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In 1931, Daimler-Benz started with the development of a half track vehicle. It was the ZD 5 which was ordered by the Soviet Union. In 1931/32, some of these vehicles were actually delivered to the Soviet Union. When the army ordnance office let out a contract for the development of a half track vehicle for a pulling force of 12 tons to Daimler-Benz AG, one could go back to the experiences made with the ZD 5. So the first production model – the DB s7 – could be introduced already in 1934, which matched the demands largely. The model DB s8 - which was introduced in 1936 - had several improvements. The ground pressure was decreased by adding an additional pair of road wheels. A cable winch with a pulling force of 5 tons was now available as standard feature. The design of the vehicle was changed and corresponded widely to the standardised design of the German half track vehicles. In 1938, the model DB 9 went into production. Besides several detail changes, it had a stronger engine which increased the pulling force to 14 tons. The design of the DB 9 corresponded to the conclusion model DB 10 – which was introduced in 1939 - to a large extent. The conclusion model DB 10 introduced steel disc rims in place of the front rims with spokes. Besides several further detail changes, this model finally introduced torsion bar suspension of the running gear. This model was also manufactured by Krauss-Maffei (KM 10), ELMAG (Krupp (m) 10) and Skoda (S 10). Primarily, the s. Zgkw. 12t were used as towing vehicle for heavy and heaviest cannons and mortars as well as their partial loads. They were used as tank recovery vehicles, too. The only known variants were a self-propelled gun armed with an 8.8 cm Flak 18 developed in 1939/40 and a variant with partly closed superstructure made by Gaubschat built by order of the Reichspost.
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