A new tranche of military assistance from Sweden was announced today, January 19th, just a day before the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in the Ramstein format.
The Swedish support contains of three parts, as noted at the government's website: commitment of Archer B howitzers, with an assignment for the Swedish Armed Forces to prepare the artillery systems for the transfer to Ukraine; a materiel package providing for the short-term delivery of military equipment; and the introduction of procurement collaboration with Ukraine that will help with further military supplies.
Read more: Sweden Intends to Supply 155mm Archer Artillery Systems to Ukraine
The total value of the Swedish defense package is SEK 4.3 billion, which makes it the largest to date. In addition to the mentioned anti-tank weapons, it also includes automatic rifles, mine clearance equipment and the Combat Vehicle 90 (CV 90) infantry fighting vehicles, domestically known as Stridsfordon 90.
In our previous article, we already took a look at the Archer howitzers and assessed how many of them can be transferred from Sweden to Ukraine. As a brief reminder, one of the key features that make it so valuable is the high level of automation, so it can swiftly deploy, fire a series of shots and leave the position, avoiding detection and backfire. Another consequence is that the Archer needs a crew of only three people, who are separated from the gun and ammunition and can operate the gun from a safe cabin.
At the same time, we did not pay much attention to the CV90 combat vehicles yet. The CV 90 chassis has branched into an entire family of combat vehicles, including the standard CV9040 currently used as the IFV of the Swedish Army, the Grkpbv90 self-propelled mortar, and others. The total number of all variations reaches 17.
Since 2016, Sweden has been modernizing 288 of its CV 90 vehicles under a contract with BAE Systems and has six different variants of them (Strf 9040, Stripbv 90, Epbv 90, Bgbv 90, DSpbv 90, and Pipbv 90, ranging from reconnaissance vehicles to engineering equipment), the modernization was aimed at improving the survivability and performance. At the same time, Swedish Armed Forces gradually upgrade the vehicles from A to D versions by introducing new communication and data exchange systems on the inside.
As for the IFV vehicles Ukraine is interested in, The Military Balance 2022 reference book says Sweden has 369 units of CV9040 type (Strf 9040). Although, the Swedish government did not detail which exact variants of the CV 90 will go to Ukraine.
Thus Sweden became the third country after the United States and Germany to provide IFV-type vehicles to Ukraine. Here we provided a detailed analysis of the previously announced Bradley and Marder IFVs pledged by these two countries earlier.
Read more: Armed Forces of Ukraine Can Get More Swedish Weaponry – What About CV90 IFV, JAS 39, Grkpbv 90 Mjolnir Mortar
