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The Small Box Girder bridge (SBG) was a small assault
The Small Box Girder bridge (SBG) was a small assault bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
that could be used to span gaps of up to 30 feet. It was typically carried on a tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful e ...
, such as the Churchill Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers
Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), also known as Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers is the title given to a series of armoured military engineering vehicles operated by the Royal Engineers (RE) for the purpose of protecting engineers durin ...
(AVRE), and could be deployed without engineers having to expose themselves to enemy fire. The design had been formally adopted by the British Army in 1932. Pre-war the SBG had (more often than not without permission) quickly been copied by many countries around the world, including ironically Germany. The German Army called their version of the SBG the ''Kastenträgergerät'' (K-Gerät for short). The United States was another country whose army created their own copy, designating it the H-20.
The SBG was used during the Normandy invasion
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...
of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
(1944–5).
See also
*Armoured vehicle-launched bridge
An armoured vehicle-launched bridge (AVLB) is a combat support vehicle, sometimes regarded as a subtype of military engineering vehicle, designed to assist militaries in rapidly deploying tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles across gap- ...
*Hobart's Funnies
Hobart's Funnies is the nickname given to a number of specialist armoured fighting vehicles derived from tanks operated during the Second World War by units of the 79th Armoured Division of the British Army or by specialists from the Royal E ...
*Box girder bridge
A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite of steel and re ...
* M60 AVLB
* M104 Wolverine
* M1074 Joint Assault Bridge
References
1932 introductions Portable bridges Box girder bridges World War II military equipment of the United Kingdom English inventions {{World-War-II-stub