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The Swedish Home Guard (. The Home Guard consists of local defence units under the leadership of the armed forces, as well as 23 national auxiliary defence organizations. Compared to the US , the Home Guard could be regarded as a state National Guard. HISTORY ''Main article: Sweden During World War II '' The Home Guard was officially passed into law by the Riksdag on May 29 , 1940 , after the beginning of World War II , but units had already been formed by the military before it was passed into law. Home Guard Units were groups of usually eight to 15 men that served as defense units in a time of war, located in towns and in both private and public factories, all throughout Sweden. Members of these small units usually consisted of former professional military men who were equipped with rifles, machine guns, ammunition, medicine, special clothing (uniforms), and had the option of buying additional materials such as skis, sweaters and marching boots. An additional group, called the Lotta Corps (''Women's Voluntary Defense Service''), helped with additional tasks that the Home Unit was unable to perform themselves. The Lotta corps helped provide the home unit with additional items such as socks, scarves and gloves as well as performing all administrative work that the unit could not afford to do themselves. In a time of war, in case the Home Guard was unable to utilize any local hospitals for their use, the Swedish Red Cross was prepared to set up first aid stations to help aid the Home Guard. ORGANISATION The Home Guard is organised in Batallions, covering a part of a county ( Län ). These batallions are then organised into companies, usually one for every Municipality . The main task of the batallions are to defend and protect vital military and civilian installations throughout the country. Also attached to every batallion is at least one "Rapid Response Platoon" (Insatspluton). The task of this platoon is to become operational faster, and be mobile (since these platoons are usually motorized) when the rest of the Home Guard is not mobilized and there is no other general mobilization. The Rapid Respons Platoons have a much more diversified combat task than the rest of the Home Guard, including Escort, Guarding, and Counter Insurgency. As of late 2005 Home Guard battalions are organized under Army Regiment and an officer under the regimental commander. The home guard did by 2006 consist of 37000 soldiers (down fråm 42000 in 2001) organized into 66 batalions (300-700 soldiers. Down fråm 69 in 2001). In 2001 there also existed 122 Rapid Response Platoons and 27 Rapid Respons Company Commands (Insatskompaniledning), which might be slightly higher now. Even thou the number of soldiers has fallen, with battalions merging, companies disbanding and so on. The size goal for number of soldiers are said to be 1.5 times the amount of conscripts drafted each year, however, this is at present (2006) sinking bellow 10,000 (~20% of men reaching service age). A rough estimate would be 30,000 soldiers confirm , with 20% of personnel registered in the other eight voluntary defenceorganizations (2001). Group (8 soldiers) Platoon (~36 soldiers) Company (75-200 soldiers) Battalion (300-700 soldiers) METHOD OF OPERATION The Home Guard units are trained to provide local combat units (primarily infantry but also signals troops). This means they should know the area where they will function, hopefully better than any invasion force. The focus of the training (~20h/year) is on improvised warfare ( Guerrilla Warfare ). The Rapid Response Platoons, are more focused on a more traditional infantry warfare, and are trained (~60h/year) to be able to work in conjunction with the regular armed forces. The aim is to have all Home Guard battalions ready for combat within two hours of a general alert, with an expected endurance of around a couple of days. Units are expected to use civilian assets (hospitals, supermarkets etc.) as part of their logistics. In peacetime the Home Guards main task is to help with search and rescue operations, and to provide assistance to the society in cases of severe trauma i.e natural disasters and alike. TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT Since the Home Guard is a voluntary organisation the only required amount of training a member has to perform is 20h/year, this does vary however with some possitions contracted to train more. A prerequisit however members of the Home Guard has to have recived at least 90 days of basic military training. The level of training is vary varied, from basic military training to Ranger school and other non-infantry service training. Training is centered around ground combat, from classroom instructions on NBC warfare to a day on the firingrange or more applied training exersises (training is usually carried out on evenings or weekends and is not mandatory, thus with varied turnouts). The equipment issued to Home Guard units are generally that of what is issued to regular army soldiers with some old equipment not being replaced and new not issued. Only the Rapid Response Platoons are motorized.
Dogs are also used as sensorsystems, usually two for every platoon (the animals are not issued by the armed forces althou they do recive training(?)).
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