Hello everyone,
today, we have a guest article from sp15 (NA server), dealing with the S-tank’s development history. I did only some minor edits (typos and such). Enjoy!
The S-Tank
Today I’ve decided to write about Swedens most iconic tank the Strv 103 or – as everyone knows it – the S-tank. The reason for this is that the S-tank is the only known hope for a historical tier 10 TD for the European tree and wargaming don’t know what to do with it. Let me explain.
Strv 103A
The Strv 103 has a hydraulic suspension, which means in practice that the whole hull moves to aim the gun. This means that Wargaming would have to implement new aiming system for this sort of tank – and Wargaming does not want to do that for one separate tank, but they have stated this:
The fate of the S-tank is still undecided
What I want to do in this article is to explain the history and characteristics of this tank. I hope you take some time to read and consider this tank for implementation.
History
The origin of the S tank can be traced back to one man and his fascination with self propelled gun designs of World War 2. After World War 2, the Swedish army decided to purchase and evaluate some German armored vehicles.
One of the people, who were assigned to this project, was Sven Berge, who was to design the S tank in the future.
In particular, Berge was interested in German turretless designs, such as the Sturmgeschütz and the Jagdpanzer. These tanks were cheaper and also faster to produce than their turreted counterparts.
They also allowed for greater firepower while not compromising mobility or protection compared to turreted tanks – in fact, the lack of a turret meant smaller vehicle, which in turn meant it was harder to detect and destroy.
StuG III during Swedish trials:
With the purchase of the British Centurion tank, the Swedish army also got access to British damage assessments from WW2. This information stated that knocked out tanks were usually hit in the turret and that hits below 1 meter were unusual. A calculation also pointed out that the turret had around 100% higher chance to get hit than the hull. These were not the only elements that inspired Berge however.In fact, Sven Berge had been in charge of the Swedish test and evaluation of the French AMX 13.
This tank featured an autoloader, which in turn meant a crew member could be replaced and the tank could be reduced in size and weight.
There had also been tests by Bofors with a 20 ton assault gun with a 120mm automatic cannon.
Berge was also involved in the development of a new AA vehicle, made by Bofors, which featured a hydraulic suspension.
AMX-13 during Swedish trials:
This all culminated in the idea to build a turretless tank with a fixed gun. Berge came up with the idea over a weekend and he presented it to his boss on Monday. His boss did not get the idea behind this design but nonetheless Berge got more time to develop it.
It took Berge 1 month to come up with first drawings and patents, these were finished on 22nd of October 1956.
The initial design of what would become the S-tank:
He proposed the idea of adjustable hydraulic suspension to move the hull of the tank. The design was meant to have the weight of around 30 tons, would feature a fixed gun with a automatic loader
and the tank was to be manned by 2 crewmembers.
The proposal was given a go-ahead and the development group was put together. Different designs were discussed.
Here is a picture showing the size advantage of a fixed gun over one with traverse:
The fixed gun means less space and crew required. Furthermore, the automatic loader allowed for the ammunition storage to be placed in the back. This meant that safety devices could be put in to protect the crew if the ammo storage was hit. The main drawback behind the concept was that the tank could not fire on the move.
This however was only a small drawback, as turreted tanks from the same era could only shoot accurately when stationary due to poor stabilization. The lack of a turret meant that in an attack, the tank could not be able to react as quickly as a turreted tank. This was not really considered a problem however, since the role of the tank in the event of war would be a defensive one.
In 1957, Sweden considered 3 options for the new tank.
Alternative A: a tank of either English or American design in the 50 ton range and decent mobility (M60 & Chieftain)
Alternative T: a German or French tank in the 30 ton range with good mobility, but lack of protection (Leopard 1 & AMX 30)
Alternative S: the so called S-tank, a small 30 ton tank with good protection and mobility.
Also in 1957, various aspects of the S-tank proposal were tested, such as aiming of the fixed gun. These tests continued on various chassis types, including a Sherman chassis. In 1959, full scale testing of the hydropneumatic suspension was conducted, using the prototype chassis of the KRV heavy tank. During these tests, 2 road wheels were stripped off the KRV to simulate the S-tank suspension, a 20 pounder gun was also used to test the capability of the tank to aim.
