Crawler crane
A heavy-lift mobile crane mounted on continuous tracks (crawlers) instead of wheels, used for the largest and longest-duration lifts where mobility is sacrificed for capacity and stability.
A crawler crane is a mobile crane that travels on continuous tracks — the same kind of crawlers used on bulldozers and excavators — rather than wheels. The tracks distribute weight over a much larger ground-contact area than tyres or outriggers, which lets a crawler crane lift heavy loads while sitting directly on prepared ground, with no outrigger setup needed.
That capability comes at a cost: crawlers are slow (typical travel speed is 1-2 km/h) and must be transported between sites in pieces on multiple trucks. Assembly on site takes a crew several days for the largest machines. The trade-off is justified for jobs where the crane will stay in one place for weeks or months — wind farms, bridge construction, oil and gas megaprojects, nuclear plant builds — and for the heaviest lifts on the market.
Lift capacities span 50 tonnes for compact telescopic-boom crawlers up to 3,200+ tonnes for the largest lattice-boom heavy-lift machines (Liebherr LR series, Manitowoc, Demag CC series, Sany). The boom is usually a lattice structure — bolted or pinned steel sections in a triangulated frame — which is much lighter per unit length than telescopic boom sections and lets the crane reach hundreds of metres.
Key buying considerations: maximum lift capacity at working radius, lattice vs telescopic boom, maximum boom and jib configuration, ground-bearing pressure under the tracks, and dismantled transport weight (affects how many low-loaders you need to move the machine).