kinda like submarine warfare for people from shore to see. Damned if I know if tanks can manuever that close to share and not get stuck, or stay water tight. Sure seems cool to think that in a war tanks could sneak up from the rivers, lakes or ocean, though
Not so cool when you are on the other side of a barrel. :D
ReplyDeleteThat's 2S25 Sprut-SD, design specially for VDV (Russian Airborne Forces) a fire support/tank destroyer tracked vehicle. It is another in rather long line of such vehicles in VDV, pretty light to be carried by planes and drop with parachutes. And when you are already such light construct then making in amphibious is much easier. But as always something for something, armor protection is weak. Only frontal arc is capable to resist some 23mm rounds from 500, rest can be penetrated by simple AP rifle rounds. With 125mm main gun it is dangerous predator but any return fire can easily wreck it.
Soviets/Russians develop multiple amphibious tanks, Europe/Asia is full of rivers/lakes and to maintain proper speed of attack you need an armor support that could push not looking on mobile bridgest to support them. Sprut is probably first amphibious/airborne modern vehicle with full size tank gun. Progress!
Also crossing a river or lake is very complex and irritating process. You can't just ride in any place and ride out. You need to find a proper shore, a bit pebbly but not too much, as little mud as possible. The descent must be gentle and the ground hard enough not to dig it out after one pass. Then river/lake itself can't have a strong current or whirlinds, such light vehicle can spin around pretty easily. And then... you need to find a proper departure from river/lake with the same properties. Not an easy task.
And sea... oh in sea you just try to get to the beach, praying that landing ship drop you just mere meters from target.
They can, but water crossings like this are tricky. Oddly enough a tank that is properly sealed will have a bit of buoyancy which if not balanced out makes traction a problem. The bed of the body of water to be crossed needs to be good enough for a tank to cross as well. During the cold war we'd see these propaganda films of Soviet tanks racing through rivers and streams with their snorkels in place. We learned later that they'd dammed up the streams, buldozed a path, put gravel down and then released the water again. (I'm sure the US did similar things)
ReplyDeleteAh yes, those "fast rides" was staged as hell. River crossing without mobile bridge is just painfully irritating, complex process. There is just a very short list of places where you can do this on every river. People mostly think you just close your hatches and drop in to water, yeah... this is how you get a vehicle on bottom and dead tankers. Even without such works as you describe, place to cross a river was carefully picked and checked before such show for cameras.
DeleteAnd then there's the photo ops like this one where they're firing during the crossing. Sure, tell everyone where you are when you're the most vulnerable, what could go wrong?
Delete