The Danish Navy: "Special" Forces

On the way to the Danish naval museum we ran into this modern day rendition of maritime activities: a bunch of rowdy drunk girls in row boats clinging to the side of another boat to avoid getting hit by the passing canal tour, slurring "Velkommen to Copenhagen!"

How do I become friends with these girls?.......

We headed over to the museum out on Christianhavn near the opera.

Arresthus = jail

Subs!

Danes and Norwegians both needed new submarines around the same time. Norwegians bought brand new modern u-boats. Danes bought Norwway's old beater boats for half price. They fixed up the subs near Copenhagen and then had to tow them out to Aarhus to update the electrical components. On the way out to sea, someone forgot to screw the valves completely on and as the boat was being towed the waves would wash over this open valve little by little and by the time it arrived in Aarhus only the top nose of the sub was above water. Once the submarine had stopped moving....it sunk....The whole inside of the it had filled with water... oops

torpedo

Well once the got it back on land and drained the water it was a few more years before they got it fully up and running again.

It has 8 torpedo launchers. They were never launched in war time but the sailors would get excited about it when they got to practice launching them in peacetime.

8 torpedo hatches on board

On board the submarine was a crew of 25 members: 1 captain and 12 duplicate workers who worked in 6 hour shifts. While one crew of 12 worked the other crew of 12 slept, the workers then woke up the sleepers and traded places. There were only 12 beds and they were always in use..

bedroom

Esben is really enjoying this

the kitchen

gadgets

Emilie really liked the periscope. It had 2 views: close and closer

one salt water shower for 25 stinky sailors, p-u

gadgets ...so many gadgets

gauges

tight quarters

I'd hate to be the guy that drops a stinky bomb in a submarine. That won't make you friends too fast

One time the Danish sailors were at a port in and island near Sweden where you can get some of the best smoked fish in the region for a reasonable price. The sailors were just ending a mssion so they decided to stock up on fish for friends and family. Since they had already launched some torpedos during practice they now had space in the empty torpedo launchers to store some goods to take bag. They filled the torpedo holders with fish, sailed back home and returned to their friends and family. But they forgot about the fish.... and it sat there rotting until the next mission....oops...

Sailors would also do some swimming as part of their sailor training. The sub has a chamber at the top where they can get out of the sub to swim around, but it was easier for them to just climb into an empty torpedo launcher, fill it up with water, then open the launcher hole until the diver swam out. That was common practice until one time someone closed the torpedo hatch door too quickly and well a sailor lost his foot. !

The Danish navy had been enlisted by the US and UK to be ready to strike Russian ships if they tried to get out of their eastern port into the Baltic Sea to threaten America during the Cold War. The sailors were trained to listen to the sound of the propellers of other boats and could tell one boat type from another and would report these finding. The Danes never had the opportunity to strike any Russian ships, but one time a Danish sailor noticed that the sound of the propellors on one of the Copenhagen commuter ferries sounded suspicious. They called the transportation agency to let them know. As it turns out, the propeller did have a problem and they were able to fix it. How very nice and handy to have a Danish navy that is so helpful!

Hiding from the rain..... underneath the submarine

They had another warship that we could go on that also housed a crew of 25. It was also equipped with torpedos to take out enemy boats and rocket power grenades and missile launchers to take down enemy planes. It was also prepared to take down Russian military in the case of the cold war. It's missiles were never launched in wartime, and never launched in practice, but they did accidentally misfire a missile at a village of summer houses near the coast.... Major oops!

From wikipedia:

On September 6, 1982 a frigate, the HDMS Peder Skram, accidentally fired aHarpoon missile during maneuvers in the Kattegat.^[1] The missile traveled 34 kilometers at low level, severing several power lines before striking some trees after which it exploded. The fireball and subsequent shock wave destroyed four unoccupied summer cottages, while damaging a further 130 buildings in the immediate vicinity. No human injury was reported.

A navy investigation into the matter initially concluded that a technical malfunction was the cause of the launch as it happened without the launch key being activated. The missile system had undergone maintenance and was in the process of being checked by an expert from the navy material command. He was charged for negligence and was eventually convicted. Later most charges were dropped by a second investigation. The manufacturer of the missile later paid the Danish government a compensation, which covered all the damages made by the missile. They called it the Whoops missile.

.....Whoops indeed....

missile launchers

The Whoops missile launcher

turbo power

shooting down aircraft

The warship also comes with a camouflage net....can you spot the boat above? Translation" what you find it difficult to see here?"

skeptical

tracking the Russians

the sailor lounge

sleeping quarters

kitchen

dirty sailor calendars to make it realistic

84 of these RPGs can be fired off in 60 sseconds

Attached to a pulley up near the light is a bottle opener. When you pull it down to use it you have a certain amount of time before the blue light goes off and if you're too slow, the next round is on you!

To the last boat: