While the Russians are quickly running out of money -and still can't make a decent toaster- the sky's the limit for the Kremlin when it comes to military stuff. Somehow tho there never seems to be much budget left for styling- instead, they appear to have let their video-game obsessed kids design the thing (while the dog helped).
Yet the ZIL (maker of trucks and Soviet limos) KAT is itself a microcosm of Putin's Russia... overbearing/hyper-macho, in-your-face, brutish, unpolished... not a lot of it makes sense to outsiders, yet they absolutely do not care what you think about it (or them):
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| a little bit better in profile |
The KAT weighs 4.5 tons and can carry 10 fully-armed troops. A prototype was built last year with a Cummins 4-cylinder Diesel, but the 'production' model show here has a Russian Kamaz V-8 Diesel with 700hp. The open-wheels seem a good way to avoid interior damage from any mines ran-over, as the blast would be deflected from the floorboards/passenger compartment.
The radical angle of the front sure out to deflect enemy fire well, but not sure what the thinking is behind the bullseye-red front grill... seems as idiotic as WWI French Army uniforms with their easy-to-target red pants. And if you dropped a jar of epoxy off a bridge or out a window onto that windshield it would probably be stopped cold in its tracks...
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| Reminds one of a homemade Mexican narco-tank |
