Army Bridging Manual

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This collection of publications is the single official repository for official Engineering Regulations (ERs), Engineering Circulars (ECs), Engineering Manuals (EMs) and other official public documents originating from Headquarters U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Bailey bridge
RelatedCallender-Hamilton bridge
DescendantMabey Logistic Support Bridge, Medium Girder Bridge
CarriesPedestrians, Road vehicles, Rail Vehicles
Span rangeShort
MaterialTimber, steel
MovableNo
Design effortLow
Falsework requiredNone
  • Engineer company, multi-role bridge designation: engineer company (multi-role bridge) 1. To provide personnel and equipment to transport, assemble, disassemble, retrieve and maintain all standard u.s. Army bridging systems.
  • Quartermaster-to order and track bridge stocks. Transportation-to haul replenishment bridge sets forward to engineer bridge parks. Ordnance-to repair transporters, erection boats, and bridge.
  • Whatever your bridge needs, our team of experts can help you build a fast, temporary bridge or a reliable permanent bridge solution. Our prefabricated bridge systems are comprised of interchangeable, rectangular panels that pin together to form trusses that support floor beams of varying lengths.
  • Military bridging equipment. Improved Ribbon Bridge (IRB) is a modern floating bridge system developed by General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS), a business unit of General Dynamics.

A Bailey bridge is a type of portable, pre-fabricated, trussbridge. It was developed in 1940-1941 by the British for military use during the Second World War and saw extensive use by British, Canadian and US military engineering units. A Bailey bridge has the advantages of requiring no special tools or heavy equipment to assemble. The wood and steel bridge elements were small and light enough to be carried in trucks and lifted into place by hand, without requiring the use of a crane. The bridges were strong enough to carry tanks. Bailey bridges continue to be used extensively in civil engineering construction projects and to provide temporary crossings for foot and vehicle traffic.

  • 2History

Design[edit]

The transoms, side-panels and stringers of a Bailey bridge section at the Memorial Pegasus museum in Ranville, Calvados, France, can all be clearly seen
Royal Engineers construct a Bailey bridge in Italy, September 1943. Wood planks are being laid over the stringers to construct the roadbed

The success of the Bailey bridge was due to the simplicity of the fabrication and assembly of its modular components, combined with the ability to erect and deploy sections with a minimum of assistance from heavy equipment. Many previous designs for military bridges required cranes to lift the pre-assembled bridge and lower it into place. The Bailey parts were made of standard steelalloys, and were simple enough that parts made at a number of different factories could be completely interchangeable. Each individual part could be carried by a small number of men, enabling army engineers to move more easily and more quickly than before, in preparing the way for troops and matériel advancing behind them. Finally, the modular design allowed engineers to build each bridge to be as long and as strong as needed, doubling or tripling up on the supportive side panels, or on the roadbed sections.[1]

The basic bridge consists of three main parts. The bridge's strength is provided by the panels on the sides. The panels are 10-foot-long (3.0 m), 5-foot-high (1.5 m), cross-braced rectangles that each weigh 570 pounds (260 kg), and can be lifted by six men. The panel was constructed of welded steel. The top and bottom chord of each panel had interlocking male and female lugs into which engineers could inset panel connecting pins.[2]

The floor of the bridge consists of a number of 19-foot-wide (5.8 m) transoms that run across the bridge, with 10-foot-long (3.0 m) stringers running between them on the bottom, forming a square.[3] Transoms rest on the lower chord of the panels, and clamps hold them together. Stringers are placed on top of the completed structural frame, and wood planking is placed on top of the stringers to provide a roadbed. Ribands bolt the planking to the stringers. Later in the war, the wooden planking was covered by steel plates, which were more resistant to the damage caused by tank tracks.

Each unit constructed in this fashion creates a single 10-foot-long (3.0 m) section of bridge, with a 12-foot-wide (3.7 m) roadbed. After one section is complete it is typically pushed forward over rollers on the bridgehead, and another section built behind it. The two are then connected together with pins pounded into holes in the corners of the panels.

