Unbelievable Giants of Engineering – World’s Biggest Land Machines

These are the largest land vehicles on the planet. They're big enough to move mountains, as heavy as luxury cruise ships, and some of them are so huge they literally featured as a Decepticon in a Transformers movie. We're counting down 8 absolute giants that will blow your mind. Starting at number 8, we have the Belaz 75710. When it comes to hauling tons of raw material, a bigger truck equals a more cost-efficient process, and that's exactly why this monster was born. This is the biggest haul truck in the world, working the coal mines in Siberia with a hauling capacity of 496 tons. This beast measures over 20 meters in length. That's as long as two double-decker buses parked end-to-end, and it weighs more than a fully loaded Airbus A380. But don't be fooled by its size, because this thing can work 23 hours straight every single day. Its eight wheels are arranged in pairs, and the tires are so huge you'd struggle to reach halfway up them. For something so massive, it's actually quite maneuverable, with a top speed of 64 kilometers an hour, so you definitely want to stay out of its way. At number 7, we have the Komatsu PNH-L2350. This massive dirt-moving machine is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest wheel loader, and it's specifically designed to load giant haul trucks like the Belaz we just talked about. This beast stands over two stories tall and weighs 272 tons. While it isn't built for speed, it can carry incredibly heavy loads of raw material like coal and copper ore. Its massive shovel can carry a payload of 80 tons in one go, and lift it 7 meters off the ground. That's like lifting an M1A2 Abrams tank plus a smaller tank on top of it. But this mammoth isn't even close to the biggest on our list. Coming in at number 6 is the Caterpillar 6090FS. We've all seen excavators before, but none of them are as gigantic as this hydraulic shovel. It's the most powerful type of excavator of its kind, and the largest in the entire world. This machine is mainly used for mining and heavy digging projects, but it can handle any job that requires serious heavy lifting. This mammoth can pick up 103 tons in one go, and loads nearly 10,000 tons of earth every single hour. It measures 13.5 meters long, 10 meters tall, and weighs a staggering 1,102 tons. To put that into perspective, that's as tall as a three-story building, and as heavy as five blue whales combined. This big guy was actually built based on another giant called the Bucyrus RH400. And this machine is so huge and fierce looking it inspired the Decepticon called Demolisher and Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen. Pretty intimidating. But our next one moves us into the true monster category. At number five, we're introducing the Liebherr LR13000 Crawler Crane. This monster is the most powerful crawler crane in the entire world. It's used in the construction of massive power plants, and can lift up to 3,300 tons in one single load. Its main boom has a height of 248 meters. That's the length of two and a half football fields standing vertically. Can things get cooler than this? Yes, they absolutely can. Number four is the NASA Crawler Transporter. This giant was built by NASA back in the 1960s by adapting mining equipment. And if you haven't already guessed it, this $144 million crawler transporter is designed to carry rockets to their launch pads. It's also the largest self-powered vehicle on the entire planet. Here are the facts that prove it. It weighs 3,300 tons. That's as heavy as 15 Statues of Liberty. It's 8 meters tall, 40 meters long, and 35 meters wide. Basically, you could fit a professional baseball infield on top of it. But this big guy isn't built for speed at all. While it can carry an 18 million pound rocket, it moves at just 1.6 kilometers an hour. When it's not loaded, it has a whopping top speed of 3.2 kilometers an hour. It has two operator cabins on opposite corners. So instead of reversing it, the driver just walks to the other corner and drives it in the opposite direction. But that doesn't mean navigating it is easy. Taking turns is actually one of the crawler's biggest challenges. Before we get to number one, let's run through the next two. These aren't in use at the moment. But they're incredibly big and still hold world records in their own category. First up is Big Muskie, the biggest dragline excavator ever made. This beast weighed 12.2 million kilograms and stood 22 stories high. Its scooping bucket was as big as a 12-car garage. And it was created specifically to work on mines and hilly terrain. In its 22 years of service, Big Muskie removed twice the amount of earth that was moved during the construction of the Panama