Source: People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Trumpet
Author: Wang Xiaomeng, Yang Qiaojun
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The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has lasted for more than two years, and the fighting has not stopped. A large number of destroyed tanks were abandoned on the battlefield, becoming steel scars on the earth. Many of these tanks were abandoned by their crews after the power system was damaged. There are many reasons why this equipment has not been evacuated for repair in time and has been abandoned? There are many reasons, one of which is the relative shortage of heavy equipment transport vehicles on both sides.
For tanks and other armored vehicles, heavy equipment transporters are not only "ambulances" after they are heavily damaged on the battlefield, but also "ironclad express" that they quickly deploy to designated land battlefields. Tanks and other armored vehicles are indispensable for them to fully function, and they cannot do without the help of heavy equipment carriers (HETs). In this issue, let's focus on these heavy equipment transporters, known as "heavy trailers".
Born with the tank, it continues to "grow" in the baptism of war
In modern warfare, the situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly. The speed and maneuverability of ground forces is important, and the ability to deliver tanks and other armored vehicles to the front line with greater efficiency can sometimes mean the difference between success and failure.
Long-range and ultra-long-range transport tanks and other armored vehicles, and the better means of delivery are ships, trains, strategic transport aircraft, etc. However, for some close tank transportation tasks, especially the distance from the unloading site to the combat area assembly area, the armies of various countries generally do not let tanks and other armored vehicles "go on their own", and often choose to use heavy equipment transport vehicles to transport them.
There are many benefits to using a heavy equipment transporter. The first is to reduce the consumption of motorcycles for tanks and other armored vehicles, and reduce the consumption of fuel and maintenance equipment. According to statistics, every 1 hour of modern mechanized troops, there will be 2%~20% of armored vehicles malfunctioning, coupled with the amazing amount of fuel consumption, the engine must be replaced after a certain motorcycle hour, the battlefield maintenance support is complex and other factors, in order to ensure that tanks and other armored vehicles are in the best state when attacking, the use of heavy equipment transport vehicles has gradually become a necessary option. The second is to avoid damage to roads caused by tanks and other armored vehicles, and enhance the concealment of operations. Armored vehicles such as tanks have staggering weights and stiff tracks, which can cause significant damage to the general road surface and be noisy when driving. Using heavy equipment carriers to carry them not only reduces the damage to the road, but also allows them to be delivered to the attack area faster, quieter and more discreetly, so that the action is sudden. The third is to reduce the fatigue of the crew of tanks and other armored vehicles and maintain their combat effectiveness. When tanks and other armored vehicles are driving, the bump amplitude is large, the ride comfort is low, and the long-term driving is a severe test of the physical strength and energy of the crew. Transporting with heavy equipment carriers can temporarily "liberate" the crew and ensure that they are in good condition when they attack.
Because of these advantages, soon after the creation of the tank, heavy equipment transporters were born. During World War I, Britain developed the world's first tank and threw it into the Battle of the Somme. To bring these tanks to the battlefield, the Royal Army's logistics forces created the world's first heavy equipment transporter, a truck with a shortened chassis and a towing seat attached to a semi-trailer at the rear, which carried the tank. At the same time, the French "Renault" FT-17 light tank was lighter, and the French Army chose to carry it directly in a truck.
Over time, the tonnage of armored vehicles such as tanks has increased, and it has become unrealistic to carry them in trucks. Therefore, heavy equipment transport vehicles have been paid attention to, and three styles have been developed: semi-trailer trailers, full-trailer trailers and movable loading flatbed trucks. In particular, semi-trailer trailers have high transportation efficiency and good driving stability, and are suitable for carrying heavy equipment of various tonnages, so they are more favored by the armies of various countries. The M26 "Dragon" tank transporter equipped by the U.S. Army during World War II was the largest heavy equipment transporter at that time. The vehicle consists of a 3-axle tractor and a 2-axle semi-trailer with a design load of 40 tons. According to historical data, it was even able to carry captured German "Tiger Hunting" heavy tank destroyers, which played a role in the recovery of German tanks after the war.
After World War II, countries have devoted themselves to the development of heavy equipment transport vehicles. In 1965, in order to transport the jointly developed MBT70 main battle tank, relevant enterprises in the United States and Germany jointly developed a semi-trailer heavy equipment transport vehicle. Later, the development of the MBT70 tank failed and the project was discontinued, but the project of developing the heavy equipment transporter did not stop, and later developed into the US M746 tank transporter and the German SLT-50 "Elephant" tank transporter. Both models of tractors and semi-trailers have 4-axle tractors, the former is designed to carry 60 tons, the latter is 52 tons, and can carry the US M60 "Patton" main battle tank and the German "Leopard" 1 main battle tank. Since then, in order to reduce costs, the US military has also equipped the M911 heavy equipment transporter, which was developed from civilian trucks.
