Soviet high-speed pontoons for tanks
 

An interesting article showing some images of a device designed in the 1950s for the high speed delivery of tanks over water.
It's claimed that the tank could even fire its main gun in sea states of 1.5 or less.
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2...borne-vehicle/

Actually that kind of devices are/were in use by the French, German, US and UK armies.

This is the Gillois now replaced by the Engin de Franchissement de l'Avant (EFA) which can be used as bridge or tank carrying craft

The engineer regiment that was located at Epernay had plenty of these and they were impressive.

SSC,

I like it! The Soviets always were very interested in crossing water obstacles, developing many different strategies like snorkels on tanks, amphibious vehicles, and the awesome ekranoplan. I guess they gave up on the pontoons when they developed the wide variety of hovercraft later on.

Tony

I appreciate what you're saying but the devices the Soviets were experimenting with are really quite different to the pontoon vehicles you've shown here. The Soviets had vehicles very similar to the EFA, M2 & M3 bridging ferries you mention such as the PTS

The Soviet hydrofoil tank pontoons (for want of a better name) have no analogue that I can find in Western armies. They weren't simply for crossing from riverbank to riverbank, they were also for transporting individual tanks from coast to coast.

I agree with you. What I said came from a confusion on my part. However, the PTS has nothing in common with the vehicle i depict here.

PTS are purely amphibious vehicles that cannot transform into a bridge.

The Japanese had a tank in WWII (Ha-Go, IIRC) that could do that. Not as fast, mind, but it definitely had pontoons it could drop once it reached land.

OK, that's just weird.

And that picture of the strongest woman in Sweden on the same page? GROSS!!