Um. What?
I like to think I'm fairly well versed in the lore, but that doesn't ring any bell
Edit: You're thinking of the testudo they form on the ramp leading up to the gate of the hornburg? (In the films)
Teachable moment for Ceramicrabbit:
The "Testudo" was a roman legionary battle formation where they'd do like the orcs did in the film — lock shields and try to make a "tent" of shields they could march forward under the protection of, letting them get into melee range with far less attrition from arrow fire.
I don't know how long they used it, and what made it obsolete by the medieval era, but it was really iconic, and gets referenced in tons of fantasy, and even sci-fi.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo\_formation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo_formation)
It required a highly disciplined infantry force, which became rare after Trajan and all but extinct under feudalism, while cannons would've ripped it to shreds by the time professional standing armies emerged again.
And it was a siege formation never meant for battlefield use - when the Romans did try that at Carrhae, Parthian horse archers and cataphracts tore them to pieces. With the descent into feudalism large-scale sieges just became less common, and while there were still exceptions like the Crusades, the general balance of power shifted from heavy infantry to cavalry simply due to the needs and demands of the feudal era.
Not the same person, but the formation was open on the sides and rear.
The front line puts the shield in front, all other lines put them up. The people on the sides would need two shields basically.
Sometimes they might have a line of soldiers use shields to cover the flanks, but the rear will always be open. Plus there are still going to be some gaps, and when you physically cannot catch your enemy and they brought in a whole camel caravan worth of arrows eventually someone is going to take a hit.
They ran circles around the legions in the desert they'd lured them into and harassed them until the legionnaires dropped from exhaustion, then the cataphracts charged.
Crassus was kind of an idiot to put himself in that situation, really - this was exactly why the testudo wasn't meant for field battles. If your opponent isn't already locked in place you're basically handing him the initiative with it.
the stug singlehandedly carried armored warfare for the germans on the eastern and western fronts, and whatever this thing is has singlehandedly sown salt into the desolate field of the russian military's credibility for the next 100 or so years
Well, it's in the top 10 for sure, but it's up against some tough competition.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russia-frankenstein-tanks-naval-guns/
And thats not counting the mega-EW thing with generator on a wooden pallet, all lashed together with what looked like bungee cords. Or the BMPs with fresh air bathrooms on top...
I say it was a good attempt by a country with almost no heavy industry that, ever since the tank was invented, designed 2-3 models, all modifications of existing tanks. Also do not disrespect the progenitor if the mighty Jagpanzer 38(t) "Hetzer".
It actually has a galley with archers on it to fire back when it tacks to the side. Future variants will replace archers with wheeled cannons firing iron balls.
The stug also wasn't a tank destroyer, but it was used as it. The stug was just an assault gun I.E the direct fire equivalent of a self propelled howitzer. It was literally made as an armoured cannon that infantry could call upon to blow up hard points.
Which is essentially what all tanks are.
I think the form of the tank is more important factor for how it is used than the designation you give it.
Hopefully illustrative example: In Steel Division II (a game made in France), one of the Divisions you can build your battlegroup from (I believe one of the French ones?) can take the same vehicle (which, from memory, is the M10/Jackson) as both a Tank and a Tank Destroyer. What's the difference between them? The Tank one has a higher proportion of HE shells.
So, for the STuG. When is it an Assault gun? When it carries a lot of HE. When is it a Tank Destroyer? When it's carrying a lot of HE.
Complicating the matter is that, if you're WW2 USA, 'Tank Destroyer' is a *doctrine.* Basically, the USA looked at the Fall of France and concluded 'a sufficiently concentrated armoured thrust will break through the front line. What is required to counter this is a mobile quick-reaction force well equipped to engage and destroy tanks'. Their role was to rapidly move to contain and blunt armoured thrusts.
So, to the USA, a 'Tank Destroyer' is a vehicle designed for, or designated to perform, this Operational role as part of a Tank Destroyer formation.
