Aberdeen Harbour played host to an impressive array of military sea power at the weekend when two Norwegian warships dropped anchor in the city.
The vessels – the world’s fastest armed ships – stopped off in the north-east on their way home from Nato’s Exercise Joint Warrior, which has just finished off the west coast of Scotland.
And while HNoMS Skjold and its sister ship Skudd were berthed in Aberdeen, the Press and Journal took the opportunity to look around.
On board the Skjold, Lieutenant Geir Odden said the stopover made a welcome break from the Joint Warrior war games, which involved 55 warships and submarines, 70 aircraft and 13,000 service personnel from 18 countries.
“It’s on our way home, and we’ve already been to Glasgow and Edinburgh before, so we wanted to come to Aberdeen,” he said.
“It’s nice for the crew to see the city and relax and go around all the pubs.
“Operation Joint Warrior required a lot of resources, we were tested in all aspects of different kinds of warfare, air, land and sea. It’s a very complex scenario and required the focus of all 21 of the people on board.”
In the heat of one of the cramped engine rooms the Lieutenant revealed the machinery that gives the Skjold its title of fastest armed ship in the world.
“It has two jet turbines in each engine room, so we have four in total. They’re actually plane engines, modified a little to fit inside the boat,” he said.
“They produce 16,000 horsepower and the boat can reach a top speed of 60 knots.
“Today you don’t have three months warning. Things happen one day and you have to react the same day. The speed gives us the opportunity to reach any point along the whole coast of Norway in one day.”
And down in the missile room of the camouflaged boat, it was soon evident that speed was not the only thing on its side.
“When we need to fire our missiles this room elevates up and we are ready to fire,” said Lieutenant Odden.
“We can choose to fire one or eight at once depending on the situation, and the missiles can fire up to 100 nautical miles.
“It’s down here because of the stealth technology concept of the boat, other ships have them on deck which makes their boat much more easy to see on radar.
“It’s a warship made for war, not for comfort or luxury at all, so it can be hard, but I’ve made lots of lifelong friends on this ship, it’s great to get to know everyone.”