Ekranoplan - The Caspain Sea Monster
 

There was a surprisingly good show on BBC tonight called James May's Big Ideas. Tonights episode featured alternate transport - starting with the Soviet Ekranoplan.
There were really too few of them to have a strategic impact (or tactical either, sadly no fleets of Ekranoplans delivering entire armoured brigades in surprise raids at 250mph :( ), but they're definitely an interesting curio if your PCs find themselves around the Caspian sea.

Yeah...I've seen pictures of those before. One thing I'd have to wonder about, though, is what kind of sea conditions they could operate under. For example, they were listed in the Caspian Sea and possibly the Black Sea, but could they handle the Mediterranian Sea? There's only so much potential for them to be used in the Black Sea, and even less potential for them in the Caspian, but use in larger and more strategic bodies of water could be quite interesting.

I gather the surface has to be pretty flat though it doesnt have to be water. You can see a clip of the current small ekranoplan being flown along snow covered fields.

They'd probably work pretty well in the artic/antarctic.

If you want to know a little more here is the website from the maker ;)

http://www.volga-shipyard.com/

They still trying to sell those?

It still is on sale it seems. I found the website interesting so.

Here lies the stats....
http://thebigbookofwar.50megs.com/DO...raft/Seaplane/