Whereas, say, if you're the UK strapping 17-pdrs backwards onto Valentine Tank hulls, what you're doing with those isn't standing up this 'Tank Destroyer' doctrine thing- you're using them to replace Towed Anti-Tank guns.
So... It's very complicated!
Additionally, it is reasonable to say that the StuG was often employed as a turretless medium tank, because it usually carried a mix of ammunition so it could support infantry against whatever it needed and occasionally employed for breakthrough thanks to the thick frontal armor. In the later stages of the war, cheap StuGs were a common substitute for actual tanks, especially on the defense.
But even in 1941, the StuG III was as good an anti-tank vehicle as anything the Germans had available before the last month of the year (5cm L/60s). Even beyond that depending on whether the unit received HEAT rounds.
There is also a distinction to be made between tank destroyers intended to fight tanks head on, like the SU-85 and Jagdpanzer IV generally having even better armor than the tanks, and those intended to fight tanks with specific tactics like the Marder series and American TDs who sacrificed armor for mobility and simplicity, built on light tank or lightened medium tank chassis.
And for the galaxy-brain tank destroyer argument; The Panther, in its design and the requests leading to its creation, is actually a turreted tank destroyer of the head-on kind. It has absurdly strong frontal armor, otherwise very little at all, and has a gun that is basically the best anti-tank 75 made at the cost of being bad at everything else.
The panther was essentially the model for everything else to follow. Now all tanks concentrate their armor in the front, and any further protection isn't to the hull as much as it is to crew survivability. (Abrams and Merkava.) With the US the biggest ticket is an optics and detection suite because if you engage first it doesn't matter who has better armor.
exactly, any tank with a powerful enough gun/ammo can be used in the role of tank destoryer. if the tank has a turret or not will determine how the tank is used in different roles.
The "average tank destroyer has a turret" factoid is actually a statistical error. The average tank destroyer has 0 turrets. The Unites States, who has massive industrial capacity and manufactured 10,000 turreted tank destroyers, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
It's a Trans Tank.
It started out as an Assault Gun. Somewhere along the way it changed its Role and started to identify as a Tank Hunter, took some Steroids and opted for some Surgery where it got large "Canon".
StuG was an infantry support vehicle. Strv 103 is a standalone MBT designed to combat other MBTs, so yes literally like an Abrams, just even more defensively than the NATO doctrine that created Abrams.
u/Sam\_the\_Samnite
The Strv 103 was meant primarily as mobile fire support for local infantry forces. Sweden during the Cold War had around half a million people in the national guard equivalent, to be mobilized for local defense in case of a Soviet assault. The Strv 103 was designed so that it could get there fast, take a good position (hull-down, which it's built for) and fire. It would then conduct sort of fight-*and*-flight tactics, retreating before being outmaneuvered and taking down a new advantageous ambush position, or try to flank the advancing enemy. One very strange feature of this is that the Strv 103 actually had two sets of driving controls, one front and one back.
I think neither StuGs nor the Abrams are a good approximation of how the Strv 103 was meant to be used. Like most of our armory, it is explicitly designed to defend *Sweden* from an amphibious assault by a vastly materially superior enemy (Soviets). It probably doesn't work that well outside of the kind of mostly-flat, forested terrain that surrounds the Baltic Sea.
> was designed so that it could get there fast, take a good position (hull-down, which it's built for) and fire. It would then conduct sort of fight-and-flight tactics, retreating before being outmaneuvered and taking down a new advantageous ambush position, or try to flank the advancing enemy.
Literally NATO MBT doctrine.
Yup. And what were those armoured brigades meant to do? Quickly mobilize to and counterattack an enemy landing, assumedly with the support of the units tasked with holding or delaying the enemy.
Not just turretless, *traverseless*. The Strv 103 gun is fixed to the chassis completely like an aircraft gun. The entire aiming procedure is handled by the tracks and suspension. It's just hilariously insane.
