#Krauss-Maffei

[trainphilos]

New Toys!

During the last few weeks a couple of new items were added to the rolling stock roster of my model railway. As per usual I had totally forgotten having “pre-ordered” them over a year ago. Model train manufacturers tend to announce new future projects with an option for the customer to “pre-order”. This pre-ordering process gives the manufacturers a rough idea on how many model train enthusiasts…

[supplyside]

Leopard column

[zvaigzdelasas]

In a year of hard fighting since taking delivery of its first 71 German-made Leopard 2 tanks, the Ukrainian army has lost—according to Oryx—at least 12 of the tanks.

But the losses aren’t the reason the army is struggling to generate combat-ready Leopard 2s. Many more Leopard 2s have been damaged than have been destroyed—and the Ukrainians are having real problems getting the damaged tanks fixed and returned to service.[...]

As many as 59 Leopard 2s in theory remain in Ukrainian service. But in reality, potentially dozens of the intact tanks are out of service for want of repairs. When German T.V. network NTV visited a Leopard 2A6 platoon this month, just one of the unit’s four tanks was combat-ready.

German Green Party politician Sebastian Schäfer went looking for answers, and found them in Lithuania, where German firms Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann run a workshop that fixes Leopard 2A6s and Strv 122s. Leopard 2A4s go to Poland for repairs. “Only a very small number of the main battle tanks delivered can still be used by Ukraine,” Schäfer reported.

There’s a shortage of spares at the front line and at the repair center. This should come as no surprise to close observers of Germany’s long military decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Desperate for parts and eager to fix their tanks themselves, the Ukrainians tend to remove parts from the most badly-damaged Leopard 2s before loading them onto trucks and trains for transport to Poland or Lithuania, Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding explained. [...]

But this cannibalization means the workers at the repairs centers have to fix battlefield damage and replace stripped parts. The repair centers aren’t just fixing tanks, they’re “rebuilding” them, Freuding said.[...]

Ukrainian defense planners meanwhile have chopped the 47th Brigade’s surviving Leopard 2A6s to the 21st Brigade, consolidating those tanks with the remaining Strv 122s in order to simplify their logistics.

And The Netherlands and Germany are beginning to deliver, presumably to the 33rd Brigade, 14 fresh Leopard 2A4s.

But the longer-term fix requires German industry to produce tank parts. Lots of them. And consistently.

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here about the efficacy of flashy expensive military hardware in actual combat against a peer/near-peer competitor. Maybe not tho! [22 Jan 24]

[captain-price-unofficially]

Krauss-Maffei's Wildcat twin 30 mm cannon (MK-30-F) air defence system. The turret could fit a variety of vehicle from the Bradley to this MOWAG Shark 8x8.

[i-identify-tanks-in-posts]

Leo 2 of some sort.

Leopard 2a6, German MBT, Krauss-Maffei

Oh my poor girl... what have they done to you.

This is a captured Leopard, rigged with T-80 road wheels for transit.

[militarymodeller]

Nr.280, The sdkfz 7 German heavy tractor.

The Sd.Kfz.7, or Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 8t (Medium Tractor 8 tonnes), was developed as part of the larger family of German half-tracks. The first specifications for this vehicle were laid down in 1932 by Wa.Prüf.6. The vehicle was developed by Krauss-Maffei, with the first vehicle entering production in 1933.

As the designation suggests, the Sd.Kfz.7 was meant to tow weights of up to 8 tonnes. It was the tow vehicle of choice for the famous Flak 88 anti-aircraft guns, the 15 cm sFH 18 howitzer, and the 10.5 cm K18 field gun. However, due to the chaos of war, these vehicles were sometimes seen towing larger loads.

They also towed trucks and even light tanks through the harsh conditions on the Eastern Front. The Sd.Kfz.7 could also carry up to 18 men on its 3 benches. The rear of the vehicle was compartmentalized in order to carry various equipment, fuel and ammo.

This kit is a frankenstein project and made out of 2 incomplete kits.

[trainsinanime]

GE PowerHaul

After I offered, @valtionrautatiet-official asked me to post some pictures of the locomotive that is nowadays known as the Dr20, used by the private freight operator North Rail in Finland. Here it is in 2012, long before anyone ever even considered sending it to Finland, in Berlin. The reason that it's in Berlin specifically is that it's at Innotrans, the biggest trade fair and exhibition for railroads that exists. At this point it had the paint job of HHPI (Heavy Haul Power International, despite the important sounding name really just one of many European freight rail companies with headquarters in Germany), with their trademark blue and red and their company policy of putting Newton's second law on it. "Project Power" also sounds cool, doesn't it? Well, it turns out they never entered service for HHPI. Way too much history under the cut.

