Of Tanks And Floating Bridges

From the comments by Well Seasoned Fool at Chant du Départ. 

One shining, cloudy, cold, rainy day in West Germany, someone decided to make a pontoon bridge across a river.

Because they were a general, or something, their decision meant that engineers were ordered to gather the components and assemble a floating bridge across a river in West Germany.

"What good is a bridge if nobody uses it to cross the river," The General thought.

So this same, shiny, cloudy, cold, rainy day my tank battalion was ordered to drive down to this new bridge and cross it.

Then, having crossed it, go back the way we came and cross it again, then return home.

Me, having been "promoted" from loader to driver got to pilot my M1(IP) across the bridge.  Twice!

No shit, there I was! 

From my vantage, it was narrower than the tank (it wasn't) and it sank underwater under the weight (it didn't).

Once on the thing, it didn't seem so narrow.  But it still seemed like we were gonna sink to the bottom if we didn't haul ass.  Something the engineers begged us not to do.

The feeling is... odd.  The weight of the tank pushes the bridge sections down and where the pontoon/boat/floaty part is it sinks less than the joints between the road sections so there's this constant slow up down rocking motion as you cross.  It makes you feel like the tank is trying to turn when it's going straight and you really can't see where you are.  You just have to trust that you're sitting in the center and that by aiming at the middle you have the tank centered.

Wracks the nerves it does.  And I didn't even sign for anything! 

Tanks are not finesse machines, they're clumsy things and they casually and inadvertently break these bridges.  Pivot steering is hard on the planking and causes engineers to use rough language and pry bars to straighten it.

Pivot steering is often required because the nature of these bridges often means that the approach is just a little off the angle the tank can accomplish just driving up.

At the end of the day, I did not go swimming and I don't think we broke the bridge so bad it could not be used again.

I apologize for any damage my lack of driving skill might have done to the bridge and offer one beer on me to any combat engineer who had to deal with that damage.  Payable in person only!