Testing the water: Saab sets out its future manned/unmanned fleet vision

摘要

In the mid-1980s, the Royal Swedish Navy (RSwN) and Sweden's Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) began extensive scientific and technical research to understand if and how 'stealth' technology could be embodied in the design of the RSwN's next generation of surface ships in order to improve their survivability. To support this programme, and provide solid evidence of whether innovative concepts and theories could translate into real-world practice, the surface effect ship (SES) testbed Smyge was built to serve as an experimental platform to evaluate signature reduction technologies, investigate the challenges of weapon/sensor integration into a stealth ship, and explore the benefits and limitations of SES technology.