Canal. That's an absolutely insane amount of dirt. Next is Schwerer Gustav and Dora. These were built by Germany and were actually the largest caliber rifled weapons ever used in combat. They stood 17 meters tall, 47 meters long, and weighed nearly 1,500 tons each. But they had one major flaw. They were too big. Maneuvering them to different locations was a huge challenge since they could only travel by rail, which severely limited their tactical usefulness during the war. Finally, at number one, we have the Bagger 293. This humongous beast doesn't even look like it belongs on Earth. But it's been crowned the heaviest terrestrial vehicle on the planet by the Guinness Book of World Records. It's 225 meters long and 95 meters tall. That's like having a luxury ocean liner sitting on land. This monster weighs 15,650 tons, or 15.6 million kilograms, and it works in the open coal mines in Germany. So how does this thing actually work? It runs on 20,000 kilowatts of power, which is enough electricity to run an entire small city. It has 18 buckets fitted onto a massive wheel at the front of it, and each of these buckets can pick up 7,000 kilograms of coal in one single scoop. The coal is loaded onto a conveyor belt that connects to the main mine, and from there it's loaded onto trains and sent to power stations across Germany. But this beast doesn't just sit in one place. When it's done eating through one mountain of coal, it moves on to the next at a speed of around one kilometer an hour. This giant can take weeks or even months to get to the next location, and any road it drives over has to be completely rebuilt because it literally crushes and destroys the concrete it passes over. Have you ever seen any of these giants up close? Let us know in the comments below. That's as heavy as 15 Statues of Liberty. It's 8 meters tall, 40 meters long, and 35 meters wide. Basically, you could fit a professional baseball infield on top of it. But this big guy isn't built for speed at all. While it can carry an 18 million pound rocket, it moves at just 1.6 kilometers an hour. When it's not loaded, it has a whopping top speed of 3.2 kilometers an hour. It has two operator cabins on opposite corners. So instead of reversing it, the driver just walks to the other corner and drives it in the opposite direction. But that doesn't mean navigating it is easy. Taking turns is actually one of the crawler's biggest challenges. Before we get to number one, let's run through the next two. These aren't in use at the moment, but they're incredibly big and still hold world records in their own category. First up is Big Muskie, the biggest dragline excavator ever made. This beast weighed 12.2 million kilograms and stood 22 stories high. Its scooping bucket was as big as a 12-car garage. And it was created specifically to work on mines and hilly terrain. In its 22 years of service, Big Muskie removed twice the amount of earth that was moved during the construction of the Panama Canal. That's an absolutely insane amount of dirt. Next is Schwerer Gustav and Dora. These were built by Germany and were actually the largest caliber rifled weapons ever used in combat. They stood 17 meters tall, 47 meters long, and weighed nearly 1,500 tons each. But they had one major flaw. They were too big. Maneuvering them to different locations was a huge challenge since they could only travel by rail, which severely limited their tactical usefulness during the war. Finally, at number one, we have the Bagger 293. This humongous beast doesn't even look like it belongs on Earth. But it's been crowned the heaviest terrestrial vehicle on the planet by the Guinness Book of World Records. It's 225 meters long and 95 meters tall. That's like having a luxury ocean liner sitting on land. This monster weighs 15,650 tons, or 15.6 million kilograms, and it works in the open coal mines in Germany. So how does this thing actually work? It runs on 20,000 kilowatts of power, which is enough electricity to run an entire small city. It has 18 buckets fitted onto a massive wheel at the front of it, and each of these buckets can pick up 7,000 kilograms of coal in one single scoop. The coal is loaded onto a conveyor belt that connects to the main mine, and from there it's loaded onto trains and sent to power stations across Germany. But this beast doesn't just sit in one place. When it's done eating through one mountain of coal, it moves on to the next at a speed of around one kilometer an hour. This giant can take weeks or even months to get to the next location, and any road it drives over has to be completely rebuilt because it literally crushes and destroys the concrete it passes over. Have you ever seen any of these giants up close? Let us know in the comments below.