Armétygförvaltningen), Sven Berge – consistently enough, it was named the “S-tank”. Additionally, the committee also studied a newly invented Swedish concept which had been patented in 1956 by an engineer at the Army Ordnance Administration (Kungl. For comparison purposes, these hypothetical tanks were designated the “A-tank” and the “T-tank” respectively, where A stood for America and T for Tyskland (the Swedish word for Germany). The latter school thought that it would be impossible to combine decent mobility with enough armor to protect against the constantly improving HEAT rounds of the period, so they simply didn’t bother with much armor. The Germans and the French on the other hand were aiming at lighter and faster tanks, around 30 tons, which would eventually materialize as the Leopard I and the AMX-30. The Brits and the Americans, the committee found, were intending to develop heavier tanks with more armor, perhaps around 45 tons – this trend would eventually materialize as the Chieftain and the M60. It appeared that there were two main schools of tank design thought in the West: one Anglo-American and one French-German one. Here, it is already becoming apparent what the army was thinking about tanks.Īs a part of its work, the committee naturally kept tabs on foreign design trends. First, it was asked to draw up technical requirements for a new tank to be in service around 1965, and while doing so investigate the appropriate trade-off between firepower, speed and protection – perhaps more than one type of tank would be needed? Second, it was asked to study how tanks were to be integrated into the army organization, keeping in mind the requirement to be able to quickly concentrate strong tank formations that would allow attacking strategically important locations such as a hostile beachhead, and in connection to this recommend a minimum number of tanks required in the entire army. The central question that the sub-committee was tasked with answering was: “How should our system for direct fire (both anti-tank and anti-personnel fire) work around 1970 and in the time immediately thereafter?” 1Īdditionally, the committee was asked four more specific questions, two of which had to do with tanks. ![]() One of the sub-committees of this study was tasked with studying direct-fire infantry support weapon systems, such as tanks, anti-tank weapons, direct-fire crew-served weapons, etc. In 1957, the Swedish army initiated a study of the future of warfare, in order to determine what weapons technology it should pursue during the 1960’s – as well as many other things. The origins of the strv 103, or “alternative S” In this essay, I will show that this is simply not true: the Swedish army set out to figure out how to build a good tank, came up with the S-tank idea, developed and built that idea as a tank, which it then proceeded to use operationally as a tank. Even in the Swedish army, some officers (mainly ones who had no experience on the tank) thought it was worthless for traditional tank work – that is, offensive tasks. In the recently revealed Swedish tree for World of Tanks, it is indeed classified as a tank destroyer – mainly for game mechanics reasons, though, not because of a misunderstanding of its role. It was, claims the common wisdom (perpetrated and repeated in media such as History Channel), meant to dig down in a forest, take a few shots at attacking Soviet tanks and then retreat, using its rear driver to its advantage. ![]() In internet arguments and popular culture, it is frequently claimed that the stridsvagn 103 (strv 103, “S-tank”) was a defensive tank, or basically a modern tank destroyer.
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