The story behind these eight locomotives is weird and opaque, and there is a lot of stuff we may never know, but on a very fundamental level it seems to be one of the victims of what I call the six-axle diesel curse. This basic of that theory of mine is that it's impossible to sell big, heavy, powerful diesel locomotives, the kind that are so powerful that they need six axles for all the weight from their big engine and diesel tank, in (West) Germany and to a certain extent central and Western Europe, at least nowadays, unless you do it by accident.

The German locomotive industry has wanted to build big six-axle diesel locomotives since the end of steam traction. There was a prototype six-axle version of the V 200, named V 300, in the 1950s, but DB didn't want it (a related but less powerful version was sold to Yugoslavia to haul Tito's private train). For the Americans here, the Krauss-Maffei locomotives of the Southern Pacific and Rio Grande were related to that.

A few years later, in 1962, we get the V 320, a six-axle version of the V 160 locomotive family. The four-axle version was very popular and is still in service, but they only built the prototype of the six-axle version. Interestingly, that one prototype is still around as well, hauling construction trains. Deutsche Bahn was never interested, they preferred the flexibility of having more smaller units. And anyway, they were busy electrifying the busy main lines that would have made the most use of those heavy machines.

In the 1970s Henschel and BBC (the electric equipment one, not the British TV one) built three copies of the DE 2500 both with four and six axles, but those were really more experimental machines.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, MaK tried to sell their DE 1024, and I actually have a picture of that ne.

They built three prototypes, and Deutsche Bahn seemed to genuinely toy with the idea… but in the end it was decided to electrify the lines in the (mostly flat) north that hadn't been electrified yet anyway.

And at the same time, the wall fell, and suddenly Germany had access to all the locomotives of the east, now mostly surplus since mostly the industry they served did not survive the transition to western markets. East Germany had bought powerful six-axle diesel locomotives in enormous numbers from the Soviet Union, specifically modern-day Ukraine, and those were available, good enough and already paid for. In particular the class 232 and related, known as "Ludmilla" among rail fans, have proven very useful.

MaK was able to sell an altered version of that locomotive to Norway, but that turned out to be be a huge disaster as they developed a habit of catching on fire. Eventually Siemens (who briefly owned MaK) had to take them back, and since then they've changed hands an astonishing number of times - apparently right now Hector Rail and RDC Autozug have a lot of them. Here's one in Hamburg Altona when it was used on regional trains there.

The three prototypes went to locally owned operator HGK, where two of them also burned down. DB probably dodged a bullet there. Interestingly enough, the only one that didn't burn down was number 13, but that was finally scrapped a few years ago.

In the mid-1990s, ADtranz (later Bombardier) and GE got together to build the Blue Tiger locomotive, a very distinctive-looking and noisy machine. They sold 11 to various private operators in Germany, 30 to Pakistan and 20 to Malaysia. Not terrible, but not a huge success either.

But in the 2000s, things were changing. Liberalisation meant that more and more companies were running services all throughout Europe. The busy main lines were electrified, but many of the border crossings weren't yet, so there was a new need for big six-axle diesel locomotives.

The big beneficiary of this was EMD from North America, who were already supplying such locomotives to Great Britain. The rail companies there needed these machines to replace unreliable British-built power, and to replace environmentally friendly electric locomotives, because most of the British network is not electrified and the few sections that are have way too much traffic on them.

The Class 66 is an ugly mess, designed by figuratively building a metal shed in the inside of a tiny British rail tunnel. It's so noisy that drivers in Norway get hazard pay for being in them. But it works and it was mass produced, and a lot of them made their way to the continent in short order.

Other companies wanted in on that business. Voith decided to enter locomotive building after previously supplying traction equipment. They had high hopes for their Maxima series of locomotives, which they started building in 2008, and they had their own leasing company. They did a lot of marketing and the machine won prestigious design awards.

At one point they had a hundred pre-orders. In the end their own leasing company folded, and they only built twenty, which they didn't even manage to sell that quickly. Nowadays they've stopped producing locomotives again.

General Electric, the other North American locomotive company, wanted in on that action as well. Sure, it hadn't worked with the Blue Tiger, but years had passed and things were different now. For their new product, the PowerHaul, they decided to follow what EMD had done. They started with the class 77 for the British market, first shown at Innotrans in 2010.

Then they wanted to work their way out to wider Europe, with a special continental version that was designed with a bigger shell to match the larger tunnels on the continent. That way they weren't quite as cramped. EMD had considered a similar idea, a European-sized class 66, but decided against that.

