Inside Sweden's Stealth Warship 24 Hours Aboard the Visby-Class Corvette

(dramatic music begins) - [Sam] In the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea lies one of the most advanced warships ever built. Its movement is described as ghost-like. It's design, a masterpiece in naval stealth and engineering. This is Sweden's Visby-Class Corvette, and for the next 24 hours I'll be living onboard. We're going to see a full tour of the ship, sleep an entire night in the cabin, and even experience a full weapons demo, all to answer the question of what is life like onboard a ship that's meant to never be seen?

(dramatic music continues) - [Radio Voice] Sam, you are clear to engage target. - Engaging target. (buttons beep) (gun whirs) (intense boom swells) (intense music begins) Right now, I'm aboard the Swedish Navy's CB90 assault combat boat, one of the fastest and most agile boats in the world. Now this also happens to be our ride out to the stealth Corvette. When you're trying to catch a ghost, you need something even faster. And with a top speed of over 40 knots, or 75 kilometers per hour, this combat boat is our best shot of doing just that. (intense music continues)

Yeah, thank you. (intense music continues) This is the HMS Karlstad, the newest Visby-Class Corvette in the Swedish Navy that was commissioned in 2015. And for the next 24 hours, we've been granted access to pretty much this entire ship. So to kick things off, it only seems right that we start with the most striking feature on this ship. The one that gives the Visby-Class Corvette its nickname, the Ghost of the Baltic. (dramatic music begins) When you first lay eyes on the Visby, it looks completely foreign to anything you normally associate with a warship.

There are no right angles, no exposed lifeboats. Everything is enclosed in a clean, minimalistic design to preserve one thing and one thing only. Stealth. But it goes deeper than just how the ship looks. The engines are buried deep inside the hull to mask their acoustic signature. The exhaust is cooled before it's released to reduce infrared visibility. Even the internal machinery is isolated and dampened to keep underwater noise to an absolute minimum.

The idea behind stealth is simple. If you can make your ship look smaller, or nearly invisible to radar, you can see the enemy before they can see you. A typical warship reflects radar like a giant mirror, lighting up screens from miles away, but a stealth ship like the Visby is shaped and constructed to scatter those signals in every direction so almost nothing bounces back. Instead of appearing as a 600 ton warship, it might show up on radar like a small fishing boat, a buoy, or nothing at all.

It's the same principle behind stealth aircraft like the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning. But those fighter jets are smaller, sleeker, and crewed by just a single pilot. Building a 250 foot warship with that same level of radar signature is exponentially more difficult, which is what makes the Visby's design so remarkable. It's not just stealthy for a ship. It's stealthy, period. Now, stealth is only one characteristic of what makes the Visby-Class Corvette so unique, and its entire design was actually made to be unlike any other warship in history.

Its hull is built almost entirely from a composite carbon fiber. It uses water jet propulsion instead of propellers and has no exposed weapons or sensors when not in use. Every decision, from the materials, to the shape, to the layout is meant to reduce detection and increased performance in the tight shallow waters of the Baltic Sea. (dramatic music continues) - Hello. - Hi. - Hi, welcome to bridge. - Thank you. - So this is the bridge of a Visby Corvette.

Over here, you can see the place where we actually do all the navigation. We have three places in here. As a commanding officer, I have one chair up here on the bridge and one downstairs in ops room. This is the navigation officer. He is in the center of the ship. He has responsibility for the navigational safety. Of course, he is always on the bridge. We have the possibility to put the helmsman in this chair to steer the ship. Normally we do it with the autopilot to be able to handle the minimal crew, and that's how we normally navigate.

- [Sam] Now, for those who are unfamiliar with naval terminology, displacement and draft are two fundamental terms used to describe a ship's build. Displacement refers to the weight of the water a ship pushes aside when it's floating, which is how you measure the actual weight of the ship, typically measured in tons. Draft is the vertical distance between the waterline and the lowest point of the hull, also known as the keel. It tells you how deep the ship sits in the water, which in turn affects where it can operate. In regards to the Visby-Class Corvette,

it displaces around 640 tons at a full load, which is relatively small compared to traditional warships, helping add to its stealth and agility. Its draft is only 2.4 meters, which means it can easily maneuver in shallow coastal waters, which is a massive advantage in the narrow, island-filled Baltic Sea, where the Visby was specifically designed to operate. What would you say the biggest difference is between commanding a traditional warship versus something that's so stealthy like this?

