The S-Tank! The worlds deadliest tank

Taking a look at the history and capabilities of the legendary Swedish main battle tank, the Strv103; the S-Tank.

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[flash]

My uncle operated one of these! He still tells me it was a fantastic tank if used as they trained. The way it was supposed to be used was with prepared defencelines that you defended until the signal was given to pull back, then under cover of artillery and smoke reversed out of fire back to the next prepared line position going hull down again and repeated again until the enemy armour was blodied. Made to meet a Soviet massive tank offensive head on from hull down defences and sniping them. This tank was made for this kind of fighting. What it was not made for was prolonged overwatch hatch down like we saw from Iraq and Afghanistan or urban fighting for that a larger tank with a turret and a bit more comfort is needed when engagements could go on for days and in Urban warfare you need to be able to see better out of the turret.

[TalsScribeMitch]

11:25
I think there is a part in the swedish comedy series Jönsonligan where they drive a car and have to quickly pass the steering wheel to the back seat as they flee.

[hummingbird]

A great little design that only really lost out once regular tanks got dual axis stabilizers, and was then completely outclassed once CIS with hunterkiller capability appeared, but that wasn't until the late 70's early 80's..

[slayerstenis]

lille vagn lille vagn lille söte stride vagn 🎶

[UnfollowYourDreams]

My armchair-general take on why nobody bought the S-tank is urban warfare scenarios as well as the fourth crew member.

Germany (which would have been the main tank battleground in most cold war scenarios) has for example 88 cities with more than 100k inhabitants, some of them among europes biggest urban centers like the ruhr area. I believe berlin alone has more citizens than sweden (don't quote me on that). Although the S-tank is arguably better than the Leo1 in crossing terrain and fast ambush operations, peaking corners is a much bigger concern in central europe.
Now while it makes sense for a small nation like sweden to have smaller crews, the fourth crew member was and still is viewed as essential by most western armies for the crews ability to maintain and repair a tank efficiently as well as making concealment and fortifying a position 33% faster. Another argument is that if one crewman is kia, the crew is still not below the critical 3 man theshhold and loses just 25% of it's combat effectivenesss.

[TalsScribeMitch]

"Cheese! For everyone!"

- Sheagorath, The Mad God, Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

[craighaldane-gymk]

Very good tank just my own thoughts I realise them but with these new top attack weapons they would still be very vulnerable but if engaging other tanks from a defensive position like designed tank on tank they would be a formidable foe.

[BPo]

How the heck can you get so many things wrong in just one video when both wikipedia and the research those are based on are available for free?
Fuel cans are not ER-armour, and since those weren't added until the 103C REMO (which finally brought the 103 to the standard it was originally intended to have), it wasn't very early either.
The shaped-charge grid isn't folded up, it's hammered into the existing (and carefully covered up) holes. Frontal protection went out the window with the 2nd generation long rods in the late 1970's-early 1980's, so no decades of top protection.
The reason for having two engines was that the gun barrel (which wasn't English) split the engine compartment in two smaller sections, making it impossible to fit a single large one.
The Norwegian test showed that the Leopard was BETTER at spotting the targets, as the commander was seated higher up and thus had a greater field of view.

I could go on, but first claiming the S-tank is the deadliest in the world (which is a lie, there are plenty of tanks more deadly to the enemy, as well as plenty of tanks more deadly towards the own side, crew included) and then getting half the stuff wrong is just subpar for a serious channel.

The "plough" was indeed one per three tank platoon, to save cost and maintenance.

[swedi]

I think it would've been very interesting to see a modern s-tank, although it wouldn't be very good for modern standards.

[MCMXLVI]

It's a pity that the Sweden military scrapped all of them!. They would be a great asset for the Ukrainians!.

[thomaslinton]

not the World';s dealiest. Not a "tank" in the modern conventional sense because it has no turret.