Why Compare By Human Scale
Raw specifications don't stack up against each other on their own terms. A bucket-wheel excavator's 14,200 tonnes and a motor grader's 65.8 tonnes are both just "weight" until you have a common unit to convert them into — and the most legible common unit anyone carries around is their own body.
So every number on this page gets two treatments: a ranked bar against the other 19 machines (on a log scale, since the range between the smallest and largest machine here spans several orders of magnitude), and a human-equivalent count — how many average adults it would take, stacked, weighed, or powered, to equal that one machine. The pictogram rows make that count visible directly: each small figure represents a fixed number of people, shared across every machine in that category, so the length of the row of figures is itself a comparison.
Rank By Height, Weight, Power, Or Capacity
Pick a metric. Only machines with a documented, unambiguous figure for that metric are shown — see Methodology for what was excluded and why.
Every Machine, Every Figure
The complete set behind the comparator above, including the machines each single metric had to leave out. A dash means that figure isn't documented on the machine's own page as a distinct, comparable number (see Methodology).
| Machine | Height | Weight | Power | Capacity |
|---|
What The Human-Equivalent Numbers Actually Mean
These conversions are illustrative, not scientific claims — they exist to make magnitude legible, not to model how 200,000 people would actually be arranged next to a bucket-wheel excavator.
Weight converts at 70 kg per person. Capacity converts at 0.075 m³ per person (a rough packing volume for an average adult body, not a claim about how people would actually fit). Power converts against 0.1 hp — roughly the power a person can put out continuously, not a short sprint or lift, which can be several times higher.
Height figures and their human-multiples are taken directly from each machine's own scale-comparison diagram in the Heavy Machinery Encyclopedia, and mix genuinely different reference points by necessity: some are the machine's transport or operating height, others are a crane's maximum boom height or a drill's mast height at full extension — the individual machine page always specifies which.
Weight only includes machines whose own page states the machine's own operating weight as a distinct figure — not a payload, lift capacity, or load it carries. That excludes machines like the Caterpillar 797F (a payload rating, not the truck's own weight) and the Sarens SGC-250 (a 5,000 t lift capacity, not the crane's own mass).
Power only includes a stated engine or installed power figure. The Spartacus dredger's 44,180 kW installed electrical power is converted to horsepower (×1.341) for comparability with the diesel-rated machines; everything else already uses each page's own hp figure.
Capacity groups every machine whose page states a bucket, blade, dipper, or tank capacity as a single volume figure, converting litres and cubic yards to cubic metres. These are physically different kinds of containers (an excavator dipper vs. a combine's grain tank vs. a dozer blade) grouped only because they share a unit — the full table above lists which is which.
Full specifications, sourcing, and engineering context for each machine live on its own page in the Heavy Machinery Encyclopedia.