The Weirdest Main Battle Tank 

Gonna see if I can get another historical video done for next week :)

The strv 103 is a very funny tank. But the unfortunate thing about it in warthunder is that if your engine gets shot out, you cant move. Unlike in real life, you could use the two engines separately, which is unfortunate.

The bars were actually a form of APFSDS defense. Even at the speeds the darts are moving, any disruption to their flight-path will cause the round to tumble a little when they hit the main armor, potentially greatly reducing the penetration of any dart that hits a bar.

This guy has gone from just a dude I watched occasionally to one of my favourite RU-vidrs. His humour has taken over my friend group

The Swedes really made a tank-sized robot from Battlebots and it actually works. I was half expecting it to have a flywheel hidden somewhere for melee.

To be fair about that anti-HEAT fence being classified, the actual secret part was probably the gaps in the bars, which I bet are the exact space apart to de-fuse Soviet HEAT rounds.

Since shaped charges dont really work like they do in game, the fence was really usefull. Since it destroyed the shaped charge, making it not blow up at all.

Ireland made a vehicle combining British & Swedish technology, the Headless Coachmen. A Comet hull with the turret removed & a new open mount armed with the 90mm Pansarvärnspjäs 1110 recoilless rifle, but was cancelled due to lack of available funds.

"You more or less find an alleyway and sit there" which is more or less what the Strv 103 was designed to do. That and camp behind dugouts or berms, falling back and setting up again two lines back to keep grinding down an invader.

Probably one of my favorite tanks for how specialized for the exact imagined fighting conditions of sweden it was.

what I find coolest about Sweden is that even though this is one of the most bizarre things in the game, it can be considered "normal" compared to other things in the Swedish tech tree

everyone's gangster till the door wedge starts speaking Swedish

It’s good for protection but you end up just staring at your enemy when they engine hit you

Spookston: Conqueror on Friday or Sunday Also Spookston: WE NEED SUFFERING

14:27 wow, an M2 failing, that's a rare one.

"This is the worst version of it" Proceeds to get a nuke

This thing is shockingly survivable, though painful due to constantly getting your engine and trans wrecked

13:22 Don't think we didn't appreciate that.

You should try DF 105, it's very fun to play with 400mm of pen and 5 second autoloader.

14:59 Pyrocynical.

Ooh yeah. The forbidden cheese wedge. The silly door stopper. The only tank that has brought me two nukes in a row.

Lol the word "unfortunate" has become part of my daily vocabulary just from your content.

13:09 Bkan 1C Though it uses the same powerpack

3:24 'Broken Arrow' is a term for an accident involving a nuke, typically when one is lost or missing. It does not refer to dropping artillery on top of your current position, the closest term would be 'Danger Close'

You could play the ab 41 at like 5.7 to show the true italian ww2 experience (pain included)

the strv103 wasn't actually made to be a mbt but more of an ambush tank as sweden rely more on a defensive strategy when it comes to war

Attempt number 2 of asking Spookston to play the RU-251, the faster and smaller mini-Leopard 1 at a lower BR that gets scouting. It's one of my all-time favourite tanks in the game (my other favourite was the standard American M41 Bulldog before it got nerfed into oblivion), has suffered some BR changes recently but it should still be great.

10:30 I've had cars eat KE-W before and gaijin still doesn't bat an eye. not to mention trees/busges only falling into my line of sight

Spookston Sweedish videos are always a pleasant watch

yeah i sold the recent swedish top tiered wheeled event vehicle and picked up the lower br premium strv 103 since i knew it was broken, and i knew i could quickly grind the swedish tree with it. ended up getting 2 nukes in a row after about 10-15 matches in it, almost all the matches i have had in it have been fun, which is insane. if you have been playing this game for years and are struggling to still have fun, pick this thing when its on sale and give it some back ups. its just high enough in br to where it gets all the good gadgets but low enough to where you aren't fighting in the terrible top tier.

1:34 Begleitpanzer? more like BEGONEpanzer!

7:59 bro brought full ammo SMH

The strv is the definition of smooth brain activity

15:20 most competent nuke deployment.

“Who knew you could get so far by just…being a roadblock?” HR departments everywhere 😅

"Drop the bomb"... tosses it up and forwards, good to see physics is still working...

Spookston upload to watch right after work? Yes I will never stop asking for T-35

6:49 my guy incuring all the grudges in the domaz kron rn

13:16 sweden has many other vehicles with 103 parts like the bandkanon it has a longer 103 chassis with a 155 mm canon at 6.7 also can you play the bandkanon.