KRV chassis being used as a test vehicle:
At the same time, the automatic loader was constructed and the frontal armour was tested on firing range, with the results from these tests being positive.
Now the tank needed an engine, but there were problems because of the confined space, so a compromise was made – instead of one regular engine, the tank would use a diesel engine for fuel economy when needed, and a gas turbine engine for power and speed when necessary. These engines worked together to allow for maximum amount of power.
In 1961 two prototype vehicles were made (S1 & S2). These were used to test the drivetrain, suspension & optics of the tank, and a new commander’s cupola was developed – it was so good that apparently “it is still regarded as the world’s best”. A full scale wooden mockup was also made.
On the left, the S1 – on the right, the wooden mockup:
The tests with the S1 & S2 were positive and in 1963, the production of 10 fully functional pre-production tanks called the 0-series was finished. These were armed with a Swedish modification of the British L7 gun. The gun was lengthened from L/51 to L/62 calibers and it was equipped with an automatic loader, capable of shooting one shot every 3 seconds.The tests with the 0-series continued until 1966.
Strv 103 0-series:
In 1964 the decision was made to start the production of the S-tank.
The alternative S or S-tank was renamed “Stridsvagn 103A” and the first tank became operational in 1967.
Strv 103A and Pbv302:
The Strv 103A weighted 37.7 tons and was equipped with a Rolls-Royce K60 240hp & Boeing 502 10MA 300hp engines. This meant that the tank had the power to weight ratio of 14,3hp/t, which was less than what was hoped for. This was noticed in particular during the testing with the 0-series. In 1970, the Strv 103B was delivered with a 490hp turbine engine, which meant the tank now reached the power to weight ratio of 18hp/t. Both the A and B versions had the top speed of 50kph and a crew of 3.
Any information on the armour of the tank seems to be rather scarce. With that being said, I’m going to use the English Wikipedia page as my source for this and say that the frontal Armour of the Strv 103 was 60mm thick – and before you start saying 60mm is nothing, we need to take the sloping into account.
In this picture we have the armour angles of the Strv 103 and we can clearly see that the upper frontal armour is sloped at 78 degrees. This (if I calculated it correctly) means the effective upper frontal armour of 288mm – almost 5 times its nominal thickness! The lower frontal plate is sloped at 72 degrees, which means that if we assume that it has the 50mm thickness, it would have 161,8mm of effective armour.
Strv 103 in comparison with the Centurion -as you can see, the S-tank is only slightly above 2 meters tall, which means it is easy to hide.
Overall, the Strv 103 is small but deadly tank with an insane amount of protection for its weight.It also has great firepower with its 105mm cannon with the automatic loader, not to even mention its great optics, which have outperformed the Leopard 1 in tests.
Strv 103B in full elevation:
Statistics for the Strv 103A
Weight: 37.7t
Length: 9m
Width: 3.60m
Height: 2.14m
Crew: 3 (commander, gunner/driver, rear driver)
Armor: 90-100 mm
Main armament: 105mm (automatic loader)
P/W: 14,3hp/t (unlikely that it will get the strv 103B engine)
Engine(s): Rolls-Royce K60 240hp & Boeing 502 10MA 300hp = (540hp)
Speed: 50kph
Elevation/depression: +11/-11
I hope this explained the S-tank to you a bit, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Source(s)
http://www.ointres.se/strv_103.htm
http://www.ointres.s…_uppfinning.htm
http://en.wikipedia…./Stridsvagn_103
One thing of note here – most of this information (and pictures) comes from http://www.ointres.se/pansar.htm
Pay the site a visit if you know Swedish, it has some great pieces of information.
first!
to suck a dick
These would be funny responses bother me more than the first comments. Btw.. I think people have been sucking dicks for thousands of years.
“First”
To write a comment….
To taste my penis
0/5
Hi there ruskie!
SS,
Great article, I hope Wargaming can work on the coding, to bring the S-Tank, into the game. I start grinding for it as soon as it was announced.
Semper Fi
Appy/Samantha
Bring it ingame! One of my favorite tanks ever. Great article.
Seriously, want!
This tank or rather TD in this game would be unique…
Since this TD has zero gun arc, the accuracy penalty should be reduced when moving the hull. For the same reason both binos and camo net are useless in this TD. Not that it needs it.
