Vollert, Jochen Kraka. The Legendary Airborne Vehicle of the German Fallschirmjägertruppe. Development/Technology/Variants

Das Legendäre Luftlandefahrzeug der Fallschirmjägertruppe der Bundeswehr. Entwicklung/Technik/Varianten

At the beginning of the 1960s, the German Army was still in the build-up phase and the search was on for an air-transportable weapon carrier that would be light and robust enough to be dropped by parachute together with the paratroopers and also be compact enough to be deployed inside transport helicopters or as their external load. After an almost ten-year test phase of prototypes and various scaffolding kits, the Kraka power cart was finally delivered to the Bundeswehr airborne division in 1974 as a 0.75 t lorry, flatbed, collapsible and served there for more than twenty years. This publication is the first to deal in such detail with the development history, technology and period of use of the Kraka in the airborne troops of the Bundeswehr. Special emphasis is placed on the technical details of the basic vehicle and the numerous installation kits such as anti-tank guided missiles, automatic cannon, field stretcher, light gun and others. For the first time, the differences between the prototypes, the pre-series and the series vehicles are also clearly explained. Supported by hundreds of illustrations and extensive textual background information, the history of the legendary Kraka can now be presented in detail for the first time.