Amphibious vehicle
Among the latter, many extend the off-road capabilities of land vehicles to all kinds of terrain, including ice, snow, mud, marsh, swamp etc.
[citation needed] Most land vehicles – even lightly armoured ones – can be made amphibious simply by providing them with a waterproof hull and perhaps a propeller.
[4] The first known self-propelled amphibious vehicle, a steam-powered wheeled dredging barge, named the Orukter Amphibolos, was conceived and built by United States inventor Oliver Evans in 1805, although it is disputed to have successfully travelled over land or water under its own steam.
[6] In the 1870s, logging companies in eastern Canada and the northern United States developed a steam-powered amphibious tug called an "Alligator" which could cross between lakes and rivers.
[8] Since the 1920s, many diverse amphibious vehicles designs have been created for a broad range of applications, including recreation, expeditions, search & rescue, and military, leading to a myriad of concepts and variants.
His design, unlike others, could operate not only on rivers and lakes but the sea and did not require firm ground to enter or exit the water.
Gibbs Sports Amphibians Inc. introduced a motorized version of the amphibious cycle that resembles a jet ski on water and motorcycle on land.
Typically an amphibious ATV (AATV) is a small, lightweight, off-highway vehicle, constructed from an integral hard plastic or fibreglass bodytub, fitted with six (sometimes eight) driven wheels, with low pressure, balloon tires.
Most contemporary designs use garden tractor type engines, that will provide roughly 25 mph (40 km/h) top speed on land.
Constructed this way, an AATV will float with ample freeboard and is capable of traversing swamps, ponds, and streams as well as dry land.
On land these units have high grip and great off-road ability, that can be further enhanced with an optional set of tracks that can be mounted directly onto the wheels.
In October 2013, Gibbs Amphibians introduced the long-awaited Quadski, the first amphibious vehicle capable of traveling 45 mph on land or water.
The most proliferous was the German Schwimmwagen, a small jeep-like 4x4 vehicle designed by the Porsche engineering firm in 1942 and widely used in World War II.
Extensively engineered, this costly vehicle was proven seaworthy at a Gale force 10 storm off the North Sea coast (Pohl, 1998).
[17] Since its release, WaterCar has been popular in the Middle East, selling to the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, with six additional vehicles being sold to the Crown Prince of Dubai.
Sealegs Amphibious Craft are an example of this, which are a range of aluminium three-wheeled fabricated boats (mostly RIBs) designed and manufactured in Auckland, New Zealand since 2005.
During the Vietnam War, the US Army used the amphibious articulated Gama Goat and the larger M520 Goer truck-series to move supplies through the canals and rice paddies of Southeast Asia.
During the Cold War the Soviet bloc states developed a number of amphibious APCs, fighting vehicles and tanks, both wheeled and tracked.
At the end of World War I a Mark IX tank had drums attached to the side and front and was tested as an amphibious vehicle launched into Hendon Reservoir.
A number swamped and sank in the operation, due to rough weather in the English Channel (with some tanks having been launched too far out), and to turning in the current to converge on a specific point on the battlefield, which allowed waves to breach over the screens.
This 17-ton light tank was built with an aluminium hull, steel turret, and the 152 mm "gun-launcher" (which could fire the MGM-51 Shillelagh missile), and could swim across bodies of water.
The Sheridan needed no modifications for river crossings: crewmen simply raised the cloth sides that were tucked inside rubber tubes along the hull's upper edges, raised the driver's front shield which had an acrylic glass window, the driver turned on his bilge pumps, shifted his transmission lever to water operations and the Sheridan entered the water.
The Sheridan could still cross a body of water, but like its swimming cousin, the M113 armoured personnel carrier, also built of aluminium) the river had to be narrow, less than 100 yards (100 m).
In all cases, the bilge pumps had to be working properly, and even then by the time the Sheridan or the APC reached the other side, water would often fill the insides up to their armoured roofs, spilling through the hatches' cracks and emptying onto the earth once safely ashore.
Often a fold-down trim vane is erected to stop water washing over the bow of the tank and thus reducing the risk of the vehicle being swamped via the driver's hatch.
During the Cold War, the Swedish Stridsvagn 103 main battle tank carried flotation gear all the time and was, therefore, theoretically, always amphibious.
Examples of this concept are the Russian Vityaz, Swedish Volvo Bv202 and Hagglunds Bv206 designs, and the Bronco All Terrain Tracked Carrier of Singapore.
In World War II the tanks following the Sherman DDs were given waterproofed hulls and trunking was fixed to the engine intakes and exhausts to allow them to come ashore from landing craft in shallow water.
The hovercraft's ability to distribute its laden weight evenly across the surface below it makes it well suited to the role of amphibious landing craft.
During the challenge, which was to drive across a reservoir, the Toybota made it almost all the way to the end before capsizing, the Dampervan immediately sank, and the Triumph was the only vehicle to complete the trip, although it took a very long time to do so.
