Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at DriveTanks.com
with something that is neither a weapon nor a tank.
But I was not going to miss the opportunity to
take a look at this, because I think these are
horribly underrated and extremely cool vehicles.
This is an SdKfz 2. It was originally designated Kleines Kettenkraftrad,
which basically means light motorcycle tractor, or light tracked motorcycle.
In practice the name was shortened to just Kettenkrad.
And this was kind of a ...
Think of it as a light tractor, somewhere halfway between a motorcycle and a jeep for the German army.
These were developed ... starting in 1939, they were in mass production in 1941. And in total they made almost 9,000 of them.
Somewhere between 8,300 and 8,800, depending on different sources that I've seen.
And ... I mean, this is a supremely Germanic sort of vehicle here.
You have the early style of track system, with all of its complexities: its interlocking road wheels,
every single little link in there has a separate oil ... bearing surface that has to be individually filled and sealed.
It's kind of an insane sort of vehicle, and that's part of what makes it so cool.
However, they don't make vehicles just because they're cool.
They make vehicles for specific purposes. So what was the purpose of the Kettenkrad?
Well, in the back here you can seat two people side by side, like I am now. And that was one of the main purposes, troop transport.
Two guys doesn't sound like a lot, but keep in mind this could be couriers,
this could be officers who need to move from one location to another.
These were also used for things like laying communications wire.
They had a specific version that would carry either a spool or two spools of telephone or telegraph wire.
They could lay it out behind them much faster and easier than doing it by hand or on foot.
There is a hitch at the back, currently in the stowed position, but this had a little two-wheel trailer that was built for it.
The trailer weighed about 250 pounds, and it could carry another 750 pounds of equipment.
Be that food, medical supplies, ammunition, anything that needed to get moved around.
This is a vehicle that was smaller and more agile than a four wheeled truck or jeep,
but had a towing capacity that you couldn't match with something like a motorcycle.
The Kettenkrad doesn't just look cool. It's actually got some really interesting mechanical features to it, especially in the steering.
So I always wondered like how does this thing actually steer? You know, one little dinky
motorcycle wheel can't possibly overcome, you know, two giant tracks, right?
And the answer is it steers two different ways. At high speed and/or for relatively shallow turns, if you're just ...
changing directions a little bit, the front wheel actually does provide enough impetus to ... steer with.
... If you need to turn more sharply, as you turn the wheel there is
a hydraulic system in here that will actually activate a differential brake.
And if you turn sharply it'll brake one of the two tracks, just like a tank drive.
Then, of course, the tracks cause you to skew left or right.
So it's a little tricky to see in here, but right down in here,
right in there, we have the actual hydraulic steering system.
So this track system is the same sort of like, early, golden age, highly complicated track system that went into a lot of the early Panzers.
You've got the interlaced road wheels, every one of these track linkages is individually oiled,
which is kind of insane. And not a surprise that they would drop that later on.
So if we look down inside the driver's compartment, the driver is basically sitting on top of the transmission.
This has a three speed transmission plus reverse, along with a two speed transfer case.
So it has a high range and a low range.
And if we look at the shifter lever you can see reverse and then 1, 2, 3 if you're in low range, or 4, 5, 6 if you're in high range.
This is powered by a standard Opel car engine,
which we can open up back here. This is an Olympia 1.5 litre. This produces a whopping 36 horsepower.
It's a straight in-line 4-cylinder engine, single barrel carburettor and oil bath air filter.
This was a good convenient choice for this vehicle. It provided enough power. Because it was a standard car engine
it was something that was easy for army mechanics to work on without a whole lot of specialised extra training.
And it was reliable. This wasn't some experimental new engine that had to go through its own development process.
So power came from the engine just behind the driver, ran down into the transmission and transfer case directly under the seat,
and then into a differential axle at the front.
The front two sprockets are the drive sprockets for the track system.
With this 36 horsepower engine the vehicle could get up to a remarkable speed of 44 miles an hour.
Now having just done a little bit of driving with this, I can tell you that 44 miles an hour in this would be absolutely terrifying.
This thing has a rather high centre of gravity, and I don't know if it's just my own gut feeling or if it's reality,
but this thing sure feels like it's just waiting for the first opportunity to roll over and kill you.
44 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour, you're only gonna want to do that on a pretty darn good paved road.
When you're going off-road, over land, bumps, dips, gullies, that sort of thing, you want to stick with a much lower speed.
That said, it's actually quite comfortable to drive. So, I don't know if you can quite see it under here,
but there's a nice pair of coil springs that give the seat a good bit of suspension to it.
And you actually have a pair of knee bumpers here, one on each side,
so that you don't slam your knee into the front of the vehicle body.
Fuel is carried here in this tank and this one over on the other side, and it's
everything you need in a rather compact package right here. 36 horsepower, tow a trailer,
bring a couple of troops, medical supplies, a couple of wounded guys back from the front.
This was really a quite remarkable universal utility vehicle.
So these were primarily used on the Eastern Front during World War Two.
They got into mass production by the summer of 1941, in time for Barbarossa.
And they proved to be ideal vehicles for the terrain and the long distances in Russia.
They were also used to tow artillery pieces, like 37mm anti-tank guns for example.
They were pretty decent in mud. They could climb very steep slopes. The track system here is an incredibly capable off-road sort of system.
Late in the war these would even actually see substantial use as aircraft tractors.
As Germany ran very, very low on high grade aviation fuel, they actually made an effort to save fuel
by not having aircraft taxi out to the runway. Instead they would tow them with Kettenkrads.
In fact, after the war they actually continued production, allegedly until about 1948.
Some 550 more of these were manufactured specifically for agricultural use.
And that's what happened to most of them that survived the war,
in fact this particular one came off of a farm where it had been in use as the, well,
the equivalent of a jeep in American agricultural service after the war.
Of course, ... troops came home having used the jeep and knowing what a rugged
and capable off-road vehicle it was, and wanted one for farm use back home.
So I'd like to give a big thanks to DriveTanks.com for the opportunity to film this and to actually drive it.
This is, remarkably, in their rental inventory of awesome vehicles and firearms and artillery pieces.
So if you're so inclined you can come down here, they'll teach you how to drive this, take it around their track yourself.
It's super fun, big thanks to them, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.