STRV m/21

Designed by J. Vollmer, who built the German tanks of World War I, the Strv m/21 was patterned after the LK.II. It was powered by a sleeve valve type engine located in front, the driver and crew being in rear. The sprung suspension was protected by armour skirts. Ten machines of this type were built. M21 Command Tank was equipped with two-way radio; others had receivers only. 9.7tons; crew 4; 1x 6.5mm MG; armour 14mm; engine 1x Daimler 4-cylinders, 55hp water-cooled; 18ft8in x 6ft 9in x 8ft 3in.

STRV m/42 (STRV 71/IKV. 73)

First Swedish 75mm gun tank, the Strv m/42 was designed by AB Landsverk in 1941-2. It ran on 6 road wheels each side, individually sprung by torsion bars. The Strv m/42 could be fitted with either one or two power packs. In 1958-60, it was modernised and rebuilt as the Strv. 74 (26ton, 4 men, 75mm gun, 45km/h) with a long-barrelled gun. 22.5tons; crew 4; 1x 75mm gun, 3x 8mm MG; armour 40-80mm; engine(s) 1/2 320/410hp, water-cooled; 27.9 mph; 20ft x 8ft x 8ft 6in.

The first tank built in Sweden dates from 1921; patterned after a German wartime prototype, the LK.II, it was designated Strv m/21 (‘Strv’ for ‘Stridsvagn’ or Tank’ in Swedish). J. Vollmer, the German engineer who had designed the LK tanks, also designed the Swedish machine and supervised its building, in order that despite the Versailles Treaty, he could carry on further tank development outside the jurisdiction of the Allied Control Commission charged with overseeing the German armament industry. The Strv m/21 was a 9.5ton machine-gun armed vehicle of which ten were built, and formed into a tank company thereby constituting the first Swedish armoured unit. In 1929 these tanks were brought up to date by receiving a new engine, a new power train and other improvements; they were subsequently redesignated as Strv m/21-29.

By this date the AB Landsverk company, whose factory was located at Landskrona in Southern Sweden, had come into being with German assistance. It was not long before they became involved in the armoured vehicle business to the mutual advantage of both Germany and Sweden. The Swedish concern acquired a high standard of technical, knowledge from an exchange of technicians, industrial know-how and design studies whereas Germany, whose domestic tank development was still forbidden by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, could keep alive designs and experiments for her future Panzerwaffen. AB Landsverk initiated their programme of original tank design development in 1929 with the L-5, an experimental chassis combining both wheeled and tracked running gears. The L-5 pilot model was never fully completed but the basic design was developed further into the L-30 and L-80.

During the early thirties, AB Landsverk soon became one of the leading exponents of fast and versatile light and medium tanks. In 1931, they evolved an 11ton medium tank armed with a 37mm gun, the L-10, which was of relatively advanced conception. A small batch of L-10 tanks was produced for the Swedish Army under the designation Strv m/31. The company then put forward one of the most attractive light tank designs of the early thirties — the L-60, a 7ton vehicle armed with a 20mm cannon, for which a manufacturing licence was granted to the Hungarian Weiss company (the licence-built L-60s being used by the Hungarian Army as the 38IW Toldi). Later the L-60 proved to have a certain potential with a more powerful armament, and Landsverk progressed with various designs for the Swedish Army. In 1933-4 the tank department of the company had also turned their attention to ultra-light tanks of less than five tons in weight. They designed two such machines, the L-100 and the L-101. The L-100 prototype, developed in 1934, was a small 4.5ton tank armed with a single machine-gun and with a striking speed of 55kph. It seems that the L-101 design (which actually preceded the tank possessing the earlier designation) was dropped soon after the first drawing-board studies. Along with these types Landsverk had proceeded with the design of two wheel-and-track tanks, the L-30 and the L-80, which 158 SWEDEN represented the ultimate development in this type of armoured vehicle. The L-30 was tested by the Swedish Army as the Strv fm/3l (T indicating ‘forsbks’ or ‘test’) but was not accepted for production.

Thus, by 1935 the AB Landsverk company had laid out six designs for either fully-tracked or tracked-and wheeled tanks, weighing from four to eleven tons. All of them could be considered to be amongst the best of their time — they introduced some technical innovations such as independent suspension, magnifying optical instruments and co-axial machine-guns. They possessed clean lines and foreshadowed several of the features found later on German and Russian tanks, an outcome of that fruitful collaboration between Germany and Landsverk.

The first, albeit timid, move of the Swedish Army towards mechanisation dates from 1936, when the Government decided to organise one tank battalion within each of two old and glorious infantry regiments. Surprisingly enough, the Swedish Army’s order for tanks was not awarded to AB Landsverk but to the Czech CKD/Praga concern, for a 4.5ton export light tank known as the AH-IV-Sv (‘Sv’ standing for ‘Sverige’ or ‘Sweden’). This tank was built under licence by the Jungner company and redesignated Strv m/37. However, the next step forward was a Landsverk product, accepted as the Strv m/38 and derived from the earlier L60 which had proved amenable to a 37mm gun armament. Progressive development of the basic design led to the Strv m/39 and the Strv m/40 (Strv 33), two 10ton 37mm gun light-medium tanks, the latter being the first actual Swedish tank to attain a moderate production status, at first into its ‘L’ and then into its ‘K’ variants.

On the eve of World War II the shortage of tanks remained so acute that Sweden decided to purchase another CKD/Praga tank, the 11ton 37mm gunned TNH Sv. Tanks on order for Sweden were seized on the production line when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in March I939, but, by an agreement signed between the Germans and the Swedes, the Scania Vabis concern was licensed to build the TNH-Sv which became designated Strv m/4l (Strv 35) in Sweden. The same tank hat served extensively as the PzKpfw 38 (t) in the German Army during 1939-40 and its potentialities were further illustrated by the numerous self-propelled gun motor carriages developed later from its chassis.

Abroad the pressure of war had stimulated extensive development work on increasingly heavier tanks, a correspondingly uninterrupted race towards more powerful armament as well as better protection and an increased production tempo. In Sweden design and industrial sources had remained centred around the 10-11ton 37m gun tanks and the Swedes were not prepared to be drawn into the arms-race; so from 1942 onwards all Swedish tanks in service were outclassed by their foreign contemporaries. As an attempt to bring their tank design up to current European standards, AB Landsverk produced a 22ton battle tank, the Strv m/42 (Strv 71), carrying a short 75mm gun; but by the time quantity deliveries were possible, in 1944, it was already obsolete.