This Next-Generation Army Vehicle Is Half Tank, Half Bridge
The Joint Assault Bridge (JAB) is designed to lay bridges over water and other obstacles.
The JAB ensures that Army units always have a portable bridge handy capable of handling the weight of tanks.
The new bridge layer replaces an older model that's more than 50 years old.
Soldiers with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) are testing a new tracked vehicle system designed to quickly lay down tank-capable bridges in a matter of minutes. The new Joint Assault Bridge (JAB) can unfold a 60-foot-long bridge in just 3 minutes, allowing tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to cross rivers, ditches, craters, and other battlefield obstacles.
The JAB replaces the older Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (AVLB), a vehicle so old, the tank it’s based on is no longer in service.
Long ago, mechanized warfare, the domain of tank and other infantry fighting vehicles, saw the need for specialized bridging units. Armored vehicles are considerably heavier than their civilian counterparts, and many bridges worldwide aren't rated to carry 50-plus-ton main battle tanks. Heavy armor units might also need to cross rivers and other water obstacles that are too deep to ford, or anti-tank ditches dug by the enemy to restrict maneuver.
The result: bridging vehicles. The Army’s current bridging vehicle, the AVLB, was designed in the 1960s. AVLB takes the hull of an M60 Patton tank and adds a 60-foot-long bridge. But the AVLB is obsolete for several reasons: That M60 was retired nearly 30 years ago, the vehicle is slower than the rest of the armored vehicles it would travel alongside in combat, and it’s only rated for 70 tons, making it just barely capable of supporting a 68-ton modern M1A2 Abrams tank.
The AVLB is so old, the requirement to replace it was longer than the vehicle was useful in service.
The JAB also replaces the Wolverine assault bridge, which was an early attempt to replace the AVLB. Wolverine was based on the M1 chassis and could deploy an 85-foot-bridge, but the Army found it hard to operate and maintain, and couldn’t afford it while fighting dual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Army bought only 44 Wolverines to replace hundreds of AVLBs, so it ended up using both.
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The JAB takes the hull of an M1A1 Abrams tank, the beefier suspension of an M1A2 tank, and replaces the turret (and main gun) with a folding bridge and hydraulic bridge launch system. The JAB still spans 60 feet, but the new bridge is capable of holding up to 85 tons. It can also deploy the bridge in just 3 minutes.
The use of a modern tank hull makes the JAB more survivable against enemy fire, including underbody land mine blast damage and artillery fire.
The JAB has had a rocky development history. The Pentagon’s Operational Test & Evaluation department reported in 2019 that the new system suffered from “poor system reliability” and deficiencies. So the JAB went back into the oven, and tests conducted this month by the 1st Infantry Division seem to confirm the Army and defense contractor Leonardo DRS have made improvements.
A new Army news service article says that during recent exercises at Fort Riley, Kansas, JAB conducted “40 natural gap crossings and 22 combined-arms breaches of anti-vehicle tactical obstacles.” In the Army article, soldiers say they have confidence in the new system.
According to the Army, the service will buy about 337 JABs—enough to replace the AVLB on a 1:1 basis. The Marine Corps originally planned to buy 28 vehicles, but a recent service-wide restructuring eliminated all Marine tank and bridging units.
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