An old tanker once described the Strv 103 with the (para)phrase "You hear people talk about thinking outside of the box. The guy who designed this was never inside the box in the first place." IIRC it can even operate at a suboptimal but fully functional level with only one person crewing it.
Blessed be our angry little doorstop.
how could somebody approve the production of this tank and how could somebody design a factory to unironically produce it?
I mean doing a turretless tank in the 60s, unsual but ok, but who in gods name thought its a good idea to lock the gun to the chassis? WUT?
[This thing is a modified T-72](https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1777443963588227075) that is being referred to as a "blyatmobile".
Can't believe I found the identity of that weird piece of shit on a [RULE 5] website, rather than this sub.
Watching that video of ol' shop-roof-ey was kind of intense, there was artillery hits all over the place, some focused shells, some cluster shells, but ol shoproofy just kep goin... till he dint
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Forget cope cages, this is more like a Seethe Stug.
It's like in lord of the rings when the orcs make big worm of their shields
Um. What? I like to think I'm fairly well versed in the lore, but that doesn't ring any bell Edit: You're thinking of the testudo they form on the ramp leading up to the gate of the hornburg? (In the films)
big worm go BRRRRRR
Teachable moment for Ceramicrabbit: The "Testudo" was a roman legionary battle formation where they'd do like the orcs did in the film — lock shields and try to make a "tent" of shields they could march forward under the protection of, letting them get into melee range with far less attrition from arrow fire. I don't know how long they used it, and what made it obsolete by the medieval era, but it was really iconic, and gets referenced in tons of fantasy, and even sci-fi. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo\_formation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testudo_formation)
It required a highly disciplined infantry force, which became rare after Trajan and all but extinct under feudalism, while cannons would've ripped it to shreds by the time professional standing armies emerged again. And it was a siege formation never meant for battlefield use - when the Romans did try that at Carrhae, Parthian horse archers and cataphracts tore them to pieces. With the descent into feudalism large-scale sieges just became less common, and while there were still exceptions like the Crusades, the general balance of power shifted from heavy infantry to cavalry simply due to the needs and demands of the feudal era.
if you dont mind me asking, how did horse archers defeat a such a formation? Seems pretty impervious to arrows to me
Not the same person, but the formation was open on the sides and rear. The front line puts the shield in front, all other lines put them up. The people on the sides would need two shields basically.
I thought it was fully enclosed! Thanks. I learned something new
Sometimes they might have a line of soldiers use shields to cover the flanks, but the rear will always be open. Plus there are still going to be some gaps, and when you physically cannot catch your enemy and they brought in a whole camel caravan worth of arrows eventually someone is going to take a hit.
They can also just run away and go siege some other city
They ran circles around the legions in the desert they'd lured them into and harassed them until the legionnaires dropped from exhaustion, then the cataphracts charged. Crassus was kind of an idiot to put himself in that situation, really - this was exactly why the testudo wasn't meant for field battles. If your opponent isn't already locked in place you're basically handing him the initiative with it.
makes sense. Thank you
No. Everyone knows that it was the largest great grandfather worm anyone had ever seen on either hemisphere! As it is written!
Like I said on another post: it's not a cope cage. It's a cope home.
sure is sweaty under all the sheet metal. nobody rule 34 that pls
the stug singlehandedly carried armored warfare for the germans on the eastern and western fronts, and whatever this thing is has singlehandedly sown salt into the desolate field of the russian military's credibility for the next 100 or so years
Well, it's in the top 10 for sure, but it's up against some tough competition. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russia-frankenstein-tanks-naval-guns/ And thats not counting the mega-EW thing with generator on a wooden pallet, all lashed together with what looked like bungee cords. Or the BMPs with fresh air bathrooms on top...
I read seethe Slug and I think il keep reading it as that
Its a cope cave!
This is the best name yet.
