2 May 2025

From the bunkers of the Cold War to the battlefields of today – the story behind the Universal Tank and Anti-Aircraft System

8 min read

An industry-leading sight and fire-control system for combat vehicles being developed in a rocky bunker at the height of the Cold War… It sounds like the plot of a spy novel, but it’s the true story behind Saab’s trusted Universal Tank and Anti-Aircraft System, UTAAS.

If you’ve spent any time near a combat vehicle in Europe over the past 30 years, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen Saab’s UTAAS solution in operation. The sight and fire-control system is standard equipment on the rugged Combat Vehicle 90 (CV90), which is used by countries including Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Estonia. With Sweden having sent 50 CV90 vehicles to Ukraine in 2023, it has also been used by Ukrainian forces to defend their country against the Russian military.

UTAAS provides combat vehicle gunners with an advanced and dependable way to view the outside world, to lay and fire their guns, and to scan for outside threats. Thanks to its reliability, modularity and high-hit probability against both ground and air targets, the system has been respected by national armed forces since the first CV90 went into service in 1994.

But there was a time when details of how UTAAS operated were far more closely guarded. The system has a fascinating origin story involving the Cold War and a secure bunker buried deep beneath the rock on an island in the inner Stockholm archipelago. Away from daylight, dust and potential spies, components were assembled for what was to become a revolutionary system for providing combat vehicles gunners with eyes on the outside world.

Advanced optics to defend Sweden

The UTAAS story begins long before Saab even existed, with a Swedish inventor named Gustaf Dalén. In 1904, Dalén was employed as chief engineer with a new company known as AGA, whose main business was selling acetylene gas products to power lighthouses. Thanks to Dalén’s talents, the small company very rapidly grew into one of Sweden’s biggest enterprises. From lighthouse equipment, AGA branched out into providing cutting-edge optical and radio equipment, advanced electronics and gas appliances. Over his life Dalén was granted an extraordinary 99 patents.

With the outbreak of World War Two, AGA was commissioned to supply the Swedish Armed Forces with vital electronic and optical equipment, including aircraft flight instruments, submarine periscopes, binoculars, and gyroscopes. So that the equipment could be created securely and away from potential bombing raids, an underground bunker was commissioned on the inner Stockholm island of Lidingö in 1943. The 4,000-square-metre space was excavated from an enormous granite outcrop, and as well as protection from bombardment, it provided a calm, secure, dust-free environment where delicate optical components could be developed. Working in white lab coats, the bunker’s optical technicians were completely shielded from the outside world, and often had no idea if the day outside was clear or dark, if the sun was shining or if snow had fallen.

The UTAAS highlighted on a CV90. Photo: BAE Systems Hägglunds.

The path to UTAAS

As the war ended and the world entered the Cold War, AGA continued to supply Sweden’s armed forces with advanced precision instruments and the underground bunker was expanded to 6,000 square metres. In the late 1970s, AGA’s Aerotronics division and one of its competitors, Junger, were bought by defence company Bofors and incorporated into a business called Bofors Aerotronics (most of which would eventually become part of Saab).

The merger brought a critical patent into the business for an ‘independent line of sight’ fire control solution for tanks and other weapons applications. Developed by engineer Carl Torbern Teiling, this system allowed for the view from the gunner’s periscope to move independently of the cannon on the turret – a key feature of today’s UTAAS. This meant gunners could maintain situational awareness and be looking for targets and threats in directions other than where the cannon was pointed, which is a major strategic advantage.

Bofors used Teiling’s fire control solution to retrofit T-55 tanks for the Yugoslavian military under the M-84 program. Throughout the 1980s, the company supplied fire control systems and components for armoured vehicles including Sweden’s IKV-91 tanks, West Germany’s Leopard 1 tank, and Great Britain’s Centurion tank.

