What on earth is this thing? What could it possibly be created to do? I am flummoxed.
http://thatwillbuffout.com/2010/06/04/funny-car-photos-rather-ominous-caption-contest-winners/
Bagger 288, a digger/excavator. Of course it had to be German made 
It isn’t a saw but rather a mining implement. The business end grinds rock up
Brian
There is pictures of it eating a dump truck out there somewhere. Guess when your driving things like that it’s hard to keep track of those ‘little’ vehicles.
It is a rotary excavator. It doesn’t grind up rock. The “teeth” are similar to buckets on a steam shovel, they dump the dirt and rock onto a conveyor belt that runs up the arm and over the back, where it is hauled off by a corps of dump trucks. Such machines don’t normally use tank tracks for locomotion, but large walking feet instead, and move at speeds best measured in furlongs per fortnight. They are electrically powered, and use as much power as a medium sized town.
ETA, the machine of the OP IS track mounted, which is an exception to the norm.
An excellent documentary on the origins of the Bagger 288.
That’s some awesome video there.
Here’s what it looks like in it’s walker configuration, vs. using tank treads.
Put Ellen Ripley at the controls and you could fight Godzilla!
The sequence where it “eats” a truck is actually, IIRC, an accident with one of tehse diggers in the Tar Sands in Alberta.
These are diggers for strip mining. They dump the diggings onto a conveyor belt where it is fed into trucks or trains which take the output to the refinery/whatever. More efficient than a take-a-scoop-and-turn shovel.
So that’s the reason the G20 meeting is so expensive this year…
Here it is snacking on a dozer
Thanks guys! Here’s one of it working : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn1DhPjnCGM
And here’s a similarly sized tread smooshing a Hummer. Don’t think the driver even felt it! Some sites claim this is the bagger, but you can’t really tell one way or the other. . . it’s still fun!
So if I wanted to get one of these things for, oh, I don’t know, snow removal, how much would it cost and what’s the lead-time on delivery?