cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/56707632
The S-363 was a soviet submarine in the NATO designated whiskey-class.
In Sweden she is know as U 137, due to her Soviet name being classified at the time.
S-363 ran aground on 1981/10/27, on the south coast of Sweden, this happened at a time when the Sweden held a naval exercise testing new equipment in the area.
There were a lot of back and fourth between Sweden and the Soviets, with the Soviets blaming faulty navigation having got the boat lost, this was despite the boat having navigated several complicated areas with rocks, straights, and islands to get to their current location.
The Soviets later issued a contradictory statement about how the submarine were forced into Swedish waters due to bad weather.
The Soviet captain was taken to be interviewed on the mainland, and while gone the sub sent out a distress call and two ships from a Soviet armada just outside Swedish waters started to move towards the submarine.
This is when the Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fäldin gave the order “Håll gränsen”, “Hold the border”, to the Swedish Supreme Commander.
Coastal batteries, mobile coastal artillery gund and mine station went into action stations, the Swedish Air Force scrambled strike aircraft armed with modern anti ship missiles.
20 min later Fäldin was informed that the ships were not infact Soviet naval vessels, but rather West German merchant ships.
The submarine was stuck for 10 days, before being hauled off the rock by Swedish tugs and permitted to join the Soviet naval escort.
The photographer of this photo is unknown, and it is licensed as CC-BY
And for those less well versed in naval lingo: S-363 / U-137 was known as a Whiskey-class submarine, hence the very apt “whiskey on the rocks” moniker. 🥃
Further, this was during the cold war when it was “well known” (ie. not proven) that the Russians were intruding into Swedish territorial waters and cartoons like the one below was commonplace in the papers. So this event was very much a “smoking gun”, leading swedes to say “Ha! We knew it!” which was rather embarrassing for Russia. Not to mention… that boat is really up there, you know?
To be fair the Soviets sent out a rescue fleet which allegedly only stopped at the border when the coastal artillery switched to jumping frequencies, only intended for war.
Or so the person responsible for that call says…
Wasn’t that something that only happened in the satire TV show Whiskey on the Rocks?
The same TV show having Swedish submarines equipped with underwater headlights so they could intimidate the Soviets as they drive under their surface ships.
It is portrayed there but is a real event.
Artilleriledningsradarns särskilda hoppfrekvens fick bara användas i krig, för att slå på den krävdes skriftlig order. Lindén skriver ner två rader på papper, ordern undertecknas och vidimeras av sambandsofficeren och sekreteraren. Med 400 meter kvar till svenskt territorium signalerar den sovjetiske amiralen Kalinin hemmabasen från sin jagare: ”Svenskarna är beredda att öppna eld”, och begär instruktioner. Svaret från Sovjet kommer: ”Gör ingenting”.
– 30 sekunder efter att vi slagit på hoppfrekvens kunde vi se att farten gick ner på de sovjetiska fartygen.Basically, the jumping frequencies are only allowed in war, a written command was issued and with 400 meter until Swedish territory and 30 seconds after the decision was made the Soviet fleet stopped.
https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/information-och-fakta/var-historia/artiklar/u-137-dagarna-nar-sverige-var-pa-randen-till-krig/ in Swedish though
edit: oh and the part where Neptune flashed it’s headlights was new to me and I can’t find anything about it other than some unsourced edit on Wikipedia, so I’d take that with some salt
Ah, interesting, thanks for the source!
Alltid trevligt att lära sig något nytt!
Jag hörde om det först via Whiskey on the Rocks serien i samma scen som med strålkastarna, hade inte koll på att det faktiskt var historiskt
Glad att kunna bidra 😄 Ja, just det biten verkar det vara lite sådär med. Dumt av en ubåt att berätta att den är där men häftig scen.
Sen om det var just kustartilleriet eller som wikipedia gör gällande, att en större ansamling svenska örlogsfartyg och startklara attackviggen hade större påverkan, får väl vara upp till egen bedömning.
