In world war II, when the German army was preparing the "Barbarossa" plan, it was already aware of the possible mobility problems, and to implement it as planned meant that the various departments had to advance at high speed, although the German army fought the envisioned blitzkrieg in the early stage of World War II, but the eastern battlefield was different, and the road foundation and natural environment were worse. In 1941, the Fuehrer's good friend Ferdinand. Dr. Porsche began to develop a large four-wheel tractor, which was planned to be used to tow heavy artillery and other equipment on the eastern front.
This tractor is called the Porsche 175, or the Skoda RSO, or the Radschlepper Ost (Eastern Route Wheeled Tractor). This tractor was tested in 1942, and its performance was poor, with only a small amount of production and was not deployed to the eastern front.
The Porsche 175 was powered by a 90 hp inline 4-cylinder air-cooled petrol engine in the front engine compartment, which was not sufficient for a 7-ton tractor that required tow a heavy gun, with less than 13 hp/ton per unit. In addition to one driver, it can accommodate 2 people in the cab, and the cargo box in the rear can transport up to about 4 tons of cargo and a maximum towing capacity of about 5 tons.
Even worse is its wheels, which are in 4×4 drive mode, leaf spring suspension, and the wheels are all steel wheels with a diameter of 1500 mm, the front wheels are 300 mm wide and the rear wheels are 400 mm wide.
The tractor has 5 forward gears and 1 reverse gear, and it does not show the speed advantage that a wheeled vehicle should have, with a maximum travel speed of only 16 km / h and a maximum travel distance of about 125 km. Tractor is not only slow, off-road performance is not good, steel wheels are easy to get stuck on the hard ground in the field, ice is even more difficult to drive, off-road comfort is quite poor, in short, this is not a qualified tractor.
Perhaps out of friendship between the Fuehrer and Dr. Porsche, the Porsche 175 still received an order for 200 vehicles, which the army rejected, so only 100 were produced. These tractors could not adapt to the Eastern Front, so it is believed that it did not serve on the Eastern Front at all, but it appeared in France and the Netherlands, and is said to have participated in the Battle of the Salient, and there are photos showing that the Allies captured it, and no complete Porsche 175 has survived.
The Porsche 175 weighs about 7 tons, is 6.22 meters long, 2.3 meters wide, about 3 meters high, has a maximum driving speed of 16 km / h, a maximum travel of 125 km, and is generally equipped with a 3-person group including the driver, no armor protection, no on-board weapons.