An innovative solution for the CV90

In the mid-1980s, with the Cold War at its height, Sweden’s Armed Forces realised that to meet potential enemies it needed a new series of armoured highly mobile vehicles with air defence and anti-tank capabilities. In 1985, it commenced the Stridsfordon 90 project, and this led to the eventual development of the Combat Vehicle 90 or CV90. This versatile vehicle was initially produced by Hägglund & Söner and Bofors.

A sight and fire control system was required for the new CV90, and the Bofors Aerotronics team rose to the challenge. They combined Teiling’s fire control system with a brilliant new patented optical sight design that halved the number of optical components needed in a sight. Unlike many other modern sights, electromagnetic emissions for the visual, thermal and laser-range-finding channels all entered via a single unsplit aperture on the turret. Optical components for the new ‘Universal Tank and Anti-Aircraft System’ or UTAAS were produced from the James Bond-style granite bunker on Lidingö, with final assembly taking place above ground in adjacent manufacturing facilities.

press 1 cv90 with utaas photo credit bae systems

CV90 with UTAAS. Photo: BAE Systems Hägglunds

New challenges and new solutions

The first CV90s using the new sight and fire control went into commission with the Swedish Army in 1994, with the UTAAS system featuring a sight unit with ballistic reticle, elevation sensor, sight panel, sight electronic module, laser module, thermal system and cables.

In the ensuing thirty years, the UTAAS system has proved extraordinarily reliable and accurate, and both it and the CV90 have gone through many new iterations and updates. New versions of UTAAS featured in the CV9030 vehicles delivered new to Norway, Switzerland and Finland, and the CV9035 vehicles delivered to Denmark and later delivered to the Netherlands and later sold to Estonia. Many of these have subsequently undergone modernisation upgrades.

After various mergers in the 1990s, UTAAS finally came to be an integral part of Saab in 2000. Production no longer takes place in the Lidingö bunker and instead is carried out at Saab’s manufacturing facility at Järfälla in Stockholm. There is also production in Czech Republic together with partners. The CV90, meanwhile, is now produced by BAE Systems Hägglunds. Over the years, both the CV90 and UTAAS have proved themselves in combat service in Liberia, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Updated versions of UTAAS will feature in planned future deliveries of BAE Systems Hägglund´s CV90 vehicles to Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark and Sweden over the coming years.

Defining features

UTAAS is not only still in use but also considered a highly effective system more than three decades after its initial production.

So, it’s worth asking the question, why has it stood the test of time so well?

There are several answers. One is that the designers of UTAAS understood that technology progresses rapidly and that to remain effective weapons must keep pace. Seeing the growing role that digital technology would play in coming years, they created UTAAS as a modular solution in which electronic components could be easily swapped out and updated as needed. This means that rather than being anchored to the digital technology of the 1990s when it was designed, UTAAS can be simply and rapidly upgraded as more advanced digital solutions become available.

Another key reason is that UTAAS does the job it’s intended to do and does it well. As production of the CV90 has progressed, there’s been no need to swap UTAAS out for another system. It keeps providing gunners with the situational awareness and control they need to neutralise the enemy.

Yet another factor is the optical simplicity of the system. Fewer parts creates fewer opportunities for something to go which translates to robustness and reliability. UTAAS is there when combat vehicle crews need it most.

Recently, changing approaches to warfare have also played a role. As the name Universal Tank and Anti-Aircraft System suggests, UTAAS is highly effective at destroying airborne targets – something that in the 1990s typically meant helicopters and other aircraft. An explosion in drone technology in recent years has meant that both weaponised and surveillance drones are now a common sight on the battlefield. Vehicles equipped with UTAAS are well placed to quickly and effectively neutralise this growing threat.

Now, with tanks, combat vehicles and ground warfare likely to play a major role in any future international conflict, UTAAS could potentially see combat service outside of Ukraine. Equipped with outstanding optics and the latest digital equipment, it is sure to live up to the expectations of the armoured vehicle crews that use it.

And the technicians and researchers who spent countless hours developing components in an underground bunker in Stockholm righty deserve part of the thanks for that.