At the start of World War II, German armored units were mainly equipped with light and medium tanks, accompanied by repair teams consisting of gantry cranes with a capacity of up to 6 tons. However, after clashing with heavier Soviet tanks on the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht began suffering heavy losses and soon realized the need for heavier armored tanks to fight on the rapidly changing battlefield. This led to the development of heavy tanks, such as Tigers and Panthers, weighing up to 30 tons. Existing gantry cranes in field service units were too weak to handle the new heavy tanks, so the Germans turned to mobile gantry cranes manufactured by J.S Fries Frankfurt am Main, which had been developed in the 1930s for lifting heavy loads at ports and rail facilities.
The strabokran (Strassen bock kran, or road gantry crane) consisted of a horizontal crane supported by a pair of folding support towers. On the gantry was a winch on a cart mounted on a rail. A motor for powered lifting was mounted at one end, and a hand-powered sprocket was mounted at the opposite end to drive the horizontal movement of the cart. Each of the twin support towers consisted of four hinged scissor sections, which were lifted by ropes using a manual winch mounted in the base of each tower and then locked together. Strabokranes with capacities of 15t, 16t and 20t were developed in different years and were towed by Sd.Kfz 8 and Sd.Kfz. 9 half-turrets. About 100 Strabokranes were built by the end of the war, some of which were built under license at the Stratenwerth company in Duisburg and were supplied to units equipped with Tigers and Panthers, as well as V2 units.
Plastic model to be glued together by Takom. The kit does not include paint and glue.
Specifications:
- Manufacturer: Takom
- Scale: 1/35
- Part Number: 2123