In the 80s of the 20th century, with the installation of M1 "Abrams", "Leopard" 2 and other main battle tanks of more than 60 tons, some new heavy equipment transport vehicles appeared one after another. The United States has developed and produced the M1070 tank transporter, and Germany has developed the SLT-70 "Mammoth" tank transporter. Take the SLT-70 "Mammoth" as an example, its semi-trailer has a 7-axle trailer, a very low flat body, and 7-axle small-diameter tires distributed under the car, all of which are able to steer independently, which not only has a load of more than 72 tons, but also allows the transporter like a long dragon to turn in a small radius, increasing maneuverability.
Not to be outdone, the Soviet Union, which had a strong production capacity of heavy vehicles, developed and equipped the MAZ-537 heavy equipment transporter in 1963, and its tractor was developed from the MAZ-535 4-axle truck, towing a 3-axle semi-trailer with a load capacity of 65 tons, capable of carrying a variety of tanks, including the T-80 main battle tank. At present, this series of models is still the main heavy equipment transport vehicle of the Russian and Ukrainian armies. In addition, Belarus, which inherited the Minsk Vehicle Plant of the Soviet Union, has developed an MZKT-741351 heavy equipment transporter for the UAE in recent years, which can tow 1 3-axle semi-trailer trailer and 1 4-axle full-trailer trailer, and can carry 1 "Leclerc" main battle tank and 2 BMP-3M infantry fighting vehicles at one time, which is known as the "road train".
Deeply embedded in the battlefield, the use of scenarios throughout the training process
On the land battlefield, the use scenarios of heavy equipment transport vehicles are quite broad, and they show the characteristics of being highly consistent with the process of land warfare. In summary, it can be divided into the following categories:
First, in the stage of combat deployment and preparation, tanks and other armored vehicles are carried out to carry out rapid maneuvers to achieve the purpose of enhancing combat effectiveness. In the case of the Desert Sabre ground operation in the Gulf War, which began in February 1991, the multinational force concentrated more than 3,700 tanks and a large number of armored vehicles. After arriving in Saudi Arabia by sea in November 1990, the equipment also needed to be transported by land to the campaign assembly sites. There are 112 M911 heavy equipment transport vehicles that arrived with the US military, but they still cannot meet the needs of military logistics. To this end, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other countries have successively provided more than 1,300 heavy equipment transport vehicles of various types, and the US military has also raised a lot of civilian semi-trailer trailers and low-bed trailers in the local area to basically meet the demand in this regard.
Second, in the combat implementation stage, it is responsible for the forward transportation and evacuation of tanks and other armored vehicles, the evacuation of battle-damaged equipment or captured equipment for maintenance, and the transportation of repaired or newly added equipment to the front line. For example, the Soviet army invested a large number of tanks in the war in Afghanistan, and some of them were damaged and destroyed. In order to be able to evacuate and repair these battle-damaged equipment and return them to the front line again, the Soviet army deployed a number of MAZ-537 heavy equipment transporters in Afghanistan. In some historical photographs, you can see the vehicle carrying the T series tank on a dirt road in Afghanistan. Today, the Afghan Taliban still have a number of MAZ-537 heavy equipment transporters left over from the Soviet army in use.
Third, during peacetime training and exercises, tanks and other armored vehicles are transferred between troop stations, loading and unloading stations, and training and exercise grounds, so as to ensure that the reserve motorcycle hours of tanks and other armored vehicles are used for training and exercises to the greatest extent. When some countries organize large-scale military parades, they will also dispatch the latest heavy equipment transport vehicles to carry tracked infantry fighting vehicles for inspection, so as to ensure the combat effectiveness of these combat vehicles.
Fourth, it can carry other heavy weapons and equipment and materials, and can also be used as a mobile modification platform for heavy weapon systems. For example, the U.S. military has moved the "Phalanx" close-in defense gun on the warship to a heavy equipment transporter, and developed the "Centurion" C-RAM land-based close-in fire artillery system, so that the heavy equipment transporter has a new application scenario.