- [Christoffer] You have a lot of advanced technique. We minimize the crew that's handling the navigational safety and put more power into the capability in the ship for the fighting. This team, everybody tried to get better every day, and that's something we're really working hard, and sometimes we push the limits, and I think that's the best part of the job. We like to be the best of the best. - So we've now seen how the ship is commanded, but now it's time to explore the rest of it. Where the crew eats and sleeps, to how they work to ensure this ship is running fast and silent.

And, to show us around, we've got Isac here, the ship's operations officer. You ready? - Let's do it. (upbeat music continues) - So we've now reached the main deck. This is where some of the crew sleeps, and the total amount of crew is currently 45 people, out of which 28 are officers or petty officers. - That kind of sounds like a small number, but I assume everyone's filling multiple jobs, multiple roles, and that's how you guys kind of make use of the space.

- That's how we get it done, yeah. We are passing one of the shower rooms, and on this deck, we have two showers and three toilets. It's not currently operational, but this is where you stay if you're seasick. - I feel like I might be using that. - [Isac] Now reaching your cabin for the night. - [Sam] So this is where I'm gonna be sleeping. - [Isac] Yeah, this is where you're gonna sleep. - [Sam] It's actually pretty spacious.

You said small. - [Isac] You think so? - [Sam] I thought it was gonna be even smaller. I've heard some people say that their best night's sleeps are out at sea. Is that true? - [Isac] Well, I guess we'll have to figure out. - We'll circle back on that. - Yeah. Next up is the galley on our right side, preparing four meals a day, so that's breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack. Although our change of watches are at 3:00 and 9:00 AM and PM. So the midnight snack is not really a midnight snack. Right across from the galley is the officers and petty officers mess.

This is where we eat, this is where we hang out, and it also doubles as the medical bay. - What's the disco ball? - Oh, sorry, can't tell you. (Sam laughs) - Classified, I understand. - Ah, classified, that's a better one. (Sam laughs) We've now reached the CIC, the Combat Information Center. I can give you a brief overview of the different positions in here. It's about to get crowded due to changes of watch. So right behind you is the anti-air warfare, electronic warfare, anti-surface warfare down in the corner,

anti-subsurface warfare, and in the middle, the CO and the officer of the watch. - So this really is like the brains of the ship, right? - [Isac] Most people would say so, except from the engineering department. - Gotcha, so any weapons systems controlled from here? You can see radar, sonar. - [Isac] All of them are controlled from here, although some of them can also be controlled from other places around the ship.

This is our helicopter deck. Being able to receive a helicopter provides us with a lot of things, such as prolonged endurance as well as freedom of action and freedom of movement. It can also be used for personnel transportation or a medical evacuation if, for example, we had an injured crew member. - So take a look at this. This is pretty interesting. Even this hatch door is manufactured and designed for stealth. There's no exterior handle.

It fits perfectly flush with the outside of the ship here. How do you get it open? - Get the right tool. (gentle music continues) - There you go. I guess if you didn't have the tool, you'd be stuck. - I'd be stuck, yeah. - But we got it. - We got it. (transition whooshes) (electronic chime chirps) - [Sam] When you step onboard a ship like the Visby-Class Corvette, you quickly realize that it's a glimpse into the future of naval warfare, made possible by the sponsor of today's video, SAAB. SAAB's mission is all about protecting people and society through innovation, and here at sea, that means developing advanced ships, sensors,

and combat systems to help navies around the world stay one step ahead. The Visby-Class is a perfect example of that. It was built by SAAB to include advanced composite materials making the ship incredibly lightweight compared to traditional steel construction, while also helping reduce its radar, magnetic, acoustic, and infrared signatures. That engineering is the reason why this ship is fast, survivable, and extremely difficult to detect. But stealth is only part of the story. SAAB also develops the 9LV Naval Combat System, which helps bring a ship's sensors, weapons, communications, and combat systems together into one integrated interface.

That gives the crew a clear picture of what's happening all around them, and allows them to respond quickly to a variety of threats. That same approach also extends to SAAB's CB90, the boat you might remember as the one we caught a ride on to meet up with the Visby. It's built for moving troops and equipment through complex coastal environments, and has become the backbone of the Swedish amphibious program. Depending on the mission, the CB90 can be equipped with advanced sensors, remote weapon systems, and even autonomous technology, allowing it to take some of the dull, dangerous, or dirty missions that might otherwise put people at risk.