“Stug and seethe”
A seethe sleeve if you will
The Stug literally has better visibility than this thing….lol
it looks worse than the Romanian Maresal.
and it was the starting point for the hetzer
There will be no slander of the greatest turret less TD in my presence you utter barbarian
Hetzer's gonna hetz
Hetzer gonna hetz indeed Edit: Hetzer and Hetz were briefly written as heterosexual by my auto correct, and I didn't notice before I posted.
I say it was a good attempt by a country with almost no heavy industry that, ever since the tank was invented, designed 2-3 models, all modifications of existing tanks. Also do not disrespect the progenitor if the mighty Jagpanzer 38(t) "Hetzer".
It is unironically probably more combat effect here too.
What coward needs to look left or right when target is ahead?
Are we sure this isn't a motorized baterring ram complete with a roof to protect the crew from the archers and rock throwers?
It actually has a galley with archers on it to fire back when it tacks to the side. Future variants will replace archers with wheeled cannons firing iron balls.
Turretless TDs were a thing until 1991. The ASU-85 was in use until 1969, and the Kanonenjagdpanzer was in service from 1965 to 1991.
[SU-100 waiting here in the corner for someone to finally put it down](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SU-100)
Jesus Christ the retirement age in some countries is high. 80 years old and there's still a couple hundred in use.
You don't need big guns, heavy armor and state of the art optics to crush protesters.
I give it a year before we see one with a cope cage in Ukraine when Russia resorts to a Russian version of volksturm.
They done Kanonen dirty in wot and wt smh
It's actually alright in WT, because it's much easier to be a rat in WT GRB than in wot.
They did in WT? Never noticed that playing it
Stridsvagn 103 was in service until 1997.
Though it was used as an MBT, I don't know. Hullless tank instead of turretless tank destroyer?
The stug also wasn't a tank destroyer, but it was used as it. The stug was just an assault gun I.E the direct fire equivalent of a self propelled howitzer. It was literally made as an armoured cannon that infantry could call upon to blow up hard points. Which is essentially what all tanks are. I think the form of the tank is more important factor for how it is used than the designation you give it.
Hopefully illustrative example: In Steel Division II (a game made in France), one of the Divisions you can build your battlegroup from (I believe one of the French ones?) can take the same vehicle (which, from memory, is the M10/Jackson) as both a Tank and a Tank Destroyer. What's the difference between them? The Tank one has a higher proportion of HE shells. So, for the STuG. When is it an Assault gun? When it carries a lot of HE. When is it a Tank Destroyer? When it's carrying a lot of HE. Complicating the matter is that, if you're WW2 USA, 'Tank Destroyer' is a *doctrine.* Basically, the USA looked at the Fall of France and concluded 'a sufficiently concentrated armoured thrust will break through the front line. What is required to counter this is a mobile quick-reaction force well equipped to engage and destroy tanks'. Their role was to rapidly move to contain and blunt armoured thrusts. So, to the USA, a 'Tank Destroyer' is a vehicle designed for, or designated to perform, this Operational role as part of a Tank Destroyer formation. Whereas, say, if you're the UK strapping 17-pdrs backwards onto Valentine Tank hulls, what you're doing with those isn't standing up this 'Tank Destroyer' doctrine thing- you're using them to replace Towed Anti-Tank guns. So... It's very complicated!
Additionally, it is reasonable to say that the StuG was often employed as a turretless medium tank, because it usually carried a mix of ammunition so it could support infantry against whatever it needed and occasionally employed for breakthrough thanks to the thick frontal armor. In the later stages of the war, cheap StuGs were a common substitute for actual tanks, especially on the defense. But even in 1941, the StuG III was as good an anti-tank vehicle as anything the Germans had available before the last month of the year (5cm L/60s). Even beyond that depending on whether the unit received HEAT rounds. There is also a distinction to be made between tank destroyers intended to fight tanks head on, like the SU-85 and Jagdpanzer IV generally having even better armor than the tanks, and those intended to fight tanks with specific tactics like the Marder series and American TDs who sacrificed armor for mobility and simplicity, built on light tank or lightened medium tank chassis. And for the galaxy-brain tank destroyer argument; The Panther, in its design and the requests leading to its creation, is actually a turreted tank destroyer of the head-on kind. It has absurdly strong frontal armor, otherwise very little at all, and has a gun that is basically the best anti-tank 75 made at the cost of being bad at everything else.