The S 103 hull armor has autobounce angles, meaning that AP and APCR are useless on it. HEAT shells do not ricochet though. I did see a picture with a HEAT shield (mesh; spaced armor) on the S103, which would at least protect the UFP against HEAT shells. Any 150mm+ guns (E-100 and most TDs) will overmatch the LFP. Against arty the S103 is toast
Then again, its small and fast
Cupola is rather small
The gun could either work in two ways, either as another autoloaded TD (I bet 6*390dmg shells per mag in the S103 if it makes ingame) OR it could also work as a high DPM gun.
Wasnt the E-10 supposed to have hydraulics too? Because WG are kind of indecisive about the E-10 too.
The autoloader isn’t the French revolver cyllinder type. It gives a slightly faster automatic reload, not a burst. This would give it a good rate of fire though. Say around 8rpm.
If that cited three-second loading time is legit… *shudder*
it is incorrect, max initial rate of fire was 100 rounds per minute or once every 6 seconds, average rate of fire would be lower – perhaps’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ordnance_L7
ROF would have been limited by barrel heat, and fume evacuation, breech mechanism, not to mention autoloader speed.
oops meant 10 ROF
Pretty sure everyone & dog was always willing to ignore barrel heating and fume build-up (which is what the evacuator is for anyway) in a tight spot – certainly hard-pressed infantrymen would fire their automatics until the barrels started going soft from the heat, and I very much doubt tankers and artillerymen were any different.
Also no idea about the internal partitioning of the tank but I wouldn’t be surprised if the breech-end of the gun wasn’t normally isolated from the crew – damn thing seems to be sitting atop and between the engine blocks actually.
That pretty much leaves the autoloader mechanism as the well-nigh sole arbiter of the RoF. 6 rpm would actually be a bit on the slow side in game terms as the 105mm-armed “Western” mediums all boast rates from about six and half to seven…
max ROF and avg ROF are very different, wiki which is ofc not the best ref states 10 max per minute for the barrel. I am looking for video proof of sustained average firing rate all the same.
They’re not terribly different on an autoloader – I’m guessing the S-tank’s magazine depleted at a very steady rate like most such. Also do keep in mind that the Wiki page on the L7 presumably concerns regular manually loaded guns, whose factual RoF could vary greatly depending on specific circumstances. The article on the Strv 103 conversely cites a rate of 15/minute, which would translate into 4 seconds between shots – doesn’t sound all that difficult to believe given the fixed spatial relationship between the loader system and the gun breech. I understand the French-style rotary magazines in oscillating turrets can operate even faster.
Ah, correction to the previous after reading the linked page (good thing I actually bothered learning the second official language properly…); the engines are actually in the front. What I assumed to be their air intake grilles on the rear hull are instead over the ammunition storage and gun breech/autoloader compartement which is separated from the fighting compartement in the middle – if these were perforated to help extract propellant fumes and/or served as blow-out panels isn’t clear from the linked sources.
according to my knowledge the tank has a potential of 15 rpm
According to the swedish wiki page S103 was capable of fireing like a machinegun (fully automatic) , so those 15 rpm are automatic mode ?
…not really seeing how, exactly, 15 rounds a minute can be described as “fully automatic”… :/
AFAIK even the slowest true automatics can do at the very least a few rounds per *second*.
15 shots a minute is still pretty fast and faster then we can expect in the game as it would be broken beyond belief at that rate. The max rof for the L7 is not really relevant either as while it’s based on that so is it not an exact copy. Internal fumes would not be an issue at all as the breach is not located in the crew compartment. The accuracy would be top notch as with the gun fixed to the hull so are vibrations minimal. One of the biggest issues with many tanks are the sway of the barrel after adjusting aim.
The Green Mace AA setup with twin drums could pop up to 90 rounds per min (only like 6-8 shells in each drum ofc before it had to be reloaded). Water cooled barrel. Got to love the 50′s-60′s in design.
That’s why I suggested 8rpm. Anything higher is going to be too powerful. Combined with the Foch like armour and speed, as well as good camo, it would be way too powerful.
Well, it would be most likely a “conventional” gun; for the RoF we can look at the Tortoise. Ot has a RoF of 8.45, meaning a DPM of ~3300. Current T10 TDs have around 3000 DPM.
