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The LK II was the second tank developed during World War I that represented the concept of a "light tank." Specifications were submitted for this vehicle in 1917, and the resulting LK II design weighed 8.5 tons, was based on a Daimler chassis, and was armed with a 57mm main gun and two machine guns in a fixed turret.
Production plans were for 580 vehicles to be manufactured by 1919, but none were completed by the time of the Armistice. The Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to possess any tanks, and to get around this, the LK II's designer Joseph Vollmer (who also designed the A7V) went to Sweden. A female version of the LK II that mounted only a machine gun in a rotating turret and one in the chassis was purchased as a kit for Sweden at a price of 10,000 Swedish Crowns and smuggled out of Germany as an agricultural tractor and steel plates. The vehicle was reassembled as the pansarvagn fm/22 at the naval shipyard at Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. In 1924 the designation was altered to stridsvagn fm/21. Ten of these were built and formed the first Swedish armoured unit. In 1930-33 five of the fm/21s were rebuilt and redesignated stridsvagn m/21-29. The vehicle on display at the Panzermuseum was a gift from the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Army, and was given to the Panzertruppenschule in January 1993. Images below are courtesy of Pansarmuseet Axvall
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