Engines of the Red Army
Medium Tractor STZ-5
"... In September of 1942, the »
Stalingrad
Tractor
Zavod« became one of the famous scenes of bitter street fighting for nearly half a year. Until then, it had produced, among others, almost 10,000 STZ-5 artillery tractors, the final ones being accomplished while the nemy was literally at the gates. Between the production shifts, the workers were sent to the nearby front.
The STZ-5, one of the few specialized military tractors of the Red Army, proved a complete success, the only shortcoming being the 12-inch narrow tracks not suitable for snowy and muddy terrain.
As the Wehrmacht captured plenty of them it comes at no surprise that the German »
Raupen
schlepper
Ost« showed a significant similarity in design. "
Steyr - Austria
After the Wehrmacht's first fall and winter (1941–1942) on the
Eastern Front, they found that the extremely primitive roadways in the USSR and
seasonal mud required a fully tracked supply vehicle to maintain mobility.
Steyr responded by proposing a small, fully tracked vehicle based upon its 1.5-tonne truck (
Steyr 1500A light truck) already in use in the army. The vehicle was introduced in 1942 as the
Raupenschlepper Ost (RSO).