In this article, let us turn the clock back to the 1980s. During that period, the United States ushered in a new president, his name was Ronald Reagan . During his tenure, he led the adoption of many projects, including the famous "Star Wars" project . However, these plans may be true or false, but the Soviet Union on the other side of the ocean accepted them all. In order to balance the power between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union launched a large number of new weapons research and development equipment. Among them, the field of intercontinental missiles has gained a lot.
Since the 1960s, the Soviet Union has begun to use trucks to transport huge intercontinental ballistic missiles . However, the United States is not idle at this time. The United States has developed a variety of ballistic missiles with higher accuracy and faster response, and equipped these silo-based ballistic missiles with stronger super-reinforced launch silos. This makes it impossible for the Soviet Union's original missile to achieve more accuracy. An effective blow. In order to solve this problem, the Soviet Union needs to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles with greater throwing mass and use larger-yield warheads to cover the United States' super-reinforced launch silos.
The famous RT-23 intercontinental ballistic missile is the product of this idea. NATO calls this missile the SS-24 "Scalpel". This missile can be deployed on silo bases and railways. It is also the most familiar " missile train " model. The missile weighs 105 tons, is 22.6 meters long and 2.4 meters in diameter, and can carry nine warheads at a time. In addition to the two deployment methods mentioned above, the Soviet Union also intends to expand its deployment methods and improve survivability. Therefore, the plan to use TEL vehicles for land-based deployment has been put on the agenda.
The development task of its TEL (transport-erect-launch) vehicle was handed over to the famous Belarusian Minsk Automobile Factory, also known as the MAZ factory. In 1895, the first prototype rolled off the production line. It was named MAZ-7907, which is the behemoth in the picture above. This behemoth is 28 meters long, 4.1 meters wide and 4.4 meters high.
In order to transport huge intercontinental missiles, the cab of the vehicle has been moved forward significantly. In order not to affect the approach angle, there is a large slope below the cab, and the cab adopts a mid-mounted structure, which makes it look a bit stubby. These are the unique characteristics of the MAZ-7907.
Due to the huge length of the vehicle, in order not to affect its off-road capabilities, the Minsk Automobile Factory chose to add more wheels to achieve the effect of load-bearing and support. Based on the MAZ-7906, the MAZ-7907 increases the number of axles to 12. Each axle has an independent hydropneumatic suspension system to enhance off-road capabilities.
At the same time, the vehicle also adopts an electric transmission design. Each wheel is driven by a electric motor with a power of 30 kilowatts, with a total of 24 electric motors and a power of 720 kilowatts. The front four axles and the last four axles all have steering capability. With the help of 8-axis steering, the turning radius of this 28-meter-long beast is only 27 meters.
With this picture you can see the axle design of the wheel more clearly. Thanks to the ultra-long stroke of the hydropneumatic suspension, the vehicle can have more powerful off-road performance and be in contact with the ground at all times. The tires use special deep-pattern off-road tires. In addition, in order to prevent the frame from twisting during off-roading, the vehicle also adopts an articulated frame design. The front six axles and the rear six axles are divided into two independent units, which are connected by a hinged structure, so that the torsion angle can be changed. big.
At the same time, the missile is fixed on the chassis using the subframe design. The rotation of the vehicle bottom unit will not hinder the normal storage and transportation of the missile, which is also a feature of the MAZ-7907 design. MAZ-7906 also adopts a similar design, but MAZ-7906 is only driven by 16x16 and is still smaller than this car in size. How big is this car? You can see this from the proportion of military personnel on the vehicle in the picture above.
More detailed vehicle size diagram
What is equally impressive is not only its huge size, but also its super powerful heart: in order to drive this behemoth with a load of more than 200 tons for crazy off-roading in the mud, the vehicle adopts A GTD-1000TFM gas turbine from the T-80B main battle tank was placed in the hood in front of the cab, creating a short "pig-nose" appearance. This gas turbine has a horsepower of more than 1,200 horsepower. It is matched with a VSG-625 turbine generator to provide power to the wheels through electric transmission.
However, its top speed is only 25 kilometers per hour. On the one hand, it is to ensure the safety of missile transportation, on the other hand, the vehicle can reach a speed of 25 kilometers per hour in off-road conditions, and it must be more than this when driving on the road. A total of two units of
MAZ-7907 were manufactured. One of the prototypes underwent more than 2,000 kilometers of road testing and performed satisfactorily. However, during the test, the vehicle exposed several problems: The first is fuel consumption. Although the gas turbine from the tank has better power transmission performance, its excellent low-temperature starting characteristics are more suitable for the vast ice fields of the Soviet Union. However, gas turbines are noisy and have high requirements on air quality. Firstly, they will alarm the public. Secondly, they are easily damaged and difficult to maintain. Furthermore, the vehicle consumes a lot of fuel, and its super large exterior also makes it lose part of the convenience of maneuvering on the highway.
There is another reason, and that is the poor economy of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's economy was already overwhelmed by the arms race, and then encountered the Afghanistan war . Eventually the country disintegrated in 1991, and was naturally unable to promote the land-based mobile deployment of RT-23 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
After being sentenced to death in the military field, these two MAZ-7907s turned to the civilian field, transporting many large cargoes such as ships and locomotives. However, these meager incomes cannot maintain the daily operation of MAZ-7907. Later, the two MAZ-7907s were abandoned and were exposed to wind and sun in the parking lot of the Minsk Automobile Plant, and their condition deteriorated.
In the end, the Minsk Automobile Plant decided to transfer one MAZ-7907 in better condition to the company museum for collection, while the other one was used to disassemble the parts and completely restore the 7907 for collection. So far, only one MAZ-7907 has been preserved, which can be regarded as having a relatively complete ending. Thank you for reading this article! If you want to see more interesting and informative commercial vehicle content, don’t forget to follow us!
text and pictures: heseaotter