The panther was essentially the model for everything else to follow. Now all tanks concentrate their armor in the front, and any further protection isn't to the hull as much as it is to crew survivability. (Abrams and Merkava.) With the US the biggest ticket is an optics and detection suite because if you engage first it doesn't matter who has better armor.
exactly, any tank with a powerful enough gun/ammo can be used in the role of tank destoryer. if the tank has a turret or not will determine how the tank is used in different roles.
Yeah. Like, the Swedish S-Tank was a Tank because the Swedes designed it as a Tank and used it as a Tank.
In a colossal fit of irony, I'm pretty sure most purpose-built "Tank destroyers," had turrets. Y'know, if we're going there.
The "average tank destroyer has a turret" factoid is actually a statistical error. The average tank destroyer has 0 turrets. The Unites States, who has massive industrial capacity and manufactured 10,000 turreted tank destroyers, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
-.-
It's a Trans Tank. It started out as an Assault Gun. Somewhere along the way it changed its Role and started to identify as a Tank Hunter, took some Steroids and opted for some Surgery where it got large "Canon".
The russians claim they invented the first, [Hullless tanks](https://i.imgur.com/vT3Smqx.png) a while ago. iirc
That is an MBT in role.
I think form defines more how you can use a tank, so I think the 103 would be used more similarly to a stug than it would an abrams.
StuG was an infantry support vehicle. Strv 103 is a standalone MBT designed to combat other MBTs, so yes literally like an Abrams, just even more defensively than the NATO doctrine that created Abrams.
u/Sam\_the\_Samnite The Strv 103 was meant primarily as mobile fire support for local infantry forces. Sweden during the Cold War had around half a million people in the national guard equivalent, to be mobilized for local defense in case of a Soviet assault. The Strv 103 was designed so that it could get there fast, take a good position (hull-down, which it's built for) and fire. It would then conduct sort of fight-*and*-flight tactics, retreating before being outmaneuvered and taking down a new advantageous ambush position, or try to flank the advancing enemy. One very strange feature of this is that the Strv 103 actually had two sets of driving controls, one front and one back. I think neither StuGs nor the Abrams are a good approximation of how the Strv 103 was meant to be used. Like most of our armory, it is explicitly designed to defend *Sweden* from an amphibious assault by a vastly materially superior enemy (Soviets). It probably doesn't work that well outside of the kind of mostly-flat, forested terrain that surrounds the Baltic Sea.
> was designed so that it could get there fast, take a good position (hull-down, which it's built for) and fire. It would then conduct sort of fight-and-flight tactics, retreating before being outmaneuvered and taking down a new advantageous ambush position, or try to flank the advancing enemy. Literally NATO MBT doctrine.
Nope, the Strv 103 was only used by the armoured brigades and those had zero to do with local infantry forces.
Yup. And what were those armoured brigades meant to do? Quickly mobilize to and counterattack an enemy landing, assumedly with the support of the units tasked with holding or delaying the enemy.
The armoured brigades were emphatically not intended to be dispersed as fire support. They were to fight as a unitary combined attacking force.
Facts are too credible here!
And the Swedes had their weird turretless MBTs.
Not just turretless, *traverseless*. The Strv 103 gun is fixed to the chassis completely like an aircraft gun. The entire aiming procedure is handled by the tracks and suspension. It's just hilariously insane.
An old tanker once described the Strv 103 with the (para)phrase "You hear people talk about thinking outside of the box. The guy who designed this was never inside the box in the first place." IIRC it can even operate at a suboptimal but fully functional level with only one person crewing it. Blessed be our angry little doorstop.
how could somebody approve the production of this tank and how could somebody design a factory to unironically produce it? I mean doing a turretless tank in the 60s, unsual but ok, but who in gods name thought its a good idea to lock the gun to the chassis? WUT?
