Stridsvagn 103 trials in the US, 1975-1976

Two strv 103’s were sent to the US for trials in 1975-1976. Seven US crews were trained and the tanks were subjected to a variety of tests, in which they were compared to a variety of odd vehicles, ranging from the mundane M60A1 AOS (add-on stabilizer) to a T-62, an RVT-2 (a West German experimental vehicle with 1800(!) horsepower – see the comments section for more information) and an XM808 TB (8-wheeled Lockheed experimental vehicle). The report from these trials is over a thousand pages long, but I have only managed to find a small part. I’m working with the national archives to get the entire thing declassified, but it’s been met with some bureaucratic issues due to the US classification levels.

Nevertheless, I’ve obtained a few summary pages that in themselves contain a number of interesting tidbits. For example, did you know that when comparing gun laying times against a stationary target from the short halt, the strv 103B was faster to fire (although somewhat less accurate) than the M60A1 AOS? In the stationary vs stationary case on the other hand, the strv 103 layed slower but hit better. When averaging about 400 fired rounds of various types in a variety of situations against a variety of targets at different ranges between 500 and 2000 meters, the strv 103 hit an average of 77% of shots and took an average of 13.1 seconds to open fire, while the M60A1 AOS hit an average of 72% and took an average of 12.7 seconds to open fire (it should be noted here that the M60 was using its coincidence rangefinder, while the strv 103 had no rangefinder at all). In a mixed driving trial, the strv 103 was slightly faster than the M60 but accelerates slower.

You can read the fragments in PDF form here – and for once, they’re mostly in English.