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For added strength several panels (and transoms) can be bolted on either side of the bridge, up to three. Another solution is to stack the panels vertically. With three panels across and two high, the Bailey Bridge can support tanks over a 200-foot span (61 m). Footways can be installed on the outside of the side-panels; the side-panels form an effective barrier between foot and vehicle traffic and allow pedestrians to safely use the bridge.[4]

A useful feature of the Bailey bridge is its ability to be launched from one side of a gap.[3] In this system the front-most portion of the bridge is angled up with wedges into a 'launching nose' and most of the bridge is left without the roadbed and ribands. The bridge is placed on rollers and simply pushed across the gap, using manpower or a truck or tracked vehicle, at which point the roller is removed (with the help of jacks) and the ribands and roadbed installed, along with any additional panels and transoms that might be needed.

During the Second World War, Bailey bridge parts were made by companies with little experience of this kind of engineering. Although the parts were simple, they had to be precisely manufactured if they were fit each other correctly, so they were assembled into a test bridge at the factory to make sure of this. To do this efficiently, newly manufactured parts would be continuously added to the test bridge, while at the same time the far end of the test bridge was continuously dismantled and the parts dispatched to the end-users.[4]

History[edit]

Prototype Bailey Bridge at Stanpit Marsh in Dorset
Bailey Bridge undergoing trials in Christchurch, Dorset

Donald Bailey was a civil servant in the BritishWar Office who tinkered with model bridges as a hobby.[5] He had proposed an early prototype for a Bailey bridge before the war in 1936,[6] but the idea was not acted upon.[7] Bailey drew an original proposal for the bridge on the back of an envelope in 1940.[5][8] On 14 February 1941, the Ministry of Supply requested that Bailey have a full-scale prototype completed by 1 May.[9] Work on the bridge was completed with particular support from Ralph Freeman.[10] The design was tested at the Experimental Bridging Establishment (EBE), in Christchurch, Hampshire,[7][11] with several parts from Braithwaite & Co.,[12] beginning in December 1940 and ending in 1941.[7][11] The first prototype was tested in 1941.[13] For early tests, the bridge was laid across a field, about 2 feet (0.61 m) above the ground, and several Mark V tanks were filled with pig iron and stacked upon each other.[12]

The prototype of this was used to span Mother Siller's Channel, which cuts through the nearby Stanpit Marshes, an area of marshland at the confluence of the River Avon and the River Stour. It remains there (50°43′31″N1°45′44″W / 50.7252806°N 1.762155°W) as a functioning bridge.[14] Full production began in July 1941. Thousands of workers and over 650 firms, including Littlewoods, were engaged in making the bridge, with production eventually rising to 25,000 bridge panels a month.[15] The first Bailey bridges were in military service by December 1941,[13] Bridges in the other formats were built, temporarily, to cross the Avon and Stour in the meadows nearby. After successful development and testing, the bridge was taken into service by the Corps of Royal Engineers and first used in North Africa in 1942.[16]

The original design violated a patent on the Callender-Hamilton bridge. The designer of that bridge, A. M. Hamilton, successfully applied to the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors. The Bailey Bridge was more easily constructed, but less portable than the Hamilton bridge.[17][18] Hamilton was awarded £4,000 in 1936 by the War Office for the use of his early bridges and the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors awarded him £10,000 in 1954 for the use, mainly in Asia, of his later bridges. Lieutenant GeneralSirGiffard Le Quesne Martel was awarded £500 for infringement on the design of his box girder bridge, the Martel bridge.[19] Bailey was later knighted for his invention, and awarded £12,000.[20][21]

Use in the Second World War[edit]

Bridging
Allied military traffic crosses a Bailey bridge, spanning a damaged section of a masonry arch bridge. At the same time, local workers are rebuilding the original bridge. Italy 1944

The first operational Bailey bridge during the Second World War was built by 237 Field Company R.E. over Medjerda River near Medjez el Bab in Tunisia on the night of 26 November 1942.[22] The first of a Bailey bridge built under fire was at Leonforte by members of the 3rd Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers.[23][unreliable source?] The Americans soon adopted the Bailey bridge technique, calling it the Portable Panel Bridge. In early 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers initially awarded contracts to the Detroit Steel Products Company, the American Elevator Company and the Commercial Shearing and Stamping Company, and later several others.[24]

The Bailey provided a solution to the problem of German and Italian armies destroying bridges as they retreated. By the end of the war, the US Fifth Army and British 8th Army had built over 3,000 Bailey bridges in Sicily and Italy alone, totaling over 55 miles (89 km) of bridge, at an average length of 100 feet (30 m). One Bailey, built to replace the Sangro River bridge in Italy, spanned 1,126 feet (343 m). Another on the Chindwin River in Burma, spanned 1,154 feet (352 m).[25] Such long bridges required support from either piers or pontoons.[4]

