In English, "Ä" is an "A" with a diaresis modifier: ¨, and is treated as an A for all purposes.
In German, "Ä" is the umlaut of "A", and it's not quite a letter of the German alphabet, but also not quite a regular A.
In Swedish, "Ä" is a unique letter of the alphabet which makes the "applet" jokes completely nonsensical. If the ship had been named "Epplet", would you have made an applet joke? You're only making the connection because you literally can't see the ¨.
Funilly enough if you looked at the rolls that were presented in the press conference of which battles the ship was a part of it is spelled "Eplet" there. We didn't have a consistent way of spelling things in Sweden until the 1800s.
My fave German/English confusion is still the word 'Mist' -- I'll never get over hearing how Rolls Royce couldn't understand how their luxury car, the Silver Mist, sold so poorly in Germany
In German, "Ä" is the umlaut of "A", and it's not quite a letter of the German alphabet, but also not quite a regular A.
In Swedish, "Ä" is a unique letter of the alphabet which makes the "applet" jokes completely nonsensical. If the ship had been named "Epplet", would you have made an applet joke? You're only making the connection because you literally can't see the ¨.