Trumpeter 09502 BTM-3 High-Speed Trench Digging Vehicle

The BTM-3 is a Soviet military excavator from the post-war period. The first copies of this car appeared in the late 1950s, and serial production began around 1960. The vehicle is powered by a single A-401 diesel engine with 415 hp.

The BTM-3 was developed as a highly specialized excavator designed to create military trenches or tranches for cables or pipes in non-frozen ground. Its design was based on the ATT-409 tractor, from which many components were taken: first of all, the engine and the chassis. This very unusual vehicle takes about 10 minutes to go from the marching position to the operational mode, it is also able to dig about 800 meters of trenches 1.5-1.8 meters deep in one hour. The BTM-3 was also equipped with a bulldozer for leveling the ground in front of the trench and for backfilling pits or trenches. However, simultaneous operation of the bulldozer and excavator was impossible.