Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1086092
The MAN Nutzfahrzeuge plant be- longs to Rheinemtall MAN founded by Rheinmetall AG (51% shares) and MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG (49%). To- gether with second plant located in Kassel, the plant is responsible for manufacturing of military vehicles. The 36,000 sq meter Vienna plant is specialized in trucks for both defense and civilian markets. Over 1,000 people are employed and working in the plant where two assembly lines, prototyping facility and various oth- er shops and facilities. Some of the parts and subcomponents are man- ufactured in-house. The specialty of this factory are medium-weight high and very high mobility, armored and non-armored trucks. Around 1500 military and 800 civilian trucks leaves the factory each year. Capacity is 11 trucks per day. First part of the event is factory visit. Factory is amazing, its building is modern, clean and well-organized. Top-notch. We have been visiting af- ter hours so we couldn't see the as- sembly process but each station on the production line could give us some idea "how it is made". We have seen chassis production station where all starts from metal frames and few hundred meters away, there were ful- ly assembled chassis with engine and drivetrain installed. The paint shop, electric assembly station ("spaghet- ti" of few hundred meters long wires seems a riddle to be solved), crew compartment assembly station, etc. Complete assembly line from scratch to final point with delivery address sticker. I don't know how they manage with all the parts and components. Sure thing, the all trucks (no mater if 4x4, 6x6, 8x8 or even 10x10) are based on same subcomponents and the main differences is the number of axles or the final configuration, but the plethora of parts and subassem- blies is overwhelming, and they must be placed in the rights places. Second day was even more inter- esting as we all had opportunity to test-drive all the trucks on Austrian Army training grounds near Vienna. Weather was awful: it was rainy, it was cold. Six trucks were waiting for us: 5 HX-series and TG MIL TGS 6x6 heavy tractor, and the latter was looking just like any other civilian truck but painted green. Mundane! The HX are amazing and they look as they are advertised: The HX – more than a truck. They are all designed for use in extreme terrain conditions, not the freeways. 32C degrees or +49C degrees, +35% gradients (even up to 60%) or 30% slope side travers- es? Nothing can stop them. All trucks feature MAN water-cooled Diesel en- gines available from 330HP (250 kw) and 1250 Nm torque to 680HP (500 kw) and 2700 Nm torque variants. test-drive all the trucks on Austrian test-drive all the trucks on Austrian www.fragoutmag.com