Swedish Army

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Swedish Army ( Swedish Armén ) comprises 10,200 soldiers (4,300 of whom are conscripts ) and represents the army component of the Swedish armed forces .

The army is cadre and consists of active and reserve units.

history

In 1623 Gustav II Adolf had Sweden's landscape divided into nine large evacuation districts for land regiments . A land regiment according to the Orange pattern with a strength of 3,600 men was to be set up in each district . In addition to a court regiment, the king had an army of 36,000 raised peasants. This recruiting system , known in Swedish as the division system , was felt to be a heavy burden for the population in times of war.

Under Karl X. Gustav , soldiers were recruited for the army through advertising . The announcement for this had to be decided beforehand at the Reichstag . Due to the lack of money in the state institutions, contracts were often concluded with the regiment owners , the colonels , which entrusted them with the task of advertising and paying . Recruiting took place within, but also outside of Sweden, so that a large number of foreigners were in the army, mainly Germans . In 1682 this system was reformed and a new system of division was introduced, which was valid for the Swedish army until the 19th century. The soldiers were now recruited and supported on site. In the event of war, the districts had to make up for losses immediately.

After the death of Karl X. Gustav, the army consisted of the nobility , who had to perform the so-called horse service , a total of 1,100 men. There were also two dragoon regiments , 17 infantry regiments in Sweden and seven in Finland, four recruited regiments and the guards . In 1673 the Swedish army had grown to 16,000 cavalrymen and 38,000 infantrymen.

Since the 17th century, the army had headed the War College , an authority that was responsible for all military matters. Another early modern institution was the court martial , whose assessors came from the generals . The established post of Reichszeugmeister supervised the artillery and ammunition. To further increase discipline, new articles of war were introduced in 1683 . Among other things, it introduced the death penalty for members of the military in the event of looting . In 1687 a uniform blue uniform was introduced. Under Charles XI. a military hospital, the Kriegsmannshaus in Vadstena , was founded.

In 1901 conscription was introduced , which put the old recruiting system out of force. Conscription was suspended in 2010 and will be reintroduced in 2017.

Active associations

Soldier of the Skaraborg Regemente (2018)

The active formations are formed from nine regiments with battalion strength :

Reserve associations

In the event of mobilization , three tank regiments , eight mechanized infantry battalions , a reconnaissance regiment , two artillery battalions, an anti-aircraft battalion, three engineer battalions and four logistics battalions are planned as additional forces within the framework of a divisional command.

Another 80 battalions would be available for home defense in this case.

equipment

At equipment are u. a. 120 Strv-122 "leopard" 2S - battle tanks , 160 Strv-121 "leopard" 2A4 -Kampfpanzer, 485 Strv 9040 (CV-9040) - armored , 232 PbV 401A (MT-LB) - team armored , 334 Pbv 302 -Mannschaftstransportpanzer, 50 BvS 10 "Viking" -Mannschaftstransportpanzer, 183 XA-180 or XA-203 -Mannschaftstransportpanzer, 50 FH-77B - self-propelled guns and 3 Sperwer - drones available.

Former Army Aviation Force

From 1958 the Swedish army operated its own planes and helicopters . These were referred to as artillery flying troops ("Artilleriflyget") until 1980 and renamed "Arméflyget" (Army Aviators ) in 1980 , but remained subordinate to the artillery command. It was not until 1991 that Arméflyget became an independent unit within the army. Aircraft types used until 1991 were Piper PA-18 , Dornier Do 27 and Scottish Aviation Bulldog . After that only helicopters were used.

In 1998 Arméflyget (as well as the naval aviation force ) was dissolved and the remaining helicopters were transferred to the joint helicopter force ("Försvarsmaktens helikopterflottilj") , into which the helicopters of the (now lead) air force were also transferred.

literature

  • Stefan Kroll, Kersten Krüger: Military and Rural Society in the Early Modern Era, LIT Verlag Münster, 2000.

Individual evidence

  1. Country information from the Austrian Ministry of Defense
  2. ^ Announcement , nzz.ch, March 2, 2017, accessed on March 2, 2017

Web links

Commons : Armén  - collection of images, videos and audio files