On November 25, 2022, the Swedish Saab AB Group announced that it had signed a contract with the Armaments Agency of the Ministry of National Defense of Poland for the design, construction and operation support of two new reconnaissance ships for the Polish Navy. The total value of the contract is about 620 million euros (2.91 billion zlotys), its final finalisation should be made before the end of this year.
Retouched (without the tail number and the Swedish flag) photo of the new Swedish reconnaissance ship A 202 Artemis undergoing testing, presented by the Saab AB group as an illustration of two Saab AB reconnaissance ships ordered by PolandSaab AB will act as the general contractor for the design and construction of both ships, including the supply and integration of advanced intelligence systems.
The direct technical design of ships for the shipbuilding part will be carried out as a subcontractor by the Polish design bureau MMC Ship Design & Marine Consulting Ltd. in Gdynia, and the hulls of the ships will be built as a subcontractor by the Polish shipyard Remontowa Shipbuilding (formerly the famous shipyard Stocznia Północna) in Gdansk, the completion and equipment of the ships will be carried out by Saab in Sweden.
The ships are scheduled to be delivered in 2027. They are to replace in the Polish fleet both currently operational reconnaissance ships Nawigator (tail number "262") and Hydrograf (tail number "263") of Project 863, which have been in service since 1975-1976 (and also built then at the shipyard Stocznia Północna). Both of them are part of the Group of reconnaissance ships of the 3rd Flotilla of the Polish Navy based in Gdynia.
Saab's announcement of the conclusion of the contract is illustrated by a retouched photograph of the newly launched Swedish reconnaissance ship A 202 Artemis, built for the Swedish Navy by Saab AB Group as a general contractor, also according to the scheme with the design and construction of the hull in Poland. This suggests that the new Polish reconnaissance ships will be generally identical to the Swedish Artemis.In April 2017, the Swedish defense procurement agency Foersvarets materialverk (FMV) awarded the Saab AB group a contract worth 730 million Swedish kronor (about $ 70 million) for the construction of a new Artemis reconnaissance ship to replace the A 201 Orion reconnaissance ship, which has been in the Swedish navy since 1984, with delivery in 2020.
Another 500 million kronor ($48 million) was estimated at the cost of special reconnaissance equipment of the ship, supplied directly by FMV.
The design of the Artemis ship for the shipbuilding part was carried out as a subcontractor by the same Polish design bureau MMC Ship Design & Marine Consulting Ltd. in Gdynia, and the construction of the hull was carried out as a subcontractor by the Polish shipyard Stocznia Remontowa Nauta SA also in Gdynia. The official laying of the ship was carried out on Nauta on June 19, 2018, and the launch on April 16, 2019. However, in the future, the work actually stopped due to the bankruptcy of the Nauta shipyard. Only in 2021, the ship was towed to Sweden for completion at the Saab Koskims shipyard in Karlskrona, and on November 2, 2022, Artemis finally entered sea trials.
Artemis has a total displacement of 2,300 tons, a length of 74 m, a width of 14 m and a draft of 3.8 m. The full speed is 14.4 knots, the crew is about 35 people.
The new Swedish reconnaissance ship A 202 Artemis (c) Saab AB is undergoing testingOne of the two old Nawigator reconnaissance ships currently in the Polish Navy (tail number "262") of Project 863 (c) Jarosław Ciślak / Defence24.pl
