Vomag 8 LR LKW WWII German Heavy truck WWII

Description

The German automotive company Vogtländische Maschinenfabrik AG (VOMAG) was founded at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when a growing number of different factories and mechanical companies turned to the promising production of self-propelled cars at that time. Over the next 10 years, VOMAG built several successful trucks and, since the start of the First World War, has received a major order from the army to supply tricolored trucks to the army.

However, with the end of the First World War and the catastrophic consequences of Germany's surrender articles, VOMAG, like many other military-oriented companies, could no longer produce military equipment. Releasing a large number of workers in 1918, VOMAG became VOMAG Lastkraftwagen GmbH München.

In the 1920s, VOMAG concentrated its efforts on the production of municipal transport, since this enabled it to receive regular orders from various municipalities throughout Germany. However, truck production was not completely halted either. The company focused its efforts on maximizing order specifications, and was one of the first to offer a large truck with a three-dimensional layout. This considerably increased the load capacity (up to 10-11 tons) and made the body part of the truck particularly dimensional, given the possibility of transporting very bulky cargo.

Even with the advent of Germany's militaristic nationalist socialists in the early 1930s and the gradual reversal of the entire economy towards the production of dual-use goods (which could also be used for both civilian and military purposes), VOMAG continued to manufacture machines primarily for civilian needs. Its trucks, created in the mid-1930s, were the real masters of the newly-built freeways all over the country, enabling the transportation of oversized goods to any corner of the country.

One of these machines was a three-axle VOMAG 8LR truck, created in 1935. At the time, it was almost an engineering masterpiece, but over the next few years only 100 trucks of this type managed to be built, as VOMAG, like all other heavy industry giants, was increasingly involved in fulfilling military orders due to the inevitability of a major war in Europe in the years ahead.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, almost all VOMAG 8LRs, like other trucks, were requisitioned for army use. And if in the first months of the Blitzkrieg, when hostilities took place in Western Europe, they easily accomplished their tasks, since they only moved cars on beautifully covered roads, then with the start of the Eastern campaign, and especially after the attack on the USSR, their subsequent fate proved fatal.

The complex engineering solutions envisaged in the suspension design of the "king of highways" were meaningless in Soviet off-road conditions and the total absence of normal road coverage. One VOMAG 8LR after another began to break down and was constantly in a state of repair, and already in 1942 their use was very limited under the driving conditions of the Wehrmacht's eastern campaign. Attempts to rebuild a truck on a technical assistance vehicle were rare and unsuccessful. The last known use of VOMAG 8LRs on the territory of USSR and Verkhama troops is dated 1943, after which these giants, like ancient prehistoric animals, disappeared forever, remaining only in small photographs from the pre-war and early war years.