Given the great mobility together with not useless frontal armor we can expect a realistic RoF of 8 to 9. 9 would mean 3500 DPM, what is most likely OP, 8 is 3120 DPM, quite ok, but nothing outstanding, especially considering the very low alpha. 8.5 would make this tank a fast Tortoise…
Well, first they have to bring the European branch, then we can think again about this Tank.
Definitely hoping to see this thing in game. A small, fast TD with decent armor in the high tiers would be a lot of fun.
Errrr… am I interpreting something wrong here or doesn’t the armour schematic quite clearly spell out the various thicknesses?
Hell if I know. I just published it :D
Maybe its an early variant or something. Beware that the S103 is close on being too modern (its close to the cut-off date), so we might only get the first iteration of this tank and not the later ones.
I thought that WG said recently that there’s no hard cutoff date, but cutoff technologies(ie, reactive or composite armour, smoothbore guns, ATGMs, etc.) that would exclude most tanks after roughly the late ’60s/early ’70s. If the S-tank doesn’t have any of those, then it’s a potential candidate.
it only states the angle of the armour not the thickness.
So pray tell what are those little arrows drawn at the opposite sides of the plates, with associated little numbers conspiciously devoid of the degree symbol?
but then agin i dont have information that states othervise so… (except the english wiki page)
this could potentially be rather ambarising if im wrong…
either the wiki page is wrong or the schematic is…
id say the aurmour schematic is wrong but i need to double check the source for it.
Whole frontal 100mm double plate would significantly increase the weight. I am inclined to believe the 50-60mm on the picture.
Picture clearly shows 60mm upper, and 50mm lower.
And why no pictures with the S-tank using the fuel tank skirt skirts?.
Armor acting as fuel tanks? Please don’t give Wargaming any stupid ideas :)
the reason you dont see any S-tanks with the fuel cans is because they were
added on the D model wich was produced in the 80s.
these also had doser blades as standard and had a “fence” at the front wich acted as spaced armour
IIRC what I’ve read the point of the ‘dozer blade was to allow the tank to dig its own hull-down positions.
i cannot confirm the source of the schmatic…
i can confirm the angle is right for the frontal armour.
yeah im going to say that the picture is likely correct.
this would mean a effective armour thickness of 288.6mm UFP and 161,8
anyhow the moral of the story dont trust wikipedia.
yeah, Ive been talking to a few fellow Swedish tank nuts and they say that 60 aswell as 50 is most likely correct, atleast for the earlier versions. tho they did however mention that the front was also hollow/spaced, theyre currently investigating but finding info regarding thickness/effectivness isnt easy even for a Swede :/
P.S. Sweden approves of this article. *thumbs up*
Thanks for some rare photos, and the excellent article. To add my few cents, the S-tanks, with a crew of 3, had two designated driving posts and 2 drivers (yes, one for driving forward, and another one for driving backwards).
The main purpose of having at least _some_ tanks here in Sweden was the defense of the border with Finland (that, given the long border, was not expected to slow down the red tide for any meaningful time); in the rough and boggy terrain of the Swedish/Norwegian north, the S-tanks were meant purely for ambushes and short skirmishes, and indeed this is the area where the design would work at it’s best.
More practically it’s not like us Finns would have bothered trying to defend the virtually empty Arctic wasteland of Lappland; had the Soviets wanted to send their armoured columns there instead of somewhere actually important and populated further south I sincerely doubt the IDF would have been terribly discomfited.
Crew layout was more like this:
Commander
Driver/Gunner
Rear Driver/Radio Operator
Loader isnt there due autoloader (not the first gen autoloader that has revolver drums).
In WoT it would be more like this:
-Commander/Loader
-Driver/Gunner/Loader
-Radio Operator/Loader
(Loader skill wont affect the reload time due autoloader)
Due the way how that tank works, its impossible to fire on the move unless the enemy is straight at the front at you. A defensive playstyle is needed for that
Not quite correct, all positions could drive the tank, including the commander. The commander could also fire the gun if he wanted. This was to enable the tank to fight even after losing a crewmember. In fact, the third member was added just to have one more person along to do maintainance as it was found out that it was a bit much work for 2. It could easily be driven and even fight with only one crew member.
