In Soviet times, for a common man in the street, the Kremenchug Automobile Plant was a small manufacturer of heavy trucks and dump trucks, but in fact, from the moment of its formation, by orders of the Ministry of Defense, they secretly carried out secret development of promising army all-wheel drive trucks, tractors and multi-axle active road trains.
KrAZ-253 / KrAZ-259 (1962 - 1968)
The beginning of military development at KrAZ in 1961 was laid by the decision to organize a secret SKB-2 there for the design of advanced heavy military equipment. The following year, a group of young engineers developed the first samples of three-axle vehicles with a 240-horsepower YaMZ-238 diesel engine. These were an eight-ton KrAZ-253B truck and a KrAZ-259B truck tractor for working with an active semitrailer, on which a cab from a pre-production MAZ-500 truck was installed. A revolutionary novelty was a hydromechanical four-position gearbox and an independent torsion bar suspension, which increased the traction and coupling qualities and the stability of the machines. In the same year, prototypes were factory tested.
Cars, hastily assembled in the wake of fashion trends, turned out to be too complex, expensive and equally unreliable. Two years later, the plant presented the second series, which consisted of a nine-ton E253 truck and an E259 tractor with an E834 semi-trailer. They were equipped with an experienced 310-horsepower YaMZ-238N turbocharged diesel engine and a more reliable mechanical eight-speed gearbox, independent suspension and tire inflation system. Here, for the first time, its own more spacious cab appeared, reminiscent of the GAZ-66 cab. The machines were tested until June 1965, then the modified samples were tested again in 1967. In general, they satisfied the military, but they turned out, again, very expensive, which was considered synonymous with the futility of the entire project.
In 1968, a 10-ton 2E253 truck and a 2E259 truck tractor with a 2E834 semi-trailer were built, which made up the third series. They had a simplified angular cockpit, but the independent suspension was preserved. In the opinion of the military, they were only improvements and did not represent a significant step forward. By the decision of the State Committee for the Defense Industry, further work on them was stopped.
Family "Otkrytie" (KrAZ-6315/6316) (1982 - 1991)
In accordance with a secret government decree of February 1976 on the development of a range of heavy army trucks and road trains, a draft design of new equipment was developed in Kremenchug, which in 1981, according to type 21 NIIII received the code "Discovery".
The leading design engineer on this topic was Vladislav Konstantinovich Levsky, later - the deputy chief designer of KrAZ. The uniqueness of his idea consisted in the creation, testing and annual renewal of an extensive range of single all-wheel drive three- and four-axle bonnet and cabover trucks, tractors and active road trains, maximally unified with civilian products. By 1991, the number of performances reached 30 versions.
The basis of the family was the KrAZ-6315 three-axle 10-ton bonnet trucks, the KrAZ-6316 four-axle 15-ton bonnet trucks and the KrAZ-6010 active five-axle road trains, which consisted of KrAZ-6440 bonnet truck tractors and two-axle chassis semi-trailers. It is impossible to tell in detail about all the machines in a short overview, but the most important ones are worth mentioning.
Already in 1982 - 1983, basic trucks E6315 and E6316 and E6440 truck tractors of the first generation with a multi-fuel engine YaMZ-8425 with a capacity of 360 hp appeared. with., which could operate in diesel mode or on gasoline, kerosene and their mixtures, including rocket fuel. By February 1984, eight samples were ready for state testing.
The formation of the second generation dates back to 1984 - 1987. In the bonnet family, the third version of the 3E6315 truck and the 3E63151 chassis for special superstructures became new products. Only the fourth version 4E6315, which received a new front suspension with hydraulic shock absorbers, was able to cope with vibrations in their cab. At the same time, the third version of the 3E6440 tractor with an increased bonnet was transformed into the fourth 4E6440. They were tested in conjunction with the ChMZAP-93861 semi-trailer as part of the 3E / 4E6010 road trains.
In 1984, a third version 3E6316 with a cab over the engine also appeared, which was almost immediately transformed into the fourth 4E6316 with a balanced suspension.
After summing up the preliminary results of long research and long-distance runs, the Ministry of Defense made a decision on the next modernization of all cars that made up the third generation of 1987-1988. The first eight prototypes appeared in December 1987. Among them were two 5E6315 trucks with folding frontal armored glass cabins, their version was the 5E63151 long wheelbase chassis.
At the same time, a 5E6316 machine with a YaMZ-8424 engine with a capacity of 420 liters appeared. with. and a new, more spacious cab. Despite this, the more powerful diesel engine barely fit in it, and therefore it was decided to shift it 70 mm to the left of the longitudinal axis of the car.
The most radical solution to the problem of placing the power unit on a cabover chassis led to the birth of the 6E6316 truck with an even more powerful 450-horsepower engine, which was installed behind an army cab with bulletproof glass placed on the front overhang. Its version was the 6E63161 16-ton chassis with a winch. There is information about the creation of a self-propelled 152-mm artillery unit "Msta-K" on it.
The new generation cars were tested in various regions of the country and often attracted the attention of local residents. It is clear that in such conditions it was not possible to achieve complete secrecy of such a technique. All external references to the manufacturer were carefully erased on it, but to further disorient the curious, the inscription "Siberia" was placed on the front panels of the cabs since 1987, which at first was mistakenly given the status of an official marking.
Tests of the third generation cars were completed in the summer of 1988. By that time, the requirements for such a technique had changed significantly, and further struggle for the existence of the Otkrytie family turned out to be meaningless.
Despite this, the factory designers tried to save their brainchild by creating three more combinations of the previous machines. The first in 1989 was a simplified cabover truck 7E6316 with two flat windshields in the cab.
Simultaneously with it, the plant assembled a modernized 6E6315 bonnet with a cabin from Siberia with three windshields, and in 1990 - a 7E6315 truck with an extended engine compartment, which housed a 420-horsepower engine with two cooling radiators on both sides. The modifications of these machines and their factory tests continued until the end of 1991.
What's next?
With the acquisition of independence by Ukraine, all work on the "Discovery" was stopped and was no longer resumed. We remember the Kremenchug plant mainly as a supplier of old-fashioned Laptezhniks, whose design, in fact, was developed in the 50s back in Yaroslavl, before the transfer of production to the Ukrainian SSR. The new KrAZ-6322, which appeared in 1994, inherited from the Otkrytie family only suspension parts and fuel tanks.
