Another great anti aircraft system for the royal danish navy The
Oerlikon Millennium 35mm Naval Gun
System is a
Close-in weapon system designed by Oerlikon (a Rheinmetall subsidiary) for mounting on ships. It is based on the new Oerlikon
35 mm revolver cannon land based
Air defense system, and uses AHEAD ammunition.
A device at the muzzle end of the barrel measures the exact speed of each round as it is fired, and automatically sets the fuse to detonate the round as it approaches a pre-set distance from the target. Each round disperses
152 small projectiles to strike the incoming target.[2] Whilst these are too small to do major damage in themselves, the accumulation of damage from multiple strikes is expected to destroy wings and control surfaces, sensors and aerodynamics, causing the target to crash. Other firing modes are designed to be effective against surface targets such as small fast attack boats.
The Millennium gun is easy to install as it requires no through deck penetration and needs no supply of coolant, air or ship's power to operate. However, it does need a power supply to recharge its batteries.
Installation can take as little as sixty minutes and requires only six square metres of deck space. A Millennium gun and 252 rounds weighs 3,
200 kg. The gun's cupola is claimed to have a low radar cross section.
The weapon is designed to be controlled by an external fire-control system using either radar or electro-optical trackers. It is fitted with an optional onboard observation TV camera which relays imagery to an
operator console from which it can also be aimed and fired in an emergency mode.
The computer system uses an open architecture and is claimed to be compatible with many existing fire control systems.
The Royal Danish Navy (
RDN) (officially
Kongelige Danske Marine in
Danish, but more generally known as
Søværnet) is the sea-based branch of the
Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish, Greenlandic and
Faroese territorial waters. Other tasks include surveillance, search and rescue, icebreaking, oil spill recovery and prevention as well as contributions to international tasks and forces.
During the period 1509–
1814, when
Denmark was in a union with
Norway, the Danish Navy was part of the
Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. Until the copenhagenization of the navy in 1807, the navy was a major strategic influence in the
European geographical area, but since then its size and influence has drastically declined with a change in government policy.
Despite this, the navy is now equipped with a number of large state-of-the-art vessels commissioned since the end of the
Cold War. This can be explained by its strategic location as the
NATO member controlling access to the
Baltic.
Danish Navy ships carry the prefix
KDM (Kongelige Danske Marine) in Danish, but this is translated to
HDMS (Her / His Danish
Majesty's
Ship) in
English. Denmark is one of several
NATO member states whose navies do not deploy submarines.
History[edit]
The geographic layout of Denmark (not including
Greenland and the
Faroe Islands) has a coastline to land area ratio of 1:5.9. By comparison, the figure for the
Netherlands is 1:92.1 and for the
USA, 1:493.2.[5] Denmark therefore naturally has long-standing maritime traditions, dating back to the
9th century when the
Vikings had small but well-organised fleets. They were often based in a small number of villages, usually with a common defence agreement;
Viking ships, usually of the Knarr type, were light, and therefore easy to transport from village to village over land. With time, the defence pacts gave rise to larger, more offensive fleets which the Vikings used for plundering coastal areas
. In the period after the Vikings, and up to the
15th century, the fleet consisted mainly of merchant vessels. Indeed, it is said that king
Valdemar Sejr had more than 1,
000 ships during the conquest of
Estonia in 1219.
Together they carried more than 30,000 soldiers with horses and supplies.
Records exist of a unified
Danish navy from the late
14th century.
Queen Margaret I, who had just founded the
Kalmar Union (consisting of Denmark, Norway,
Sweden,
Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands,
Shetland,
Orkney, parts of
Finland and parts of
Germany) ordered the building of a navy — mainly to defend the union against the
Hanseatic League. Earlier the national fleet had consisted of vessels owned and operated by the nobility, but the country as such did not have a navy. The earlier monarchs therefore had to rely on conscription from the nobility, which was not always easy as the monarchy itself often had enemies within the nobility. Queen Margaret I gave instructions for a navy to be constituted and maintained under the control of the monarchy. The nobility still had to provide crews (which consisted mainly of "volunteered" farmers) for these ships, though the core crew-members (i.e. masters, master-at-arms and master carpenters)
- published: 25 Mar 2016
- views: 1