is a very good elaboration on this argument.)

The Finnish message that the old fighter jets will be replaced by a similar number of new ones is in contrast to the Danish decision to replace 44 old F-16s with only 27 F-35s. The Danish assumption is that the new planes need less maintenance, so they can deliver more flight hours per year.