IBG 72072 917t Maultier German Halftrack

Sd.Kfz. 3 (nim. Sonderkraftfahrzeug 3) or Maultier is the general name for a series of German half-track trucks (transporters) from the World War II period. The first prototypes of these cars were built in 1941, and serial production continued in 1941-1945. The drive was provided by various power units - in the case of the Opel Blitz truck conversion it was a single 6-cylinder engine with a capacity of 3.6 liters.

Vehicle series Sd.Kfz. 3 Maultier was created as a result of the disastrous experiences of the German army in the first months of operations on the Eastern Front in 1941. In the course of these struggles, it turned out that standard Wehrmacht trucks cannot cope with Soviet roads, and especially they are not suitable for use during the autumn thaw. This led to the modernization of standard trucks manufactured e.g. by Opel or Mercedes-Benz, which consisted in adding, instead of the rear axles, tracked traction, most often based on the solutions used in Panzer I and Panzer II tanks. A large part of the modernized vehicles was based on the Opel Blitz car. In 1943, some of the Maultier vehicles were converted into armored half-tracked armored personnel carriers with the designation Sd.Kfz. 4.