I am thinking about a simple solution. It won’t be maybe the best but here it goes…
Remember when you drive in Sniper Mode and try to aim up and down? You see that when it reaches the maximum elevation it stops ,while the same goes with the max’ gun depression. They should try to make the Strv 103 aka The S-Tank just like that. Aim upwards to raise or aim downwards to lower the reticle. And the suspension should act exactly like a gun that goes up or down.
Why so difficult? I am sure they would figure something out for this incredible piece of machinery.
WG is too scared because this tank would be op and superior to all on the field with absolutley no chance of hitting it when properly played
Not really, it would be near-impossible to kill from the front especially if it’s hull-down, but it would be even more vulnerable to being flanked and/or tracked than existing TDs. The complete lack of gun traverse would be its killer flaw.
The main balance issue would be the rof, the damage per minute would be more then double what the current best tank have, so would need to be reduced. On the other hand so is the damage per shot low for a TD, so it can probobly get away with setting a new max for dpm.
It has no gun traverse? So you need turn whole hull to aim?
Yes.
That shouldn’t be a big issue, just set the aim dispersion on hull traverse to like 0.02 (that’s 20% of what the T-62A and M48 patton have).
The real issue is the elevation but it’s actually not the only vehicle to use such a suspension, the britts made the FV 4401 Contentious, an airborn TD.
With the FV there are 3 tanks which would use this mechanic (including the E-10).
Great article! I’ve seen the Strv 103 in Stockholm in the Armémuseum on holiday a few years ago. I thought this design is amazing. From the first day WG announced a Europe tree or separate nation trees, i hoped this tank will make it to the game as part of the Europe tree or a Swedish tree.
@sp15: Maybe you can write more articles about Swedish tanks. I’ve got a book about Swedish tanks in service. It is in Swedish and Idon’t understand much, but it is from the author of your source “http://www.ointres.se/pansar.htm”. I would be very interested in reading more. Maybe there are enough tanks for a separate tree. In official forums I’ve seen a possible Swedish tree with one or two problems.
well i have written more articles like about the Strv 74.
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/274486-stridsvagn-74-upcomming-european-tank/page__fromsearch__1
and im also the person who made the Swedish tree.
(it has some flaws but would work better than china as a tree)
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/239114-swedish-tank-tree/page__fromsearch__1
I want you’re tree just like I want a separate Italian tree (but the more ‘realistic” one).
What an great art of machinery, its always a thing im going to be proud of as a swede :)
A work around until they actually program the whole tank being elevated/depressed by the suspension would be just to give the gun the same elevation and depressing while leaving the hull static. It would look funny, but they could get it in the game and worry about the “proper” mechanics later.
They actually have armor model moving with the aiming reticle (the gun and mantlet). Also the td hull move when you are at max traverse.
The easy work around is make the entire hull a mantlet and the tracks the «hull» in the programming sense. Add 0 traverse gun so the hull auto-rotate when you move. Balance soft stat are you are in for a ride.
There’s another precedent in the oscillating turret tanks where the entire top half of the turret tilts to elevate or depress the gun.
So in real life this tank simply waits for the enemy to show? otherwise how the hell can it track and actually hit a moving tank with that fixed gun?
Willing to bet the transmission allowed for pivot turn on the spot with very high degree of precision. Given that this solution was succesfully used already in the interwar Char B1 the engineering challenges would hardly have been insurmountable.
British did trials with it in 1973 they didn’t find any disadvantages while firing on the move even against the chieftain, it fired more accurately than the M60A3 but 0.5 seconds average slower. And that the “tank S” concect held considerable advantage over turreted tanks
Well, for defensive fighting. It’s not hard to see some problems in employing the thing offensively.
Most modern tank combat is at long range anyway, and it would only be in really close up fights where there would be a distinct disadvantage. At long range so were it about as fast as any turreted tank in turning and aquiring a target. Remember that it could actualy turn faster then most turrets and the barrel being fixed makes it able to stabilise for a shot faster then a turret with a long barrel.
Put the transmission into first gear and use the diesel engine. Low revs and it slowly will rotate.
18hp/t, 288 effective frontal armor, autoloader. Seems like Foch x Tortoise, I hope it gets balanced in a way that allows skilled players to pwn left and right. Maybe Havok can help with the hydraulics.
288 might sound like much but remember that 70 degrees is autobounce and the thickness of 60 mm means that you need an AP round larger than 180 mm to overmatch (which means the FV 215B 183 and arty).
