GAZ-98 (RF-8)

The GAZ-98, more widely known as the RF-8, was a Soviet aerosan, a propeller-driven sled on skis, used in the Second World War. The design came from the design bureau of the People's Commissariat of the River Fleet, which gave the name RF-8 for River Fleet 8, and the Gorky Automobile Plant built it under the factory designation GAZ-98, so it is usually written RF-8-GAZ-98. Its main novelty was a cheap, mass-produced automobile engine in place of an aviation engine, driving a metal propeller that coped better with forest and scrub than wooden ones. A two-man crew sat in tandem, with the commander and gunner in front behind a ring-mounted 7.62 mm DT machine gun. The first lots reached the front in the winter of 1941 to 1942 and were used to form combat aerosan battalions. About 2,000 are thought to have been built, and a version with an aircraft radial engine was designated GAZ-98K. The type stayed with Soviet border guards into the 1950s.