Augers or auger-rotor all-terrain vehicles are vehicles that are driven by an auger rotor propeller. The design of such a propeller consists of two Archimedes screws, which are made of extra strong material. Such propellers are located on the sides of the all-terrain vehicle body. It is known that the patent for the auger was obtained in the USA in 1868 by the American inventor Jacob Morat. In Russia, the first patent for auger sledges was issued in 1900.
Augers were not widely used and were almost never mass-produced. This is due to two main disadvantages of this class of technology. These ATVs are not suitable for driving on hard surfaces such as asphalt or concrete. When driving on hard dirt roads, it simply turns them into plowed beds. In addition, as soon as the auger "feels" the ground, the machine begins to shake violently and drift to the side. Another disadvantage is the very low speed of movement of the devices with rather high energy costs. But augers also have their own indisputable advantages: such all-terrain vehicles have excellent cross-country ability in snow, mud, ice and have proven themselves very well as a water propulsion unit (on amphibious vehicles).
All this makes augers a niche and practically piece goods. It was the impossibility of using augers as an independent transport unit that did not allow them to gain proper distribution. However, they can be used in their niche. This is done quite simply: the auger is delivered to the place of use in the back of another machine, and then unloaded. It is the narrowness of the segment that has led to the fact that the production of such machines is not the most economically profitable occupation.
The most famous (perhaps the only serial) was a snow and swamp vehicle called "Snow Devil", which was created on the basis of the Fordson tractor. It was manufactured by Armstead Snow Motor in the 1920s. It is worth noting that the company came up with a very good scheme: it simply riveted kits for converting the chassis of any Fordson tractors into an auger. How many such copies were produced is unknown, but at least one such copy has survived to this day. Today it is housed in the Automotive Museum in Woodland, California.
Today, the Australian company Residue Solutions, which produces the MudMaster augers ("Mud Specialist"), is engaged in serial production of this rather specific technique. True, they are produced in a very modest series - the company sells on the market hardly a couple of dozen of these all-terrain vehicles annually. The Australian MudMaster is a powerful enough professional machine designed for servicing farmland and irrigation stations that require constant water availability (for example, silt fields), as well as for working in mangrove forests, swamps, coastlines with low soil density, and others. similar areas. Simply put, the machine is designed to operate in slurry. At the same time, the MudMaster auger is a rather big machine, its length is 8 meters, and its weight is about 18, 5 tons. It is powered by a six-cylinder Cummins diesel engine. Each piece is only assembled to order, and the assembly process itself usually takes 18 weeks. At the same time, a variety of equipment can be installed on MudMaster - from a land reclamation system to a crane, in fact, this is a special platform for various equipment.
Naturally, such a technique could not but appear in our country, which has vast swamps and a very sparse road network. The northeastern territories of the USSR seemed like an ideal place to use augers. Loose snow up to a couple of meters thick was a suitable environment for such all-terrain vehicles. Therefore, Soviet engineers with a certain regularity turned to this class of equipment. But even in a country in which the orders of the party could outweigh all the economic benefits, the augers could not take root.
The most famous and operated to this day Soviet auger is ZIL-2906 (or its improved version - 29061). In our country, it was called a screw-rotor snow and swamp-going vehicle. In total, from 1980 to 1991 at the Likhachev plant, 20 such search and rescue complexes of high cross-country ability, also known as the "Blue Bird", were produced. The customer of this technique was the bureau. S. P. Koroleva. The main purpose of the augers was to rescue astronauts after they landed. The complex included, in addition to the snow and swamp vehicle itself, the ZIL-4906 cargo all-terrain vehicle and the ZIL-49061 passenger vehicle. The ZIL-2906 snow and swamp vehicle was transported in the back of a truck and unloaded only if necessary. It should be noted that no suitable use cases have arisen. At the same time, the auger vehicle demonstrated the wonders of cross-country ability where even tanks could sit on the belly, and also served the national economy of the country. For example, in a fish farm, this machine was used to combat reeds - it was able to get into such a jungle where neither the amphibian nor the boat was able to get.
At the same time, ZIL-2906 found itself at least some use. But other Soviet developments remained only at the prototype stage. For example, back in 1972 in the USSR, the ZIL-4904 auger-driven snow and swamp vehicle was built, which had the world's largest carrying capacity of 2.5 tons. The car was driven by two 180 hp engines. However, there was no application for this unit. As a result, several assembled ZIL-4904 were scrapped, and one miraculously survived to this day. Today it can be seen at the State Military Technical Museum in Chernogolovka.