The lower glacis is also autobounce but it’s overmatched by 150 mm guns (eg. every t10 TD out there -_-)
If it gets the shovel attachment, then the lower glacis will have extra spaced armor.
I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE!
Nice post. I really like the ideas behind this tanks and definitely enjoy reading as much as I can about it.
60 mm frontal armor sloped at 78° ? use HE shell – BOOM
I imagine this angle auto-bounces anything.
The main problem is that shells fall down due to gravity thus tending to land at a downward angle and defeating the slope some.
“Smaller tank hard to detect and destroy ” I thought that too until i realised that it is the same height as the t 72 that has a turret(ok t 72 is taller by 4 inches) … mind blown .
Question is how comfortable you’d feel in a T-72 compared to an S-Tank. Having the same height but including a turret probably has its disadvantages like cramped and uncomfortable crew compartments etc.
Besides, the S-Tank can also make itself a good deal smaller by lowering its entire suspension system, so it does end up smaller compared to most other tanks in the end, anyway.
And if you compare it to other contemporary NATO MBT designs of the time, the difference in height is even more impressive. Just look at the M60 with 3.2m or something. :D
The t 72 is less cramped than a Suv .. The whole lack of comfort is brought up when people cant find find fault in soviet designs :P.
But the S-tank is really comfy by tank standards, so at least in this comparison so is it a downside for the T-72.
It’s also hard to point out any other flaws in the design when the overwhelming majority of real-life large-scale use in battle comes down to the cheap knock-off export models instead of the real deal.
Now, if I were mean, I could just point out that the export models are also Soviet designs and you’d have to look no further than them to find all the faults in Soviet engineering that you want, but judging an entire tank line by the cheapest possible models is obviously grossly unfair. :P
People forget that the 64/t 72 is the contemporary of the m60a3 not the m1 abrams .
Thay also tend to forget the Red Army had *maximum* height limits on its tankers, which rendered the whole interior-space issue a bit moot. Or as The_Chieftain pointed out, all the better if tall Capitalist soldiers find the interiors of possible trophy tanks inconveniently cramped…
what is so good about that commanders cuopola?
well im just speculating here but the tank is low to the ground and the cupola gives a good 360 degree overview for the driver.
also in tests 10 strv 103 was able to knock out 10 leopard 2 tanks for the loss of only one.
the tank was also tested against the leopard 1 and it was found that the 103 found more targets than the leo 1
*shrug* Good observation characteristics apparently. Norwegian comparative tests in ’67 apparently credited it with better target-aquisition capabilitites than the Leopard 1′s which AFAIK aren’t exactly poor either.
I’m curious on the actual real-life performance of the vehicle. While it could be a great ambusher I have real doubts that it could actually aim and fire at moving targets successfully. Target acquisition would take a long time due to the tracks and drivetrain not being a very accurate way to aim a gun and while adjusting the elevation of the gun using the active suspension the azimuth would be thrown off requiring turning the vehicle left and right again.
I guess it’s one of those designs that look great on internet photos but would be a liability during combat.
well my source states that
in 1975 2 strv 103 were borowed for evaluation at fort knox.
during these trials the Strv 103 was compared to the M60A1E3.
the tanks were tested shooting at moving and stationary targets.
these tests prooved that the Strv 103 had better accuracy but that it on average took half a second longer for the S-tank to shoot at its target
I’m not sure what kind of documents you have in your possession but I’d be wary of trusting the public results of NATO armament evaluations during the height of the Cold War.
Sweden’s been a NATO country since when exactly? Nor did, AFAIK, any of the three foreign countries (which *were* NATO members) that ran comparative tests on the thing ever buy it – from what I gather they were more interested in examining the unusual concept and seeing how it compared to their more orthodox AFVs.
Apparently they got around that by directly linking the controls to the gunsights: “Berge’s design tried to solve the aiming problem through the use of a fully automated transmission and suspension system, which would turn and tilt the tank under the gunner’s control.” And I’d be extremely surprised indeed if the various comparative tests done with the thing over the years – by the Norwegians, the British Army of the Rhine and the Americans – which thought well enough of the vehicle hadn’t also investigates its ability to track moving targets.
This tank is not an internet only construction. It not only served in the Swedish military for many years, but was both tested and exported to other countries. The suspension stearing was no less accurate then the drives on turrets.