Hilarious edits into the great gameplay! What I have been noticing is that people really look mostly for turrets in war thunder. If you aren't moving especially people just don't see you. Seems like the case with this too. Those super flat Italian TDs are great examples. I also wonder if people are blasting music too further adding to your stealth. Like hey team turn down the sabaton and listen ffs! I am not sure I will ever get to these upper tiers to play this but I really want to. I also didn't see the reticle bouncing that took 5 years to fix apparently. I am at 6.7 in US and Ger and like 5.7 in Sweden. GGs

6:20 Technically correct but technically not. The STRV 103C was supposed to make use of the natural terrain and defensible positions to prevent breakthrough attacks. It's why it has hull aiming and the variable transmission, it's so it could lift itself up over berms to shoot at incoming armor. There's definitely a lot more complicated stuff that goes into its design than that, but it was never meant to function the same way as how we think the Abrams or T-90 tanks function. The Swedes prioritized a defensive front over an offensive one, which heavily influenced battle tactics, vehicle design, and even the way they constructed bunkers. The whole idea was to make Sweden a defensive fortress the likes of which no enemy would ever want to invade, and would cost the enemy terribly even if they did, with the hope being that their home forces could hold out long enough for NATO to reinforce them. Reminder, the STRV was designed at the height of the Cold War, with big bad Russia right on the doorstep. Like everything during that time period, it had a major influence on design mentality, and Sweden wanted to ensure its neutrality by force. Again! This is a very surface level dig into the entire situation, and I'm not an expert in any capacity, so I could absolutely have interpreted certain things incorrectly or misunderstood certain sources, but to the best of my knowledge, this is what I am aware of when it comes to the STRV 103's MBT designation.

I just love the fact that this tank can be operated by a single crew if they have to, just goes to show how much thought they put in and they want to make the most out of it Of course if you're on the offensive this is a horrendous tank for that role, but for defensive, it's do the job pretty damn well

Y'know what the best MBT is? The AS-42/47.

Petition to make Stridsvagn Sunday, where spookston uploads a video on a Swedish tank every Sunday

Would love to see a video on the M43 75/46 please

Another reason for the weird design was the gun, sweden wanted rapid fire autoloaders but at the time that caused problems with loading guns while elevated so their solution was to either use an oscillating turret like the French which was the emil project, (not to be confused with the Sturer emil) or simply not use a turret and have hull aim, which became the strv 103 in order to move the entire loader with the cannon.

M60A1 RISE(P) is actually good with the BR changes, I was surprised after my original experience with it and I think you will be too. (It gave me my first nuke friday despite being stock.)

I can confirm, he is a bigfoot expert and that WAS a goblin, just look at him he has all the characteristic of a goblin, a turret, a gun, armored plates and wheels to move it, all the standard signs of a goblin stay safe from goblins every1.

You should play the SU-85. It’s a soviet casemate TD that has incredible penetration at its 4.0-4.3 BR range, and for a casemate, only having an 8 second reload is a godsend for having around 145mm pen. Easily became one of my favorite vehicles to grind with in the soviet tree

hate to be a beggar but day 91 of ask for pantsir

Spookston's going into the Swedish book of grudges for this one

The STRV 103 is honestly the more normal S tank than the Strv 74

I bestow Spookston with the highest award I can think of: always being my background for when I need to eat 🙏

Day 19 of asking spookston to play the arl 44 tank destroyer

The 103 was also a solution to a problem of the time, maximizing the efficiency of the autoloader, autoloaders would force the gun to return to a base position which severely limit its efficiency, thus they sought to solve this problem, two solution were thought up, the oscillating turret (Kranvagn/EMIL Project) and the unmoving turret/hull-aim (Strv 103)

It becomes even more insane when you dive down the rabbit hole of the S tank development, recently they were being refurbished and modernised and even rebuilt to be remote controlled drones, sadly when most of the work done and most tanks ready it was just scrapped. As with so much when it comes to military spending😢

Day 17 of asking for a Cromwell v rp3 video

I bet that the reason the "fences" in front of the tank were so long classified is because someone just did not bother to de-classify them. Also, I hate that god damn thing every time I face it...

🧀

To be fair to that first CAS, there were three tanks there, it looks like he bombed long rather than targeting you

Funny you posted this. Been playing 8.0 Sweden and have really enjoyed diving back into the S-tank

6:44 THATS GOING IN THE BOOK

I’ve been binging Spookston’s videos over the past few weeks. The humor and gameplay is continuously entertaining. Thanks for the countless hours of entertainment Spookston, hope you’re doing well man.

Love the S-tank from the first time I saw it. Its weirdness was so appealing and an excellent answer to the Soviet tanks of its day. I don't know that urban, knife fighting ranges favour the little guy, but I think in its natural environment out in the hills and fields it would have fared nicely. The Strv 103С was the final iteration of the -103 series of tanks. The Strv 1030 was the precursor model, lacking the fence and armour ribs of the C model while firing the slpprj m/61 & 66 APDS rounds. Your C model fired both APDS and APFSDS so you're fighting the most combat capable of the line.

