This is coolbert: River crossings are very difficult military operations. You are very vulnerable as you are moving from one realm, ground, to water, and then back to ground. Obvious.

During World War Two, the British forces twice did river crossings that in magnitude came close to rivaling the Normandy Invasion.

One was the river crossing of the Rhine river from west to east by the forces under the command of Montgomery of El Alamein. Boats, bridging equipment, smoke generators, ferries, preplanned artillery fire and air support, anti-aircraft artillery to protect the bridgehead from enemy air attack, all this was done on a massive basis. Idea is to get quick moving forces on the other side, have them establish a bridgehead, expand and protect this bridgehead, use ferries, pontoon bridges and then more complete and well built bridges to complete the river crossing. Then have follow-up forces cross in strength to carry out further offensive.

The second major river crossing(s) by the British in World War Two was that of the major rivers of Burma. After the defeat of the Japanese at Imphal and Kohima, General Slim, later to be Slim of the Arakan, moved to the offensive, his force having to move from west to east through Burma at cross-compartment [at a right angle to] to the major rivers of Burma, the Chindwin, Irrawaddy, and the Salween. Crossing each of these rivers would be difficult at any time of the year. In the spring, when the British advance began, it would have been even more difficult due to the rivers being swollen by snow melt from the Himalaya. To accomplish the river crossings, at each crossing, boats had to be built on site for the crossing. First timber from the surrounding jungle had to be felled, saw mills set up to mill the timber, and the boats built and then transported to the selected river crossing sites. These boats were able to transport about a platoon at a time [ 40 troops], and were designed by individuals in Slim's army who had shipbuilding design and experience. And this all had to be done on three occasions! [An interesting parallel can be found in the American Civil War to the problem faced by Slim. When recalcitrant Navy officers refused to sail their gunboats under the guns of the Confederate fortress at Vicksburg, General Grant found personnel within his own Army that had riverboat experience as civilians, commandeered the boats from the Navy, had his own men man those gunboats, and successfully sailed under the guns of Vicksburg, bombarding the Confederate emplacements].

The Soviet experience at river crossings is most indicative of their abilities at war. During the German advance into the Soviet Union, the Germans were able to set up four river crossings across the Dneiper river, a formidable river obstacle. When moving from east to west at a later stage of the war, the Soviet forces were able to construct fifty four (54) river crossings across the same river. Of course, these should not be understood to be river crossings as the Germans or any other self-respecting army would understand a river crossing. In many cases, this was a spot where soldiers were brought to the waters edge and told to get to the other side, by whatever means. If you could swim, great, if not, grab a log and hold onto the log as you dog paddle across. Maybe at some points a rope would be stretched across the river for poor on non-swimmers to hold onto, sometimes maybe not. In some locations a wooden foot bridge would be available for troops to walk across. The actual foot bridge would below water level so as to preclude spotting by aerial reconnaissance. [this same technique was used by the North Vietnamese]. In other places, self-respecting river crossings were set up, ferries, pontoon bridges, the whole works. But this would be the minority of the cases.

Now, Soviet tanks starting with the series T54/55 all were equipped with a snorkeling capability. Not just a fording capability, but a snorkeling one. Could be totally immersed and moving and go totally under water on the bottom to the other side. Could do this to a depth of eighteen feet. Prior to snorkeling, the crew would seal the tank from the outside, set up a large vertical pipe attached to the engine compartment [air input/exhaust output], and snorkel across the bottom of the river to be crossed. It is my understanding that the crew compartment would flood, the crew breathing through protective masks [the same ones as used for gas attack], attached to air inputs. This must have been a scary and dangerous operation. This capability of Soviet tanks was somewhat overstated. The river bottoms had to be rocky, the depth was limited to eighteen feet, and the current had to be relatively slight for this maneuver to succeed. Nonetheless, it was a significant capability that NATO tanks did not have. You can bet that NATO forces would have had all potential crossing points scoped out in advance [at least I hope so]. When a snorkeling operation would occur, a variety of techniques could be used to defeat it. Napalm could be dropped on the water at the crossing points, artillery fire directed against same, or logs placed in the water upstream to drift with the current and smash into the snorkel, depriving the tank and crew of the snorkel and fresh air.

Now, Suvorov in his books about the Red Army talks about these type of river crossing operations. Suvorov states that in 1967 the Soviet Union celebrated the Jubilee of the Communist Revolution with extravagant military displays. One of these displays was for foreign military dignitaries and did involve river crossings in two ways.

One way was to demonstrate the snorkeling capability of the Soviet tanks. Now, to make this demonstration go as planned, the river bank underwater was paved with concrete and concrete walls also placed underwater to create a channel that the snorkeling tanks could traverse. So that the operation would go without a hitch for the dignitaries. You may recall my previous comment about the river bank could not be muddy, must be stony for the snorkeling to be a success. Otherwise the tanks will get mired. And to prevent the tankers from going off course, the concrete walls underwater created the just-so-perfect channel to direct their course.

The second demonstration for the visiting military dignitaries involved building a railroad bridge over a river to show to the whole world that even an obstacle such as the Rhine river would not restrain the Red Army in case of war with NATO. Once again, the Soviets cheated on the whole thing. This bridge demonstration was orchestrated by General Ogarkov, who was head of Strategic Deception. A special bridge was constructed of special materials for one time use. A brigade of engineer cadets spent months and months just practicing to put the bridge together over and over. And a special steam locomotive was made to tow a train of box cars [empty] across this special bridge. The steam locomotive was gutted on the inside to make it as light as possible and a special electric motor that would just be able to propel the train and box cars across the bridge was put in place of the standard steam locomotion. Some sort of contraption was put in the gutted engine to simulate the smoke from a coal fire, so that the loco would look authentic. In front of the dignitaries, the train crossed the bridge and made it across, but with effort and very slowly. This special bridge creaked and moaned, but held. This impressed the military dignitaries very much. How much? Well, a U.S. Army pamphlet some years ago actually showed such a train crossing a bridge over the Rhine. Evidently NATO intelligence believed this Potemkin village to be the real thing. It was not.

coolbert.