A number of bridges were available by 1944 for D-Day, when production was accelerated. The US also licensed the design and started rapid construction for their own use. A Bailey Bridge constructed over the River Rhine at Rees, Germany, in 1945 by the Royal Canadian Engineers was named 'Blackfriars Bridge', and, at 558 m (1814 ft) including the ramps at each end, was then the longest Bailey bridge ever constructed.[26] In all, over 600 firms were involved in the making of over 200 miles of bridges composing of 500,000 tons, or 700,000 panels of bridging during the war. At least 2,500 Bailey bridges were built in Italy, and another 2,000 elsewhere.[13][15]

Field MarshalBernard Montgomery wrote in 1947:

Bailey Bridging made an immense contribution towards ending World War II. As far as my own operations were concerned, with the eighth Army in Italy and with the 21 Army Group in North West Europe, I could never have maintained the speed and tempo of forward movement without large supplies of Bailey Bridging.[27][28]

Post-war applications[edit]

The Skylark launch tower at Woomera was built up of Bailey bridge components.[29] In the years immediately following World War II, the Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission purchased huge amounts of war-surplus Bailey bridging from the Canadian War Assets Corporation. The commission used bridging in an office building.[30][31] Over 200,000 tons of bridging were used in a hydroelectric project.[32] The Ontario government was, several years after World War II, the largest holder of Bailey Bridging components. After Hurricane Hazel in 1954, some of the bridging was used to construct replacement bridges in the Toronto area.[33] The Old Finch Avenue Bailey Bridge, built by the 2nd Field Engineer Regiment, is the last still in use.[34]

The longest Bailey bridge was put into service in October 1975. This 788-metre (2,585 ft), two-lane bridge crossed the Derwent River at Hobart, Australia.[35] The Bailey bridge was in use until the reconstruction of the Tasman Bridge was completed on 8 October 1977.[36] Bailey bridges are in regular use throughout the world, particularly as a means of bridging in remote regions.[37] In 2018, the Indian Army erected three new footbridges at Elphinstone Road, a commuter railway station in Mumbai, and at Currey Road and Ambivli. These were erected quickly, in response to a stampede some months earlier, where 23 people died.[38] The United States Army Corps of Engineers uses Bailey Bridges in construction projects.[39] Two temporary bailey bridges are being used on the northern span of the Dufferin Street bridges in Toronto since 2014.

Gallery[edit]

  • US troops launching a Bailey bridge across a gap by hand

  • Bailey bridge over the River Arno, Florence, built on the piers of the original Ponte Santa Trinità (August 1944)

  • Barges being used to support Bailey bridging over the Seine at Mantes, France, August 1944

  • U.S. combat engineers slide stacked doubled sections of Bailey bridging into place at Wesel on the Rhine in Germany (c. 1945)

  • A Sherman tank and a Jeep ferried across the river Garigliano, central Italy, using a raft constructed from pontoons and a section of Bailey bridge (January 1944)

  • Bailey bridge built over bombed out bridge at base of Marienberg Fortress in Würzburg by the 119th Armored Engineer Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division, April 1945

  • Bailey bridge over the Wadi el Kuf, Libya, with bridge sections used to construct the supports (2007)

  • Bailey bridge over the White Nile, Juba, South Sudan (2006)

  • Bailey bridge at Whitefish Falls, Ontario, Canada (2006)

  • Combat engineers inspect a bridge on Route Arnhem in Iraq (2009)

  • Construction of Baily bridge on 1970

  • Bailey bridge over the Coppename River at Bitagron, Suriname (1976)

See also[edit]

  • Medium Girder Bridge a modern bridge of analogous use
  • Pontoon bridge for another bridge type with mobile military application

References[edit]