GE also did not intend to make them themselves. Instead after the initial batch of British 77s, they transferred production to their Turkish partner Tülomsaş, who supplied some more British ones and the ones for central Europe. 29008 is one of them.

In the end all of these plans fell through. A lot of the international border crossings did get electrified much quicker than the diesel sellers had hoped. The one near where I live, the Montzenroute, started electric running in December of 2008, and it was actually the makers of electric locomotives who made bank off of the new international railway world. Here is a Bombardier TRAXX electric locomotive during the first week that freight trains from Germany to Belgium were running with electric power, just a few hundred meters from the border.

But the business changing is one thing, the story of the PowerHauls seems to be even more complicated. After all, GE did have a launch customer for their PowerHaul, in the form of HHPI. The locomotives were built, painted in HHPI colors, and tested. And then… well, nothing. They never entered service, instead sitting for years in Cottbus, Germany. I have no idea whether they ever got approved for service in Germany. Finnish Wikipedia says "HHPI had no use for them", but that sounds like a euphemism. Clearly HHPI had some use for powerful locomotives, they've recently taken delivery of some Stadler EuroDuals.

The EuroDual and the closely related Euro9000, pictured below, seem to be the solution to the six axle diesel curse though the conceptually simple but technologically difficult trick of simultaneously being a very powerful electric locomotive as well. They have already delivered more of them than Voith Maxima, GE Blue Tiger and GE PowerHaul combined. Sorry for the pictures, they don't park the locomotives well for good photos at Innotrans.

Also, GE was not able to find any customer in Germany, nor in Sweden, where some units of that type were tested at some point. Locomotives of that type were built for Turkey, though, and I haven't heard anything negative about them there. Those were also at Innotrans, in 2014.

And then, years after everyone had forgotten about these machines, they suddenly turned up in Finland, in the hands of North Rail (formerly Operail), one of the few private companies there. That required at least new couplings, new axles (Finland has a different rail gauge, the measurement of how far the rails are apart), probably adjustments to the breaks, new train control systems and so on.

It's possible that North Rail was thoroughly convinced by the advantages of GE's concept or something, but I think it's far more likely that they just got a really good deal because GE was happy someone took them off their hands.

The reason they're in Finland is almost certainly that Operail needed some cheap machines that weren't doing anything, and these units were just that. But why were they not doing anything? Why were these machines doomed to sit in Cottbus for years, essentially still in new condition, painted for an operator that didn't want them? I'm sure you'll find plenty of theories if you look on online forums, and it's even possible that one of them is the truth, but unless some rail journalist decides to really dig into that, we'll probably never know for certain.

If you allow me to speculate: It certainly doesn't sound like a success story, and there have been all sorts of other stories where trains didn't get approval to run in the country they were ordered for, or had severe technical defects. Ask an Austrian rail fan about the Talent 3, a danish about the IC 4 or a dutch or Belgian about the Fyra to get some really fun rants. I don't know if these locomotives belong in that hall of shame, but it would certainly be an explanation.

My guess is that there won't be any more of these machines ever. GE Transportation doesn't even exist anymore, the whole part of the business got sold to Wabtec a few years ago. But if these machines are doing well in Finland now, good for them! Finally someone found something to do with these weird-looking units.

[otherwise-elsewhere]

If you aren't sending me Krauss-Maffei ML 4000 pics then what are you sending me...

[guerrerense]

Merzig Saarland Germany 29th April 2018 por loose_grip_99 Por Flickr: Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) Class 03 Pacific 1010 arrives at Merzig station in the rain with the 11.38 from Saarbrucken during the Rhineland-Palatinate Dampf Spektakel. We took this train back to Trier. The first 03.10 was built in 1939 and 140 were planned but as a result of WWII and the switching of production to 'war essential' goods, only 60 engines were completed by 1941. They were built as streamliners mainly by Borsig, Krupp and Krauss-Maffei but post-war the streamlined bodywork was subsequently removed. Both DB and DR Class 01-10s were rebuilt in the 1950s & 60s. Between November 1965 and September 1966, all DB Class 03.10s were withdrawn, retired and scrapped while the DR engines, including 03-1010, were withdrawn by 1980.

