A heavy military tow truck able to haul loads of up to 38 tons across rugged terrain at 30 kilometers an hour is now undergoing trials in Russia, Izvestia wrote citing a Defense Ministry representative in Moscow.

The popular heavy prime movers based on the German-made MAN TGX 26.440 with a maximum load capacity of 20 tons on the highway pale in comparison with the REM-KS wheeled repair and evacuation truck.

“The trials are almost over now. The REM-KS is primarily designed for use by units of our latest S-400 long-range air defense missile system,” the Defense Ministry official told the newspaper.

According to Leon Podobed, managing director of Proekt-Tekhnika Corporation, the REM-KS will come in conventional and armored versions.

Each unit of S-400 missiles  consists of dozens of vehicles, including launching platforms proper, tractor-trailers, mobile radars on wheels, mobile command posts and a flurry of auxiliary transporters based on KamAZ and Ural trucks.

Otvaga-2004 Internet portal’s  editor Vitaly Moiseyev said that  the Aerospace Forces were having problems repairing and evacuating S-400 transporters.

“The S-400 units are quite diverse and they are very heavy too. That said, one has to be extremely careful when moving them around to make sure that their complex electronics do not get damaged,” Moiseyev told Izvestia.

“Until very recently the Russian Army had no evacuation trucks capable of doing this,” he added.

What also makes the REM-KS so special is that the crew needs a mere 12 minutes to start evacuating damage vehicles.

The REM-KS is built on the basis of the BAZ-6910-021 Voshchina tow truck produced by the Bryansk Auto Works in western Russia.

The S-400 SAM, known as the “Triumf” at home and better known to NATO as the SA-21 “Growler,” is the most capable and lethal long-range air defense missile system on the planet.