I would be intresting to see you play the TAM. The 8.7 tech tree version. It feels like a super mobile tank that still has as much firepower as any mbt

Got my first nuke ever with this tank. Unconventional but ridiculously effective when played right. Thanks for playing this guy!

Spookston is so good he gets hit by a nuke and only takes wing damage

They need to add the kranvagn, 12 round autoloader 2 second reload time, 320-380 mm of pen with a unique heatfsds round, designed to provide high velocity with lower barrel wear and I theorise that it also provides a shorter propellant bag for volume, which I suspect makes it easier to autoload and it makes the shell a bit simpler with more aerodynamic fins that don't need to fold or anything, 160-180 mm of armour at 45° over most of the front with the hull an IS3 style pike nose. 60mm of side armour and 20mm of back armour and to wrap up this godly beast, 900hp and a 60kmph top speed. I think br 8.7 just for the obscene fire rate but maybe 8.3 due to the dependence on heat warheads and total lack of laser rangefinder or stabiliser.

When it comes to the classificaion of the cage and bar armour, im pretty sure it wasnt just the cage that whas classified. The horizontal bars across the main hull were also specifically designed to counter apdsfs round and acted like spaced armour.

When you take the idea of 'sloped armor' to it's theoretical limit. You've seen pancake, now witness... WEDGE.

Swedish engineer: *Looks at doorstop*. “I have an idea!”

no way, a spookston video where he doesnt flame german mains for existing?

6:50 "SHORT!? THERE WILL BE NO ALLIANCE!"

I love this thing for 3 main reasons, 1 it is wierd and unique, 2 it actually worked despite being a wierd and unconventional vehicle, 3 it was brilliant for the intended role of being an ambush vehicle hidden in ditches and snowdrifts to rapid fire away at russian convoys using main roads. It was an excellent vehicle in that it would have been great at the job it was intended for and it was also a unique unconventional design, I love it.

This is my favorite tank in history (besides its proposed modernisation package though that never entered service) thanks for covering it.

The one vehicle I absolutely respect. I died to the exact same guy 2 times due to spawn camping, all I had left was my Wiesel 1A4, I scouted and warned my team, This guy was my last hope to get my revenge, he popped up, got shot on the side by a different guy, and it was 3 spawn campers, all I could do was scout and hope. Mad lad killed all 3, I got to see the guy who killed me explode, and saved our spawn point.

Spookston favorite word "unfortunate"😂

The big foot clip had me dying for some reason

The STRV103 wedge tanks are the single most hated and loved tank i know in the game everyone hates seeing then on the enemy team but love it when their a teammate

Your humor lines right up with the entire friend group, we’ll collectively screen share watch 30 videos at a time

No no no, it is not a tank without a turret, it is a motorised turret on tracks!

i swear, one day Spookston is gonna add the HL2 Stalker scream into one of his videos and im not gonna expect it

Day 99 of asking Spookston to play the Type 90s

Fun fact. It is supposed to have a faster reload. IRL it could fire, reload and fire again in 2.8 seconds if the gunner was holding the fire and reload buttons.

People's brains usually go monke when they see something hard to kill And the Strv 103 is well, pretty high on the list to say the least

10:50 This is me after I kill 5-8 enemy tanks in my Leopard 2A4 yet my teammates still somehow lose all the cap and we all die.

"How am I not dead yet?" Well that's the S tank experience for ya, it's absolutely ridiculously survivable.

I would love to see spookston play the swedish leopard 1a5

STRIDSVAGN MY BELOVED

I love how Sweden made a slice of cheese into a tank and it ended up working alright

2024 CAS montage already looking strong

The most frustrating thing about this tank is the freakishly long repair time when you're down to 1 crew member to the point that I feel like J out and change to another fully functioning tank is the more efficient way to play

For the record, he did NOT change his keybind for hull aiming.

07:00 not just you, these scumbags can hide right behind microterrain so they're invisible and still boop you right in the lower plate. Or the turret if you're an aml (like I usually am when oomfed by an strv103)

Fun fact: STRV-103’s are modeled in Generation Zero as immobilized vehicles in good detail. Gives you a nice POV scale compared to a human(player)

Fun fact, it's full name "Stridsvagn", basically means "battlewagon"

The Swedes not only designed this to be a normal MBT, but one that was supposed to take on hordes of Soviet armor- and win (or at least hold them long enough for reinforcements to arrive. It also can be driven from a backward facing seat and can *technically* be operated by just one guy (thanks to the Chieftain) but that is, sub optimal as you might assume.

15:20 Least based nuke deployment.

That "front fence" was classified, not because it was some new amazing technology that nobody else knew of. It was classified because we didn't want the Soviets to know we could mount it on the tanks with short notice.

Strv 103: flat boi Strv 74: squished boi