Traversing the gun while aiming was no problem from what I have heard. My father was a tank commander on one of these ‘Stridsvagn S’ and he says it was very fast to aim. He mentioned the expected time from full speed to aimed shot – i cant recall it now (i think it was in the range of 2-4s), but I remember I was surprised.
When it comes to modelling, it’s like a huge oscillating turret with 8 wheels as hull element, is it?
(And motor in the turret like that US UFO design showing up here some time ago. No turret ring.)
That’s basically how it works, yes. Aiming up or down is achieved by tilting the entire hull of the tank backward or forward, while aiming left or right is done by traversing the entire hull left or right.
The gun itself is completely fixed to the hull and has no traverse of its own.
That is most likely the easiest way to model it in the game too.
Great article, great read. I would love for this tank to be actually in game.
I think it would be awesome if they added this.
As for the aiming system, I really just think it would be a variant of what already works for TDs.
Instead of having a move-able gun the gun would be fixed and aiming up or down would cause the game to trigger the pneumatic-suspension animations.
Here’s an old info video of my countrys old mbt; Stridsvagn 103 – the “s tank”
http://youtu.be/yZm7sLzDwGY
Hydraulic suspension means it’s time for some Lowrida Tank XD
Also very important: Stridsvagn directly translates to “battle wagon” which I think is awesome!
What would you rather go into combat in? A “tank” (named after the septic tanks the English ww1 versions were camouflaged as) or a freakin’ battle wagon?! ;)
Then you consider that PanzerKampfwagen litterally translates into “Armored Fight/Battle Wagon/Car”
IIRC the Israelis term them “chariots”… debatable if Bronze Age references are all that inspiring though.
By the by regarding Swedish naming practices, didja know that AFAIK they for some reason beyond my understanding call guided missiles “robots”?
You are correct. Probably because after firing, they are autonomous devices.. but that is just a guess..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAVsxVXL1zU
“The Strv 103 has a hydraulic suspension, which means in practice that the whole hull moves to aim the gun. This means that Wargaming would have to implement new aiming system for this sort of tank – and Wargaming does not want to do that for one separate tank, but they have stated this:”
Silentstalker do you even read what you write? This sentence does not make ANY sense, the problem with this tank and its hydraulic suspension is only that they need to implement new mechanics to let the tank go to hull down position by itself by lowering the suspension and this is the mechanic they just don’t have…yet.
The issue that the gun is stationary isnt relevant in any way with the fact that this tank has hydraulic suspension.
How terrible…
15 RPM 390 damage gun
I somehow don’t see it possible within the game. Even if they lower the damage to 320, that’s still 4800 DPM
They’re not going to touch the damage, it shoots the same shells as all the other L7′s and at higher muzle velocity to boot (longer barrel). It’s the RoF that’d be getting the axe if anything.
Sweet article!
I have always loved the S-tank and would love to see it ingame.
Intressting thing I found while watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjdLJbJBgUM (Swedish) is that apperantly it got a Automatic 3 geared transmission system which gives it 3 gears in both directions. Meaning it can reverse at the same top speed (50 kph) as it can drive forward.
Now, IF they would actually add this vehicle; the worst thing they could ever do is to label it as an TD. It would be a huge insult to the entire concept, It was an MBT during it’s entire service of 30 years or so.
Ammo/gun info: 105 mm, 50 rounds of ammo and a fire rate of 1 round every 3 seconds.
Today it’s clearly considered a TD, but the technological shift didn’t occur until mid/late 80′s. After which it was doomed to a corner in the museum…
So, do you really want a 50′s/60′s tank in the game that didn’t became outdated until the 80′s?
And how would the game handle the fact that one single crewman could operate the tank (in worst case) by himself? And addition to that; the crew were all placed centered with maximum protection…
And furthermore; with it’s “HEAT fence” it was immune to all known (tank) ammunition until about the same time.
I hope they never add it, because it would be one of the most unfair battles ever towards anything produced/updated until the mid/late 80′s. Sadly though, even for a Swede :(
[Bonus info: the "strv 103" was suggested for duty in Kosovo 1999, but due to it's retirement this was canceled. Too bad, it would have been our first MBT abroad until this day.
But the designated ARV did two tours there before it's final days, bastards...]