  1. ^'The Story of the Bailey Bridge'. Mabey Bridge Ltd. Retrieved October 3, 2015.
  2. ^'UK Military Bridging – Equipment (The Bailey Bridge)'. ThinkDefence. January 8, 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  3. ^ ab'Launching the Bailey Bridge'. Tactical and Technical Trends (35). October 7, 1943. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
  4. ^ abc'How the Army's Amazing Bailey Bridge is Built'. The War Illustrated. 8 (198): 564. January 19, 1945. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
  5. ^ abServices, From Times Wire (1985-05-07). 'Sir Donald Bailey, WW II Engineer, Dies'. Los Angeles Times. ISSN0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-09-19. He sketched the original design for the Bailey Bridge on the back of an envelope as he was being driven to a meeting of Royal Engineers to debate the failure of existing portable bridges
  6. ^Harpur 1991, p. 3.
  7. ^ abcJoshi 2008, p. 29.
  8. ^Harpur 1991, p. 4.
  9. ^Harpur 1991, p. 31.
  10. ^Harpur 1991, p. 37.
  11. ^ ab'BBC - WW2 People's War - The Sappers Story'. www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  12. ^ abHarpur 1991, p. 38-41.
  13. ^ abcJoshi 2008, p. 30.
  14. ^'Stanpit Marsh and Nature Reserve'. Hengistbury Head. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  15. ^ abHarpur 1991, pp. 48-50.
  16. ^Caney, Steven (2006). Steven Caney's Ultimate Building Book. Running Press. p. 188. ISBN978-0-7624-0409-4. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
  17. ^'Bridge Claim By General 'Used As Basis For Bailey Design''. The Times. 26 July 1955. p. 4 col E.
  18. ^Segerstrale, Ullica; Segerstråle, Ullica Christina Olofsdotter (2013-02-28). Nature's Oracle: The Life and Work of W.D.Hamilton. OUP Oxford. ISBN9780198607274.
  19. ^Harpur 1991, p. 113.
  20. ^Harpur 1991, p. 108.
  21. ^'No. 37407'. The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1946. p. 2.
  22. ^Harpur 1991, p. 69.
  23. ^'Bailey Bridge'. Canadiansoldiers.com. 2010-11-27. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
  24. ^Harpur 1991, p. 87.
  25. ^Slim, William (1956). Defeat Into Victory. Cassell. p. 359. ISBN978-0-304-29114-4.
  26. ^'Blackfriars Bridge - Longest Bailey Bridge in the World'. Canadian Military Engineers Association. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  27. ^'Bailey Bridge'. Mabey Bridge and Shore. Archived from the original on 2007-06-15. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
  28. ^'Other Equipment Used By The 7th Armoured Division'. Btinternet.com. Archived from the original on August 13, 2010. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
  29. ^Massie, Harrie; Robins, M. O. (1986-02-27). History of British Space Science. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521307833.
  30. ^Magazines, Hearst (1948-05-01). Popular Mechanics. Hearst Magazines.
  31. ^Electric Light and Power. Winston, Incorporated. 1955.
  32. ^Harpur 1991, p. 106.
  33. ^Noonan, Larry (2016-10-11). 'STORIES FROM ROUGE PARK: Canadian military builds Baily Bridge to get traffic moving after Hurricane Hazel'. Toronto.com. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
  34. ^'Best of Toronto: Cityscape'. NOW Magazine. November 2007. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012.
  35. ^Journals and Printed Papers of the Parliament of Tasmania. Government Printer. 1977.
  36. ^'Feature Article - The Tasman bridge (Feature Article)'. Tasmanian Year Book, 2000. 2002-09-13. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
  37. ^'Twin Bailey bridges to fill the gap'. www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
  38. ^'Built by the Army, Elphinstone Road foot-overbridge inaugurated by a flower vendor'. The Times of India. 27 February 2018.
  39. ^Correspondent, Jennifer Solis. 'Officials focus on design of bridge over Artichoke Reservoir'. The Daily News of Newburyport. Retrieved 2018-11-02.


Bibliography[edit]

  • Harpur, Brian (1991-01-01). A Bridge to Victory: The Untold Story of the Bailey Bridge. H.M. Stationery Office. ISBN9780117726505.
  • Bailey bridge. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army. 1972.
  • Sanders, Gold V. (1944). 'Push-Over Bridges Built Like Magic from Interlocking Parts'. Popular Science. pp. 94–98.
  • Joshi, MR (2008). Military Bridging(PDF). Defence Research & Development Organisation.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bailey bridge.
  • US Army Field Manual FM5-277 Dated 9 May 1986.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bailey_bridge&oldid=915450840'
M104 Wolverine Heavy Assault Bridge from 59th Engineer Company, 20th Engineer Battalion, U.S. Army.