Complex "Blue Bird"
Dreams of combat augers
The augers, due to their cross-country ability, could not fail to attract the attention of the military. In the first half of the 20th century, the military was busy looking for an alternative to the tracked mover. With all the advantages of the caterpillar track, it had a number of disadvantages. In particular, the tracked drive was characterized by a very high wear of rubbing parts, and hence a small resource. For example, on the massive French Renault FT-17 tank, the running resource was only 120-130 km long. In the 1920s-1930s, work was carried out on the use of a wheeled-tracked scheme.
Another option for replacing the tracks was the auger propeller. Its essence was to install Archimedes' screws, which were invented in the 3rd century BC, instead of tracks or wheels. In 1926, the auger propeller was successfully installed on a Fordson tractor. Also, such a propulsion device was tested in the United States and on a Chevrolet car. Tests have confirmed the excellent cross-country ability of the augers on difficult terrain and snow. In addition, the Archimedes screw was tried to be combined with hollow drums, which also provided the auger with amphibious properties. However, this design had a lot of disadvantages, as indicated above. The main one was the impossibility of using such equipment on paved roads.
At the beginning of the last century, in many countries, both reconnaissance and transport augers were being developed. For example, the auger was a saboteur vehicle, which began the history of the development of the M29 Weasel snow and swamp-going vehicle. Against this background, it looked somewhat strange that for all the time there were few proposals for creating an armored auger. Usually, it did not go beyond the drawings that were published in popular science magazines. However, proposals to create such a combat vehicle were still put forward, mainly during the Second World War.
ZIL-4904 screw-rotor snow and swamp vehicle
So, during the war years in the German press, the project of the auger was well covered, which was designed by German officer Johann Radel in 1944. The vehicles were planned to be used on the Eastern Front, which was characterized by an abundance of snowy expanses in the winter. At the same time, Radel counted on the surrender of the Soviet Union. He conducted the first tests on April 28, 1944. The auger was created on the basis of an ordinary tractor, and tests were carried out in the mountains of Tyrol, they were successful. However, by this time, there could be no talk of any surrender of the USSR in the war, the situation on the fronts in no way was conducive to the use of the machine proposed by Radel.
The USSR also had its own ideas for the development of augers, which appeared precisely during the war years. At the same time, it was not only about creating such machines from scratch, but also about installing such an engine on existing machines. So in March 1944, a similar proposal came from the technician-lieutenant B. K. Grigorenko. His idea was to install rubber rollers on the working surface of the Archimedes screw. Theoretically, the rollers were supposed to ensure the movement of the auger on hard surfaces. Also, like foreign designs, it was planned to install auger propellers on existing tanks and vehicles, but it never came to a practical test of the possibilities of Grigorenko's invention.
A much more radical approach to this problem was presented by the production engineer of the production group of the Special Experimental Production Bureau of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition (SEPB NKB). Back on August 29, 1942, the department of inventions of the GABTU KA - the Main Armored Directorate of the Red Army - received his proposal to develop a new combat vehicle.
Beketov proposed to build a "snow tank". The author of the project proposed to create a combat vehicle weighing about 28 tons and a total length of about 7 meters. Its hull consisted of 2 interconnected cylinders, on each of which two towers from T-26 tanks were to be installed. In this case, the screw propellers occupied most of the surface of the hulls, simultaneously acting as elements of body armor. The mover himself Beketov decided to divide it into several segments. He believed that such a decision would have a positive effect on the survivability of the tank, especially its chassis. This car should have been driven by 2 aircraft engines developing 250 hp each. each, the maximum speed was estimated at 45-50 km / h.
It should be noted that the author of the project approached the development of his "snow tank" quite thoroughly. In addition to the very drawing of the tank and its hull, the proposal presented by him also included sketches of the chassis and even a kinematic diagram of the connection between the propeller and the hull. Also, the process engineer performed calculations of the mass of the "snow tank" units. But all this work was done by him in vain: in the department of inventions it was logical to consider that the project had no prospects.
It is worth noting that Beketov's project was not the most radical idea of building a combat auger. A no less original project of such a combat vehicle was proposed by a resident of the city of Kazan S. M. Kirillov in April 1943. Even against the background of the "snow tank" described above, Kirillov's invention seemed quite original. He offered amphibious high-speed tanks ZST-K1 and ZST-K2. However, like other similar projects, they remained on paper.
The disadvantages of auger propellers outweighed their advantages; moreover, by the end of the 1930s, the track resource exceeded several thousand kilometers. Therefore, the fate of the augers was not the best. In addition to the all-terrain vehicle, created on the basis of the Fordson tractor, the Dutch Amphiroll and the Soviet ZIL-2906 came out in minimal series. Both machines were created exclusively for use in the strongest off-road conditions, where they could demonstrate their best qualities.