Unique American vehicles in Ukraine. They play a very important role

The first photos of American M60 AVLB bridge tanks have appeared on the Internet. We explain what they are and what they are used for.

The first photos of soldiers using US-supplied M60 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (AVLB) tanks have emerged in Ukraine. These are very important vehicles enabling movement in areas where there are many water barriers, as the Russians or earlier retreating Ukrainians have destroyed much of the bridge infrastructure in the front areas.

In such conditions, 18-meter-long movable bridges help to restore communications and significantly simplify logistics: fuel, ammunition and food transport. It is worth mentioning that in the case of Eastern Ukraine, especially in the spring and autumn months, due to the practice of so-called “Rasputica”, only a few difficult roads are passable.

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The American M60 AVLB bridge tanks were the second construction of this type in Ukraine after the German Piper bridge tanks. The M60 AVLB is a 1960s design based on the M60 Patton tank chassis, fitted with a scissor bridge module made of aluminum weighing 13 tons with a total length of 20 m.

The bridge can be extended and folded in less than 10 minutes, and its original load capacity under Military Load Classification (MLC) 60 was able to support the weight of M60 Patton tanks, which is sufficient for the tanks of the T-72 in Ukrainian conditions. , T-64 or T-80 family. . However, in the 1990s, the Americans developed a reinforced MC 70 variant to accommodate the heavier weight of the M1 Abrams tanks.

The M60 AVLB carries a crew of two or five soldiers, and the combat weight of this scissor bridge is approximately 53 tons. In turn, off-road mobility is provided by a turbocharged diesel engine with a power of 750 hp. It is an unarmored engineering vehicle, but can use a pair of M58 MICLIC rocket launchers using longitudinal charges to destroy landmines more than 100 meters high.