[proud-spaniard]

Nach einem Partisanenanschlag im Bahnhof Snamenka im Oktober 1943 (vgl. Bild-Nrn. 27712, 27713) wurde 52 6176 vom Bw Bobrinskaja ("Bobr") zur Reparatur ins Lokomotivwerk Krauss-Maffei nach München überführt. Trotz der erheblichen Schäden wurde die Lok wieder aufgearbeitet und ging anschließend Richtung Rumänien, wo sie ab 1944 offiziell bei der CFR in den Büchern geführt wurde. 1945 wurde sie in Ungarn aufgefunden und in die Sowjetunion abgefahren, wo sie angeblich erst 1984 als SZD 1042.453-9 ausgemustert wurde. (05.1944) Foto: Werkfoto (Krauss-Maffei)

Quelle: eisenbahnstiftung.de

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up December 7, 2022

Under the cut:

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Dec. 7 that ten people were killed in Russia's attack that hit the center of the town of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk Oblast.

Germany plans to supply Ukraine with 18 RCH 155 wheeled howitzers, according to the government's updated list of arms deliveries to Ukraine.

EU outlines proposals on ninth package of sanctions against Russia.

Russia is trying to “freeze” the war in Ukraine to prepare for “a bigger offensive next spring,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Dec. 7.

“President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Dec. 7 that ten people were killed in Russia's attack that hit the center of the town of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk Oblast.

Many people were also injured, according to Zelensky. A market, elevator, a bus station, gas stations, and a residential building came under fire, the president said.

Earlier on Dec. 7, Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported a “powerful hit” in the center of the city.”-via Kyiv Independent

~

“Germany plans to supply Ukraine with 18 RCH 155 wheeled howitzers, according to the government's updated list of arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The delivery is in "preparation/implementation" phase, according to the list.

Germany will also be providing an additional 100 drone defense sensors and jammers, two hangar tents and seven load-handling trucks, according to the list.

Germany and the Netherlands have already sent 14 self-propelled howitzers PzH2000 to Ukraine, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.

The RCH 155 is a modernized version of the PzH 2000 on wheels instead of tracks and with a higher degree of automation and crew safety, according to the company producing the howitzer, Krauss Maffei Wegmann. The German government legally cleared the way for RCH 155s to be sent to Ukraine in late September.”-via CNN

~

““Russia continues to bring death and devastation to Ukraine. It is deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, seeking to paralyze the country at the beginning of the winter. We stand by Ukraine, and we are making Russia pay for its cruelty,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

The European Commission proposed adding almost 200 additional individuals and entities to the EU sanctions list.

These include the Russian armed forces, individual officers and defense companies, members of parliament, ministers, governors, and political parties, among others.

“This list covers key figures in Russia's brutal and deliberate missile strikes against civilians, in the kidnapping of Ukrainian children to Russia, and in the theft of Ukrainian agricultural products,” von der Leyen said.

In addition, the European Commission proposed sanctioning three additional Russian banks, including a full transaction ban on the Russian Regional Development Bank, to further paralyze Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's cash cows.

Furthermore, the European Commission wants to impose new export controls and restrictions, particularly for dual-use goods, including chemicals, nerve agents, electronics, and IT components that could be used by the Russian war machine.

Von der Leyen said that the commission would cut Russia's access to all sorts of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, banning the direct exports of drone engines to Russia and the export to any third countries, such as Iran, which could supply drones to Russia.

“We will also target the Russian propaganda machine by taking four additional channels off the air and all other distribution platforms,” she said.

Von der Leyen said that the European Commission had proposed further economic measures against the Russian energy and mining sector, including a ban on new mining investments in Russia.

This package comes on top of the EU import ban on Russian seaborne oil that came into force on Dec. 5.

“International cooperation against Russia's war has never been stronger. We stand united and firm.” the European Commission President said.”-via Kyiv Independent

~

“Russia is trying to “freeze” the war in Ukraine to prepare for “a bigger offensive next spring,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Dec. 7.

“What we see now is Russia actually trying to have some kind of ‘freeze’ of this war at least for a short period of time so they can regroup, repair, recover,” Stoltenberg said during a conference hosted by the Financial Times.

The NATO chief’s assessment comes nearly a month after Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in southern Ukraine, where it was forced to withdraw from the only regional capital, Kherson, that it had captured since the February invasion.

For the past five months, Russia has failed to achieve any major victory in Ukraine despite its high casualty rate. The current epicenter of the battle is in the Bakhmut sector in the eastern Donetsk Oblast as Russian troops mass to encircle and capture the strategically insignificant city.

Ukraine’s Eastern Military Command spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty claimed on Dec. 4 that Russia was losing 50-100 soldiers daily in the Bakhmut area, with a similar injury rate. The loss of Ukrainian troops, however, is also assumed to be high.

At the Financial Times Global Boardroom conference on Dec. 7, Stoltenberg also said that he had "no more information" about Moscow’s accusations of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian military airbases earlier this week.

