Armoured vehicles need huge levels of drive torque to get going. In order to deliver the necessary propulsive force, manufacturers of armoured military vehicles rely on transmissions from Augsburg-based Renk, the specialist in fully automatic transmissions for heavy-tracked military vehicles. And wherever top performance is required, you can be sure that solutions from WFL are not far behind. But first things first… Unlike in your car, a tracked armoured vehicle can be driven, steered and even braked all through its transmission. On vehicles kitted out by Renk, this braking effect is delivered by two different braking systems – one for low speeds, one for high speeds – working together by means of a mechanical brake in the lower speed range and a built-in hydrodynamic eddy-current brake known as a retarder. Being responsible for changing gears, steering and braking, the transmission is essentially the central mobility unit of these vehicles and therefore plays a mission-critical role – and that's even before we consider that these 70-tonne monsters need to be extremely maneuverable at speeds of up 72 km/h on both roads and open terrain.