SAAB is doing the hard work today so that we can all be better prepared for tomorrow, designing and maintaining the systems that keep our oceans safe. (gentle music continues) (waves roll) Now, the Visby-Class wasn't just built for one role. It was designed for what's called modular mission capability, meaning the same ship can be reconfigured to fit different types of missions. These include surface warfare, mine countermeasures, and anti-submarine warfare. And the last one is what the crew is here training today, because out here in the Baltic, the threat of submarines is very real.

- The Baltic region is quite specific. The water is different layers. It's also the environment with all the islands. So this is something we train a lot, and we are very capable to use the sonars to different layers, and in that way find the targets. - We have a variety of underwater sensors on board, two of which are the hull-mounted sonar and the variable depth sonar. - [Christoffer] A hull-mounted sonar is mostly used for classifying the contact. Then we have variable depth sonar. It's used for surveillance under the surface, of course.

- And these, in combination with the helicopter, these sensors allow us to operate efficiently in the Baltic Sea region. - [Sam] Anti-submarine warfare isn't something you can do alone. The Visby works in coordination with helicopters, which can perform sonar dips or drop sonobuoys to search a much wider area. Today, we were able to watch a helicopter conduct winching and anti-submarine warfare operations alongside the ship, a reminder that this mission relies on speed, communication, and teamwork between multiple platforms.

All right, it's now half past 8:00 in the evening, and the ship has wrapped up its training operations. The helicopter's headed back to land, the drills are completed, and the crew is now shifting into its evening routine. Out here though, the mission never really stops. It just settles into a different rhythm when the sun goes down. As the evening approached and the sun began to set over the Baltic Sea, the Visby shifted into night operations. The ship grew quieter, the lights dimmed, and the crew settled into a different sort of rhythm. Out here, the mission continues 24 hours a day, and with a crew this small, everyone has their role, and standing watch at night means staying alert

for anything that could be out there. You know, being out here in the dead of night on one of the most advanced warships in the world, it's kind of a surreal feeling. I mean, for me, it's just one night, but for you, does that ever get to you? - Sometimes, when it's a beautiful sunset and no waves, and just having a good time, it kind of gets to me, but otherwise I don't see the sky so often. I sit downstairs, so I'm used to it. You can say it like that. - And to those watching right now who have no idea what it's like to live and work on one of the most advanced stealth ships ever built, what would you tell them?

- [Isac] I would tell them it's the best working place you can have, because both the sailors and the officers, we come very close together because we live on such a tight space and we work together every day. I would say it's the best working place on Earth. - Well, thank you so much for accommodating my crew and myself on board. I think I'm gonna head inside to get situated in my rack. Try to get a little bit of sleep before our big day tomorrow, but thank you, and stay safe out here.

- Thank you so much, thank you for coming out. (gentle music continues) (zipper whirs) - Day one aboard the Visby-Class Corvette is now officially complete, and as I sit here in my rack, just reflecting on everything that we've seen today, it's pretty crazy to think that I'm about to go to sleep aboard one of the most advanced warships in the world. Now, tomorrow we do have a pretty big day in store, and there's a special surprise I've yet to share with all of you, but in the meantime, I'm gonna try to get some sleep,

and I'll see you guys in the morning. (alarm chime blares) (upbeat music begins) Good morning, everyone. I am feeling rested and rejuvenated, and in case you're wondering, I am wearing the same clothes as yesterday, because they told us to pack light, and there's no better way of packing light than only bringing one outfit.

We're about to head to breakfast here in roughly 15 minutes, and after that, the last I heard is that surprise I was talking about, it's still on. I can't wait to show you it, because I think it's the perfect way to cap off our 24-hour visit here to the Visby-Class Corvette. (upbeat music continues) With the morning underway and the crew already deep in their routines, the ship began making its way to the training area.

You see, if you've been following along closely, you've probably noticed that we've yet to cover one of the most important features on the Visby-Class Corvette, the weapon systems. For a ship built to stay hidden, the Visby still packs plenty of firepower. Upfront is a Rheinmetall Multi Ammunition Softkill System. It's a defensive launcher that fires decoys to confuse incoming missiles and keep them from locking onto the ship. Above that is the Ceros Fire Control System from Saab, which enables ships to detect, track, and defeat threats with pinpoint accuracy.

Along the port side, you'll find two Quad MK3 Launchers for surface to surface missiles. These give the Visby a long range punch designed to take out enemy ships before they get close. Behind those are two 400 millimeter torpedo tubes, used for hunting submarines or smaller surface vessels. Depending on the mission, the Visby can also be loaded with depth charges or underwater mines to deny enemy access to key waterways. Now, for close range defense, there are multiple machine gun stations equipped with a.50 caliber M2 Browning, ideal for engaging small boats or low-flying aircraft.

