sod plus tiller, i can understand want to remove the sod due to roots and constantly spending more time getting tiller unstuck vs tilling.
plow would cut things up, but you may still have issues of bigger chunks of grass roots. and ya might need to plow one or 2 more times pending on the roots and chunks to break them up to a point it would be less tiller work.
plowing before any tilling generally helps just pure time it takes to till any how.
if you do not have a tiller yet, then perhaps, plow,disc,harrow setup.
perhaps box blade with sacraficers down. to cut the sod up.
if you had a FEL (front end loader) with general duty bucket. if you got a small start. it would be a pain, but you might be able to use it like a sod cutter. it would be rather time consuming slow as you take small little bits and keep watch full eye in how far the bucket cuts down into the ground. but *shrugs*
if you had a backhoe, you could just use it to dig up everything around it. then move down the line and re dig everything up. and repeat a bunch of times. to break all the sod up.
many ways of doing it. it all depends on what else needs to be done on property. if ya have tiller already, then it might just be a time consuming thing of pulling roots out of the tiller till it is done. vs trying to find a better tool, vs just getting out there and doing it.
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as far as removing sod. just seems odd to me. more so, due to size of saplings. but perhaps this is a tree farm. about only thing i can think of reason for wanting to till up the sod. and then do repeat tilling between trees. that or the area needs to be re graded and smoothed out and tilling is part of getting everything land preped for that. and trees are just after the land gets all smoothed out and landscaped.
). Erosion is the enemy with complete cultivation, as well as expensive with today's fuel prices. 