The alleged Ukrainian drone attacks occurred on Dec. 5 when explosions were reported at two airbases 500-700 kilometers deep inside Russia, hinting at Kyiv’s ability to strike targets at such distances.

Ukraine has not officially claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Stoltenberg elaborated without pointing fingers that it’s important to “understand this in the wider context,” where Russia is launching daily attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukrainian cities.

“What Russia tries to do is to weaponize winter, to deprive civilian Ukrainians of water, of electricity, of heating, when they're now going into winter,” Stoltenberg said.

“Ukraine has the right to defend itself against these kinds of attacks.”

Earlier on Dec. 6, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that Washington was not “enabling” or “encouraging” Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia.

Asked about the possibility of peace agreements, Stoltenberg said that “Russia has shown no sign of engaging in negotiations which are respecting the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” but insisted that it was not up to Brussels to decide.

“It has to be Ukraine that decides when and the conditions for negotiations,” he told at the event.

Back in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled that he was preparing for a prolonged war, acknowledging that “this might be a long process.”

Putin added that half of the 300,000 conscripts drafted under what he introduced as "a partial mobilization" on Sept. 21 were already deployed in Ukraine.”-via Kyiv Independent

[eclecticstarlightblogger]

Γερμανικά Leopard 2HEL: Το διαιτητικό δικαστήριο επιδίκασε αποζημίωση 23.000 000 ευρώ στην KNDS Deutschland για καθυστερημένες πληρωμές στη σύμβαση 016A/2003

«Γλυκιά ήττα» για την ελληνική πλευρά αποτελεί η πρόσφατη απόφαση του διαιτητικού δικαστηρίου του Διεθνούς Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (ICC: International Chamber of Commerce), η οποία επιδίκασε αποζημίωση περίπου 23.000.000 ευρώ στη γερμανική εταιρία KNDS Deutschland (πρώην Krauss-Maffei Wegmann – KMW) για καθυστερημένες πληρωμές στη σύμβαση 016A/2003 για την προμήθεια των 170 αρμάτων μάχης Leopard…

[thoughtfullyblogger]

Γερμανικά Leopard 2HEL: Το διαιτητικό δικαστήριο επιδίκασε αποζημίωση 23.000 000 ευρώ στην KNDS Deutschland για καθυστερημένες πληρωμές στη σύμβαση 016A/2003

«Γλυκιά ήττα» για την ελληνική πλευρά αποτελεί η πρόσφατη απόφαση του διαιτητικού δικαστηρίου του Διεθνούς Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (ICC: International Chamber of Commerce), η οποία επιδίκασε αποζημίωση περίπου 23.000.000 ευρώ στη γερμανική εταιρία KNDS Deutschland (πρώην Krauss-Maffei Wegmann – KMW) για καθυστερημένες πληρωμές στη σύμβαση 016A/2003 για την προμήθεια των 170 αρμάτων μάχης Leopard…

[greekblogs]

Γερμανικά Leopard 2HEL: Το διαιτητικό δικαστήριο επιδίκασε αποζημίωση 23.000 000 ευρώ στην KNDS Deutschland για καθυστερημένες πληρωμές στη σύμβαση 016A/2003

«Γλυκιά ήττα» για την ελληνική πλευρά αποτελεί η πρόσφατη απόφαση του διαιτητικού δικαστηρίου του Διεθνούς Εμπορικού Επιμελητηρίου (ICC: International Chamber of Commerce), η οποία επιδίκασε αποζημίωση περίπου 23.000.000 ευρώ στη γερμανική εταιρία KNDS Deutschland (πρώην Krauss-Maffei Wegmann – KMW) για καθυστερημένες πληρωμές στη σύμβαση 016A/2003 για την προμήθεια των 170 αρμάτων μάχης Leopard…

[captain-price-unofficially]

It's a Leopard 1A5 turret on PUMA prototype hull (PT2). The PUMA (not be confused with the current German IFV Puma) was a private joint development of Krauss-Maffei and Diehl in the late 80s, aimed at creating a family of light to medium tracked vehicles. The whole project never took really off despite initial interest from several Armies, mostly due to budget cuts and the incoming wave of surplus equipment.

[i-identify-tanks-in-posts]

Hello tank man. Me and my cousins found this dude at grans, we think it’s an Abrams, but our tank knowledge is limited.

Leopard 2a4, West German MBT, 1985, Krauss Maffei

The 2a4 is notable for being the last variant of the Leopard 2 manufactured before reunification, as well as for being the last model not to feature sloped turret armor

99% confidence