The Swedish Armed Forces have taken delivery of their first naval vessel in more than a decade. HMS Artemis is the new signal intelligence vessel, a spy ship, which once tested will replace the aging HMS Orion in 2024.
The arrival of the vessel has been plagued by delays. The ship itself was going to be build in Poland at first, but in the end manufacturer Saab Kockum chose Karlskrona, where it let the Polish subcontractor join the construction. The coming year the electronic intelligence gathering systems will be installed and when operational next year, it will be four years behind the original planning.
Meanwhile the Materiel Command of the Swedish Armed Forces (FMV) is happy with the new vessel. “The new vessel is more agile than its predecessor and personnel on board will have living quarters of a higher standard. Apart from that the electromagnetic capabilities have been improved, meaning that the electronic footprint of the vessel will be smaller,” a FMV press release reads.
Like with HMS Orion, the focus of HMS Artemis will be mainly Russia’s military activities in the Baltic Sea and its coastal areas, although no such statement has been officially made by the Swedish Armed Forces. Personnel on board will be mainly from the National Signal Intelligence Agency, or FRA. They will tap into all kinds of communication and data traffic and try to make sense of it. | © 2023 Marcel Burger, nordicreporter.com. Photo: HMS Artemis (Press photo by Saab/Glenn Pettersson)