Gotland....

[Lucky13]

I wasn't too sure where to put this, here, in the 1945-1990 The Cold War or in the 1918-1939 The Interwar Period section, anyway....with what's going on in Ukraine I've began to wonder again, why we never opened a full permanent air base on Gotland like the one I grew up with, F4....
We had all those numbered from F1 up to F21, but none on Gotland, all we had (if I remember correctly) P18, don't quote me on that though...
With how things are looking right now and during the cold war, I find it rather stupid that they never fighter base there....

 

[Dimlee]

Perhaps the permanent base was considered too vulnerable to the first Soviet attack?

Good article on Wikipedia about the history of the military on Gotland, including aviation.

Military on Gotland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[frankv]

Perhaps the permanent base was considered too vulnerable to the first Soviet attack?

Good article on Wikipedia about the history of the military on Gotland, including aviation.

Military on Gotland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Wikipedia article is good. The military were withdrawn in 2005, but since 2012 they've returned. I suspect that it's not worth the trouble to station aircraft permanently on the island. Gotlund is about 50nm from mainland Sweden, which is only 6 minutes at 500kts, so there's little benefit to stationing fast attack aircraft there. OTOH, 50nm of occasionally frozen ocean would create expensive logistical problems, especially if you have to support not only the aircraft operational staff but also sufficient defenders to deter a raid on a juicy target.

 

[Dimlee]

And the island is within the range of ballistic Iskander-M and strike UAVs... Probably, Gotland has more value as a platform for air defence, electronic warfare, and unmanned systems?

By the way, this Russian "military expert" shared his vision of his country's attack in the Baltic region on Russian TV in December 2021. His "dream" began with the landing on Gotland and the deployment of jamming and missile systems there.

View: https://youtu.be/isqA9jFzqwg?si=e8czU6pBaoGNPqv0
(auto-translate is available).
Very similar to the main narrative of the Konflikti series.