Multi-party efforts are aimed at better going to the battlefield
The heavy equipment transporter is mainly composed of a tractor (main vehicle), a semi-trailer/a full-trailer trailer, a saddle tractor, etc. Theoretically, it is also possible to use standard civilian heavy machinery carriers or extra-heavy (large) cargo vehicles to carry armored vehicles such as tanks, and in fact the armies of many countries are also doing this. However, on the whole, countries still attach great importance to the development of military heavy equipment transporters. Because it not only has basic road transport capabilities, but also has good cross-country ability, it is also generally equipped with a high-torque winch, and has the ability to independently load battle-damaged equipment. During the Gulf War, the U.S. military discovered that the M911 heavy equipment transporter developed on the basis of civilian trucks had poor off-road ability in the desert environment, and was inferior to the British Scammel "Commander" heavy equipment transporter.
The design of modern heavy equipment transport vehicles highlights the system concept, that is, the tractor and trailer are designed as a whole, showing a serialized and combined development trend. For example, the American M1070 tank transporter is the product of Oshkash company under the framework of the "heavy equipment transportation system", and the M1070 tractor can be matched with M604, 633, 633N, 635 and other trailers of different models and deadweight tonnage according to demand.
The serialized and combined design not only makes the heavy equipment transport vehicle have good versatility, but also makes it better adapt to various use environments. In the future, the research and development of heavy equipment transport vehicles will most likely continue to maintain the following development trends.
First, the power system should be sufficient. Heavy equipment transporters are known as "the strongmen of cars", and in order to be able to "run with a tank on their backs", they need to have a strong "heart". For example, the Soviet-made MAZ-537 heavy equipment transporter, whose engine comes from a modification of the T-34/85 tank engine, has a power of 525 horsepower. The high-power engine is also matched with a transmission device with a large output torque, a transfer case, a drive axle and other transmission devices, as well as a more advanced heat dissipation and cooling system, so the heavy equipment transport vehicles that people see are all large.
Second, the frame suspension should be strong. Heavy equipment transport vehicles should not only meet the transportation needs of carrying heavy equipment, but also meet the safety needs of road and off-road driving, and have high requirements for the frame suspension of tractors and semi-trailers, and generally adopt height-adjustable air spring suspension or oil and gas spring suspension to ensure that the vehicle has better smoothness when driving. At the same time, in order to ensure that tanks and other armored vehicles get on and off the vehicle on their own, the semi-trailer trailer carrying platform will generally choose a low-flat design, and a folding springboard will be installed at the rear of the vehicle to guide the combat vehicle on and off the platform.
Third, the axle design should be accurate. One of the characteristics of heavy equipment carriers is that they have many wheels, and the number of axles represents the weight of the load. Some countries stipulate that the maximum load capacity of such vehicles per axle is 10 tons. In this way, it is necessary to calculate the number of axles and wheelbase of the transporter according to the weight of the armored vehicle loaded at the time of design. For example, the German SLT-70 "Mammoth" and the Belarusian MZKT-741351 are "road trains" with up to 11 axles.
Fourth, it is necessary to turn to the mechanism to live. Heavy equipment transporters are generally very long, especially the new transporters carrying third-generation main battle tanks, most of which are more than 40 meters long, which restricts their minimum turning radius to a certain extent. To ensure mobility, the axles of the new transporter's semi-trailer will be designed to steer around, such as the SLT-70 Mammoth's semi-trailer, which can be steered in all seven pairs to provide the ability to pass on special sections.
Fifth, the winch should have a large pulling force. The heavy equipment transport vehicle needs to undertake the task of evacuating and overhauling the battle-damaged equipment, so the rear of the cab is generally equipped with a winch system to tow the armored vehicle without driving ability onto the trailer, and at the same time slow down the sliding speed of the non-powered vehicle by pulling when unloading the vehicle to prevent secondary damage. In order to be able to hold heavy tanks and other armored vehicles, the vehicle is generally equipped with double winches, and some also have auxiliary winks, and at the same time, the remote control operation mode is adopted, so that the operator can stay away from the out-of-control armored vehicles and operate the winch in a safe and open field of vision.
Sixth, the cockpit environment should be good. The new generation of heavy equipment transport vehicles is more concerned about wartime applications, so they are generally equipped with armored cabs, which have certain protection capabilities, and some are also equipped with self-defense weapons such as machine guns. At the same time, the comfort requirements of the occupants are fully considered in the cockpit design, and the driver's seat and sleeper are designed from the perspective of ergonomics to ensure that the driver can maintain a good condition during long-distance transportation.
(Produced by the People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Horn)