GAZ-MM (the "polutorka") was a truck with a payload of 1.5 tons, produced by the Gorky Automobile Plant. It was a development of the GAZ-AA model and became one of the most widely produced Soviet trucks of the prewar and wartime period; it served in the national economy, in the army, and in special conditions — on the ice of Lake Ladoga during the siege of Leningrad.[1]
Design
The GAZ-MM was based on a design that traced back to the simple one-and-a-half-ton Ford of the late 1920s, which became the prototype of the GAZ-AA and then the GAZ-MM.[1] The vehicle was fitted with a fifty-horsepower side-valve engine, a non-synchronized gearbox, a suspension without shock absorbers (a transverse leaf spring at the front, traditional for prewar Fords), and mechanical brakes. On wartime vehicles, the brakes were on the rear wheels only. Gasoline was fed to the carburetor by gravity; ignition timing was adjusted manually.[1]
The design was distinguished by extreme simplicity: the engine oil was supposed to be changed every 750 km, and individual components lubricated every 300 km. Maintenance — replacing babbitt bearing shells, lapping valves, removing carbon deposits from pistons — required no complex tools or scarce spare parts.[1] The cab of the wartime version had no doors; the top speed was about 50 km/h, and the braking distance from 30 km/h was, according to factory data, 10 meters.[1]
Use during the Great Patriotic War
By the start of the war, the GAZ-MM was one of the most widely used vehicles on collective farms and in cities, as well as in the Red Army. In the backs of polutorkas they transported infantry, ammunition, food, evacuees, and the wounded. Drivers who had outlived their vehicles stripped everything usable from wrecked trucks to keep the working ones running; the remains of abandoned polutorkas were found in the forests of Russia and Belarus decades after the war.[1] Production continued through 1944 inclusive.[1]
Modifications
A producer-gas version was built on the basis of the GAZ-MM — the GAZ-42, which ran on wooden blocks. Its engine output was 35–38 hp, and its rated payload was 1.0 ton (in practice less, since a significant part of the shortened platform was taken up by a fuel supply weighing 150–200 kg). The GAZ-42 was produced from 1938 to 1949.[2]
Sources
- zr.ru — GAZ-MM: The Machine of Life
- drive2.ru — GAZ-AA. GAZ-MM. GAZ-MM-V. — GAZ-67 gasoline, 3.3 L, 1946 — Miscellaneous