(gunshots ring) But you see this right here? That's the Swedish-designed Bofors 57 millimeter MK3 Automatic Gun. And in case you were wondering what the surprise is, I hope you're ready, because we're about to fire it. All right, I'm back up here on the front of the ship, and it looks like we're about 15 minutes out from the training area where we'll be firing the Bofors 57 millimeter gun. (intense music continues) - The main gun, 57 millimeters, is inside the hull. When we need to use it, it will be directed toward the threat, and then we will fire, and then it will go back into the hull.

The 57 millimeters main gun is mainly used for air defense. It can also be used for surface targets. We have the possibility to use depending on the threat. So if it's an incoming missile, we can prioritize and use the most accurate system. - Using the main gun is always a decision between maintaining a low radar cross-section and being able to neutralize the target. - As the ready alarm went off across the ship, the crew quickly kitted up into their gear and made their way to the battle stations.

The ship rapidly approached the designated training area, which for today is a stretch of open water in the Baltic Sea clear of any other vessels for hundreds of kilometers. Witnessing the communication, the safety checks, and extensive coordination between the crew as they finish their preparations for the live fire is honestly incredible to see. - [Radio Voice] Clear to engage target number three. - We are just about set to fire. The crew behind me has completed their safety checks and any second now, the 57 millimeter is going to pop out of its stealth mode to show us what it can really do.

(intense music begins) - [Radio Voice] CDO Air, you are clear to engage target number 35937 with four rounds. (high pitched whine blares) (intense music continues) (mechanism clangs) - Clear to engage target 35937, Roger, four rounds. (intense music continues) (cannon booms) - [Radio Voice] Cease fire, that's good. - [Christoffer] Good. (intense music continues) - [Sam] After watching the first few rounds fire from the bridge, I was honestly in shock. The sound of the 57 millimeter Bofors rattles and echoes across the entire ship, and you can feel the power from every round in your chest. But the crew had one more surprise in store.

The commanding officer invited me down into the Combat Information Center, which you might remember as the central nerve of the entire ship, and that's exactly when they told me something I definitely wasn't expecting. For the final few rounds, I was going to be the one to press the big red button and fire the gun myself. (intense music continues) So this is the station where they fire all of the weapons from the Visby-Class Corvette. Now you can fire up in the bridge as well, but most of the time it's done here in the Combat Information Center. If you look right here, this is the button to fire.

It literally says gun, so hopefully I don't mess that up. I don't think it could be easier, but we'll give it a shot. (intense music continues) - [Radio Voice] Sam, you are clear to engage target number 35937 with two rounds. - [Sam] Engaging target 35937 with two rounds. (machines beep) (gun whirs) (intense music continues) (button beeps) (cannon booms) (gentle music continues) - [Radio Voice] Cease fire. (gentle music continues) - So that was crazy. You can really hear the sound and the rumble of the gun from where we're sitting. In fact, this whole room kind of shakes a little bit, which is crazy.

I never thought I would be firing the 57 millimeter gun on one of the world's most advanced warships, but here we are. And just as quick as that thing fired, it goes back into its casing to preserve the stealth mode. It's wild. After spending 24 hours on the Visby-Class Corvette, I can confidently say that I've never seen a surface ship whose entire mission is focused on staying invisible, and that's what I think is so important for people to understand about Naval Warfare today. It's not always about putting the biggest ship out at sea. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stay off the radar entirely until it's time to act. And the Visby-Class Corvette is proof of that.

Now, before we head out, I thought I'd surprise the crew with a few of our custom SE Logo Ghost of the Baltic patches. These were made by our friends over at Badass Patches and just something to thank the crew before we head back to the US so they can, they won't forget us. Custom Ghosts of the Baltic patches with our logo made. - Wow. - Isn't that pretty cool? - Thank you. - There we go. To the commanding officer right here. - Thank you. - Isac, for all your work, for making sure we were on schedule, for making sure we got the best shots, you earned that one.

- Thanks Sam, nice having you on board. (gentle music continues) - Well, a huge thanks to the Swedish Navy for letting us spend 24 hours onboard the Visby-Class Corvette. I hope you enjoyed coming along with us for this ride, and that's it here from Sweden in the Baltic Sea. We'll catch you next time. (gentle music continues) (intense music swells)