The M104 WolverineHeavy Assault Bridge is an armored military engineering vehicle created by General Dynamics Land Systems, designed to provide deployable bridge capability for units engaged in military operations.

Background[edit]

Since the 1960s the United States Army has made use of armored bridge-laying vehicles based on the M48 Patton/M60 series of tanks. In recent years, however, the Army discovered that the aging M60 AVLB (Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge) was too slow to keep up with the M1 Abrams' top speed of roughly 70 km/h during field maneuvers. Additionally, the Abrams was so heavy that it could safely cross the AVLB's bridge only at a very slow speed.

Army Bridging Fm

Program development for a new armored bridge-laying vehicle began in 1983, and by 1994 General Dynamics Land Systems and the German MAN Mobile Bridges GmbH (since 2005 Krauss-Maffei Wegmann) had been awarded a contract. The first prototype vehicles were being tested by 1996, and the first production models were delivered by 2003. It is unclear why the vehicle was subject to such a long development time.

Description[edit]

Because the Wolverine is essentially an M1A2 SEP tank with Leguan[1] bridge-laying gear instead of a turret, it shares virtually all of the parent vehicle's speed, mobility, survivability, and automotive components. This commonality was a key design factor in the Wolverine's development. The Wolverine also features an advanced communications package designed to keep it in contact with local field commanders. However, the vehicle itself is unarmed.

The Wolverine is operated by two crewmen who sit within the hull. Both crewmen have access to the bridging controls, while the bridge is carried in two sections, stacked above the hull. Once a bridging site is chosen the vehicle securely anchors itself in place with a spade. The two sections of the bridge are joined together, and then the entire bridge is extended across the obstacle and dropped into place. The crewmen have the ability to make minor corrections during launch, if needed. Once operations are complete, the Wolverine drives across the bridge and retrieves it from the other side simply by reversing the process. The bridge can be launched in under five minutes or retrieved in less than ten minutes, all without the crewmen ever leaving the safety of their vehicle.

Once launched, the 26-meter Leguan bridge[1] can support a 70-ton vehicle moving at 16 km/h, or 10 miles per hour.[2] The Wolverine thus allows the heaviest of vehicles to cross craters, ditches, and damaged bridges at combat speed. This mobility is a decisive advantage for armored units.

Future plans and replacement[edit]

To date the United States Army has received 44 Wolverines, which have been distributed to a few select engineer units. The Army had originally intended to purchase 465 vehicles; however, budget cuts and a shift in philosophy toward a lighter fighting force meant that the Army no longer needed hundreds of bridgelaying vehicles. While the Army did not plan to purchase any more Wolverines, it had, at the time, reserved the right to restart production if necessary. However, as of 2016 the Wolverine is being replaced by the Leonardo DRSJoint Assault Bridge (JAB),[3]:p.154 thus effectively ending the Wolverine program.

The M1074 Joint Assault Bridge also has an Abrams tank chassis, but is combined with an 18.3-metre (60 ft) scissor bridge. While the M104 was intended to replace the AVLB, it was found to be too expensive and complicated to maintain and operate. While the JAB's bridge is shorter, it has a faster deployment time of three minutes, compared to the Wolverine's 3-5 minute set-up time. On August 23, 2016, DRS Technologies, Inc., announced that the U.S. Army had awarded it an indefinite quantity contract worth up to $400 million to build the new Joint Assault Bridge (JAB) system to carry, deploy and recover a heavy “scissor” bridge.[4] First deliveries are planned in mid-2017, with low-rate initial production expected to be reached in 2019.[5]

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See also[edit]

  • AM 50 automatically launched assault bridge

Army Bridging Manuals

References[edit]

  1. ^ abBridge laying system LEGUAN - KMW
  2. ^'Wolverine (Heavy Assault Bridge)'. fas.org. Archived from the original on 15 April 2015. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  3. ^ASA(ALT)Weapon Systems Handbook 2018 Page 32 lists how this handbook is organized. 440 pages.
  4. ^DRS Technologies Awarded Up To $400 Million U.S. Army Contract To Build New Joint Assault Bridge System - August 23, 2016
  5. ^Army, DRS Set To Integrate New Bridging System on Tanks - Defensenews.com, 6 September 2016

External links[edit]

Army Bridging Manual Youtube

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=M104_Wolverine&oldid=917724463'