The arrival of the latest incarnation of the Luftpanzer, Jaguar 2, on the eastern front had caused untold misery not only for the Russian front line soldiers but also for the tank design bureau. Stalin was going crazy, threats were made and personnel had disappeared.

Just when it seemed that the Russians were making progress and driving the Nazi back, the Luftpanzer had almost overnight shifted the balance of power in favour Germany. The ME 626 Donnervogel was always a problem to armoured divisions but now in combination with the Luftpanzer 2 Russian armour just ceased to exist after any confrontation.

According to Stalin the solution was simple: More armour, more fire power and more of us then them. Finding more men always seemed to be easy but the equipment was another matter.The building program for armoured fighting vehicles had been expanded to such a state that many engineering companies had found themselves subcontractors to the major arms builders and keeping up with current supply alone left little or no time for innovation and experiment.

However, Mikhail Sokolov , designer and builder of  heavy agricultural and industrial equipment  was currently enjoying such a period where he could “play” simply because he was ahead of schedule. The company had produced a successful industrial lift generator before the war but had since been charged with the production of, as far as Sokolov was concerned, a lesser military design. He had actually been asked to slow down output as the subcontractors he shipped to were unable to meet their own almost impossible deadlines and had Solokov field generators sitting in crates taking up valuable room.

There was no doubt that the military unit currently in production was powerful but it lacked the refined unidirectional field focusing of the Solokov unit. Material handling vehicles working in factories or on the docks needed precision field focusing to manoeuvre in confined spaces with ease.  They should be able to stop and start in an instant, shift sideways and rotate about the vehicles central axis and all under load.  Solokov wondered about such a vehicle fitted with a useful armament and double the power generation.

In a bold move Sokolov redesigned the military field generator and fitted it with his own field focusing technology. He then fitted this to one of his own company  Sokolov bulk lifters, a tall narrow  but powerful dock side loading  vehicle and it worked well. Encouraged by the results he had a redesigned thick steel armoured carapace made that wrapped around the front of the machine. The lifting gear equipment and control space was filled with a 75mm cannon and an ingenious self-loading magazine holding 12 shells – said to have been copied form a downed ME626 of which Sokolov denied.

The potential was great but at this time the machine was beginning to lack power as the weight had increased with the addition of a war load. It was about this time that Sokolov had been imprisoned for the crime of hindering the war effort. However, Solokov turned this to his advantage stating that the war effort was now even more in jeopardy as he had the solution to the German armour problem. Being such a sensitive issue his claims echoed through the halls of power until they were heard by no lesser individual than Stalin himself who simply told his aid to instruct Solokov to “prove it”.

Solokov did prove it having no real alternative if he wanted to live.
Within 4 months of his release The Volkosob was in production. The power generation was solved by 2 x Shvetsov aero engines driving generators and industrial low power Ion thrusters. They may have been low power, having been designed for material handling vehicles, but two gave the Volkosob a top speed over the flat of just slightly over 60MPH. There was a need to add conventional aerodynamic control surfaces to the Yolkosob to help it manoeuvre at speed and, over undulating terrain at top speed, keep it from becoming airborne where it became an uncontrollable pilot killing machine if not kept in check and brought back into field contact with the ground.

The Yolkosob was ugly. Basically an industrial bulk lifter mutation on steroids built in the thousands and much loved by its operators. In the early days the pilots were women drafted in from the factories and docks where they had been skilled in the use of the non-military Solokov bulk lifter. They soon became skilled and feared fighters and along with their humble mounts are remembered for the part they played in turning the tide of the war in favour of the Motherland.

Modelled and rendered in modo 12
Background is a mash up of images from 123RF and stuff from my own archive.

The best bit about this was non of the usual UV mapping as it uses procedural texturing which is fine on a model like this but a camo pattern would be a problem as would more surface detail such as rivets and panels which I normally do with a bump map over the UV guide.

This started out as a possible tug or dockside vehicle for an aerial battleship theme but I got to thinking …….

***** more on the original story created for “Over to you” By Slingblade87 here:
https://www.deviantart.com/slingblade87/art/Red-Snow-

This is good stuff

Original here:
https://www.deviantart.com/slingblade87/art/Winter-Offensive-702085686

slingblade87.deviantart.com/