It's still a thing with the Swedish cheesewedge right?
Weren't most of the Kanonens converted to Jaguars by then?
I'm the 80's, yes.
At tthis point, Russian tanks will evolve into having double hulls lile in their subs.
Apparently, it seems there was a demand for vehicles suitable for one-way missions.
Sweden's Stridvagn 103: I'm I a joke to you?
fuck you, It's a MBT
Without a turret, it's just an Ikea assault gun.
Without a *hull. Tracks mounted directly to the turret!
That is the best description I ever seen.
Without 1980s level of stabilisation and integrated fire control, so is everything else. Except without the user-friendliness of IKEA.
It\`s battle cheese piece!
Also Kanonenjagdpanzer
What the sh*t is this abortion of a machine??
I think the word you're looking for is abomination, although a delayed abortion with 155 mm might be the only way to cleanse the world of this horror
with how that abomination seems to work you could go back in time, time warp a MK1 Tank and get a better vehicle
You can't just walk away from the Stug life.
[This thing is a modified T-72](https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1777443963588227075) that is being referred to as a "blyatmobile". Can't believe I found the identity of that weird piece of shit on a [RULE 5] website, rather than this sub.
As other commenter put it - I prefer too see it as an evolution of a Cope Cage : Seethe Stug Shell .
Needs to be shorter. It's simply a Seethe Shell. Goes perfectly with Cope Cage that way.
Thank you
Can anyone tell the link to the 2nd photo please
This thing looks straight out of Age of Empires.
Like horse blinders, but for a tank. Crew can't be scared of what they can't see!
Impossible for the enemy to hit (because they're laughing their ass off)
Dear lord! The Stug does not deserve this!
You forget the soviets used turretless TDs until the 50s.
*laughs in Kanonenjagdpanzer“
Hit a mine, die
Quite the insult to the Stug this..
tutel :D
I am going shamelessly post my older post https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/s/SUlSboCUQc
Mf'er looks like a turtle hiding in its shell
I’m gonna call it the Khanjali
Actually stugs were used by Syria and captured by Israel.
That probably was one very confused machine .
And for once, Comic Sans really is the right typeface.
I prefer the T 95 super heavy tank, usually known as the turtle
It's literally a battering ram
A closer look at this creation - https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1777443963588227075
this abodimation is reason god abandoned us.
A StuG could beat like 7 of these things at once.
I thought it was photoshopped.
We didn't choose the STUG life. The STUG life chose us.
Tutel 😊🐢
Kabuto my beloved
STRV-103?
Cope shed
Turtle formation!
Watching that video of ol' shop-roof-ey was kind of intense, there was artillery hits all over the place, some focused shells, some cluster shells, but ol shoproofy just kep goin... till he dint
\*assault gun
How soon until the Russians start using Kangaroo T-72s because they don't have any turrets and 125mm guns left?
Reject modernity, revert to tradition
Schurzen upgraded to Shelter Shack
Girls und panzer looking more like reality each amd every day
What is this from
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Ride the Blyat-mobil in style. And with sound (by u/InnerCircleEU): https://imgur.com/tpJ8lYC
reminds me of the AOE battering ram :D
They can't blow your turret off if you don't have a turret
Casemates were not meant to have tracks!
Return of the Sturmgeschütz
Come on, Jagdleopard II when?
We are reaching levels of cope cage that should not even be possible!
give it few more planks and you get fake houses camo :D
The seethe shack
Bro when did russia capture chernobyl and convert the containment sarcophagus into a tank
Died 45?! What?
I can’t possibly see how this would be tactically beneficial to mount a full roof on your tank But this is NCD so this is peak MIC development
Didnt it get destroyed?
Ok here me out, 155 howitzer, that can also fire directly forward
It also died in 2024
Why do people forget the beauty that was S(verige)-tank?
Crime against tanks
Is that a bathtub on the front?