Book Description

The need for surfacing over marginal soil materials to expedite military traffic to and from hastily constructed bridge structures is apparent to ensure integrity and maintain the momentum of the force. How and where the Army goes in time of combat is greatly dependent upon planning, opportunity, and the possibility of improving stream crossings. The Army's experience and lessons learned are well documented, studied, and used as a guide to develop more rapid methods or systems of crossing streams (Headquarters, Dept. of the Army, 1978). As the development of tactical bridge access/egress systems was under way, requirements for material, weight, cost, placement time, manpower, etc., were constantly changing. Hence, prior to undertaking the preliminary bridge access/egress research investigation, testing of current Department of Defense depot items was planned to determine to what degree depot items such as aircraft landing mats and/or membranes would meet these requirements. This report consolidates and documents preliminary research and development efforts on Army access/egress systems or concepts. These systems will support assault and follow-up phases of tactical river crossing operations.